Hard-Learned Lesson in Survival

The tale of William John Parven, who survived four days alone in the San Bernardino National Forest, is one of determination. Faced with bears and spiders and thorny brush that ripped off his socks, then tore at his flesh, the 16-year-old hiker showed remarkable perseverance.

None of that makes him a hero, Parven said Friday afternoon in his first public comments since he stumbled onto a desert trout farm Thursday morning and was rescued.

“It was dumb,” Parven said, referring to his decision to leave his father and sister behind on Sunday, then walk alone to the summit of Mt. San Gorgonio, Southern California’s highest peak.

“I made it through. I’m alive. But I made a mistake. It’s nothing to be proud of.”

The San Fernando Valley teenager spoke from his bed in the pediatric intensive care unit of Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he was resting and being treated Friday night for bruised ribs, a mild concussion and numerous scrapes.

Still nauseated from dehydration and exhaustion, he had just finished his first substantial meal since his rescue more than 30 hours before.

He fell after he went off on his own Sunday evening, Parven said, then turned onto what he thought was the right path down the mountain. It turned out to be a deer path--one of many he would wander on in the coming days--and it ended abruptly after about half a mile.

Parven realized quickly that he was lost. His first thoughts were not of survival, he said, but of the tongue-lashing his parents would deliver upon his return.

“I worried that they were mad at me for getting lost,” he said. “No one deserves that. I didn’t want to do that to my parents. I knew they were waiting for me. Little did I know they were going to be waiting for me for four days.”

Parven had seen lights from atop the 11,499-foot summit of Mt. San Gorgonio, and had decided to head toward them. He thought he was walking west toward Los Angeles, toward the trail head he had entered Sunday morning. Instead, he was walking east toward Whitewater and Palm Springs--and toward what may be the nastiest route down a very unforgiving mountain.

It was not an easy trip down.

The first night, a black bear walked directly toward him, stopping about three feet away, he said. Parven threw his backpack, which contained trail mix and beef jerky, into the woods, thinking the bear wanted his food. But the bear, like others he would encounter, showed little interest in him or his backpack.

He slept sporadically, usually on piles of rocks that retained some heat during the chilly nights. The five bottles of water he had with him lasted just 24 hours, and though he found Whitewater Creek a short time later and followed that to the bottom, the creek water made him vomit, probably because he was dehydrated.

Twice, he had to climb down the walls of sizable waterfalls. The second time, on the third day, he fell about 20 feet, and was briefly knocked unconscious. He woke up in the creek, on his back.

Parven said he began hallucinating early in his odyssey.

He imagined planes creating signals in the clouds, he said, sometimes in the rough shape of arrows that he followed. At one point, he said, the clouds formed the shape of two helicopters, and he believed rescue was imminent. When that didn’t happen, the clouds formed another message: “Relax.” He began talking to himself, and devised his strategy out loud using the word “we,” though he was quite alone.

“The loneliness is what kills you,” he said. “I was more and more lost, and I was getting more and more faint. I was starting to feel desperate. I think my mind had to make [the signals] real or I would have stopped. They guided me down.”

Wednesday night, Parven made it to the bottom of the southeast foot of Mt. San Gorgonio. He thought he was free. He was wrong.

“I saw a clearing, the first one I’d seen in miles,” he said. “I thought, ‘I must be out. It must be over.’ But it was the desert. And it just went on forever.”

Desperate to find civilization, Parven forged ahead for another few hours. Suddenly, he stepped onto a fire road and spotted the tracks of off-road vehicles--the first clear sign of human activity.

He flagged down a trout farm truck driver who took him to the farm’s offices, where a sheriff’s helicopter retrieved him and took him to Loma Linda. He was reunited there with his parents.

“I realize now that I am not infallible,” he said. “I guess when you’re 16 you think you can do more than you really can.”