Missing hiker found after surviving more than a month in Canada’s snowy wilderness

By Jennifer Hauser and Kia Fatahi, CNN

(CNN) — It started out as a regular Tuesday morning for two men heading out on a trail for work in the backcountry of Canada’s northeast British Columbia when they spotted another man trudging out of the wilderness.

They recognized him as the lost hiker Sam Benastick, who had been reported missing more than a month ago, on October 19, according to the Northern Rockies Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

He was reportedly found on a service road, supporting himself with two walking sticks and a cut-up sleeping bag wrapped around his legs for warmth.

Benastick was reported missing after failing to return home on October 17 from a 10-day camping trip in Redfern-Keily Park, CNN affiliate CBC News reports.

Benastick told police he initially stayed in his car for a couple of days before walking to a creek near a mountain, where he camped for another 10 to 15 days.

He then moved down the valley and built a shelter in a dried-out creek bed, RCMP said. It was from there that Benastick made his way to where the two workers found him.

The men took Benastick to a local hospital, where police attended to him and confirmed his identity, said RCMP.

“Finding Sam alive is the absolute best outcome. After all the time he was missing, it was feared that this was would not be the outcome,” said Cpl Madonna Saunderson, BC RCMP Communications.

His parents and brother stayed at the Buffalo Inn in Pink Mountain, British Columbia, for more than 20 days during an extensive search for their son, the general manager of the inn, Mike Reid told CNN. Reid, who had developed an emotional connection with the family, said he provided some free meals to them during their stay at his inn.

“I’ve got three kids and five grandkids. So I know what they were going through,” he said.

Reid kept in touch with the family who have been reunited at the hospital with Benastick. They told him their son nearly collapsed when he was found by the two workers on the road and was propping himself up on two sticks because he was “so weak.”

“He was in pretty bad shape but he’s alive,” Reid told CNN.

After Benastick was discharged from the hospital Thursday, he and his family stopped by the inn to see Reid on their way home, Reid told CNN Friday.

“That was an amazing moment for me,” Reid said.

According to the RCMP multiple search and rescue teams had been looking for him along with the Canadian Rangers and “many local volunteers with extensive back country knowledge of the area.”

Benastick’s uncle, Al Benastick, described his nephew as an avid outdoorsman who was suffering from “frostbite and some smoke inhalation” in an interview with CBC News.

It was “kind of unbelievable” his nephew survived, he said. “Imagine being out there, being that cold, for that long.”

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CNN’s Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.