'It's a miracle ... of God': Hiker survives 1,000-foot plunge off Hawaiian mountain, then days alone in the wilderness

A hiker from California is lucky to be alive and to spend Christmas with his family after he accidentally fell 1,000 feet off a mountain in Hawaii and then waited alone for days until rescuers arrived.

Earlier this month, Ian Snyder, 34, of Ferndale, California, jetted off to Oahu to undertake a hike up the Koʻolau Summit Trail, considered one of the most challenging hikes on the island, the New York Post reported. He had done some hikes alone before, he said, and had never had any problems.

For a while, all seemed to go well on the trail too. Around 2:30 p.m. on December 4, the second day of his journey, Snyder snapped a selfie and posted it to social media. Less than two hours later, he took a short video and shared it on X with the caption "Seriously one of the best hikes I’ve ever done."

At 6:16 p.m., he made one final post from the hike:

At some point, he even stopped and gained some perspective about just how high up the mountain he had hiked — and how far he needed to go to get back down. "I looked down at Pali Highway and went, 'Man, that’s a long way below me, and I need to get down there,'" he later recalled.

Unfortunately, an accident caused him to go down in elevation much more quickly than he'd intended. Exactly how the accident happened is unclear, as Snyder has no memory of it, but at some point, he lost his footing and tumbled 1,000 feet down the mountain.

Despite the treacherous fall, Snyder managed to survive, though he initially had difficulty recovering his wits. "Once I came to, I had no idea what had happened. I'd been out clearly. I can't even remember if it was daytime, nighttime the first time I came to," he said.

He was also seriously injured. His left arm was broken, his right eye was swollen shut, and he had sustained other injuries to his chest and legs.

But he knew he couldn't stay where he was. So he used his right arm to drag himself to a nearby stream, where he could periodically grab a handful of water. He also wedged himself between two rocks to guard his body from the wind.

Despite the harrowing circumstances, Snyder leaned on his Christian faith, which brought him "a deep sense of calm."

"I had made my peace with God," Snyder explained. "I said, 'I know you. I know that Christ is Lord, and he's my savior, and I will be OK whether I live or whether I die.'"

Though at peace with the prospect of dying, Snyder still wanted to survive for the sake of his three children. "I wanted to live," he said. "... I wasn’t giving up the will to live."

As his family hadn't heard from him in some time, they had already reported him missing to the Honolulu Police Department. And Snyder's previous social media posts gave first responders a general idea about where to look for him.

Still, some weren't hopeful about a successful rescue. Amber Fonte of the Oahu Hiking Community thought she may have to settle for the victory of returning Snyder's remains to his loved ones.

But she needn't have feared the worst. On December 7, perhaps three days after his fall, Snyder was awakened by a promising sound. "I hear aircraft," Snyder recalled thinking. "It's going very slow and very close. They must be looking for me."

And so they were. First responders in a helicopter made a daring rescue to bring him down to street level. From there, he was whisked away in an ambulance and taken to Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, where he spent three days recovering.

Some of the footage from that rescue can be seen in the Hawaii News Now clip below:

‘It’s a miracle’: Hiker who fell 1,000 feet on Oahu trail, was missing for days thanks his rescue...www.youtube.com

"It’s a miracle, first and foremost, of God," Snyder said at a press conference on December 12.

Allen Zhang, a paramedic with Honolulu Emergency Medical Services who also spoke at the press conference, seemed to agree. "This is definitely a story to share," Zhang said, "but, most importantly, a blessing for this holiday season."

"As you can imagine Mr. Snyder, your call was the most memorable that day," Zhang added.

Snyder's parents eventually met him in Hawaii and flew back with him to Northern California on December 15, Snyder said on other X posts. Snyder said he expects to be "mostly normal" within a few weeks.

"I don't know how this will be used instrumentally by God through my life," Snyder said, "but I hope it will be useful in the long run."

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