An Ohio man who went missing in the Red River Gorge area of Kentucky was found alive Saturday after 14 days — and 12 days without any food or water.
Scott Hern’s rescue came one day after Wolfe County Search and Rescue team member Eric Wolterman, who described himself as “not a very religious person,” felt compelled to pray for the 48-year-old man, who had been missing for 14 days and had gone without food or water for 12 days.
“I am not a very religious person, but, yesterday morning, I woke up and said a prayer for Scott Hern and his family,” Wolterman said in a statement shared by the search and rescue team. “To be honest, praying isn’t something that I do too often. We were working on this operation since Tuesday, and most of the team went into the day pretty much with the thought that this was going to be a recovery mission. So I said a prayer knowing the family would probably be getting some very sad news that day.”
As the searcher recalled, Saturday was going to be the team’s last day looking for Hern, regardless of what they found — or didn’t find.
The area they searched, Wolterman said, was the “roughest terrain” in a “very dangerous” part of the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was during the last-ditch search effort that the team found footprints in mud they had not seen before.
“We stopped to regroup, and one of the people on the team heard a very faint noise,” Wolterman wrote. “We paused and we shouted, ‘Who is that?’ Thinking it was another search team. I then heard, ‘Help.’ We took off in the direction. As we got closer, [we] asked what his name was and he [said], ‘Scott Hern.’ I have never moved faster up hill in my entire life.”
Wolterman hurried ahead of the search and rescue team. As soon as he reached Hern, he remembered saying, “My name is Eric. I’m with Wolfe County Search and Rescue. You are safe. We are going to get you out of here.”
“He looked at me and said, ‘Thank you so much. Will you give me a hug?’” he continued. “I got teary-eyed, and gave him a big hug. I think it was the best hug of both of our lives.”
In its initial update, the Wolfe County Search and Rescue team said it was “amazed to report” Hern had been rescued. The team immediately got to work evacuating him from the remote location and airlifting him to a nearby hospital to receive much-needed medical care.
The team described his harrowing rescue as “truly a miracle.”
“We were persistent in our search,” the group stated, “but hope was fading.”
As for how the team knew where to look, the group said its members learned from Hern’s journal “he had visited Bell Falls along Highway 715.” While the search team had already canvassed some parts of the falls, the group ultimately decided to search the entirety of the area.
It was when the team headed north up the creek that they found Hern “up a steep embankment below a cliff line.” The Kentucky State Police were then brought in to carry out a hoist operation because it was, according to the search and rescue team, “the fastest way to get him to definitive care and reduced the risk to rescuers by avoiding a long and difficult carryout.”
