Lost hiker's father says she might have hurt ankle

— The father of a young woman lost for a fifth day in a Southern California wilderness apparently couldn't keep up with her hiking companion as the two tried to make their way out of shoulder-high brush, possibly because of a twisted ankle.

Russ Jack tells the Los Angeles Times ( http://lat.ms/11rMxBW ) Thursday that 19-year-old Nicholas Cendoya shared some information with investigators despite being dehydrated and very disoriented after being rescued Wednesday night.

Searchers are hunting for 18-year-old Kyndall Jack, who's been missing in Cleveland National Forest since Sunday.

Russ Jack says Cendoya believed his friend had already been saved. Cendoya said he hadn't seen her for at least a day.

Cendoya is in serious but stable condition at a hospital.


Crews resumed the search Thursday for a teenage hiker lost for a fifth day in a Southern California wilderness, the morning after her male companion was found dehydrated and disoriented in shoulder-high brush just a half-mile from where the pair's car was parked.

Searchers aided by a sheriff's helicopter with infrared sensors were on the scene before dawn in Cleveland National Forest hoping to locate Kyndall Jack, 18.

Her friend, Nicholas Cendoya, 19, was discovered shirtless and parched by another hiker shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday and airlifted to a hospital. He was talking to paramedics but struggling to answer questions about what had happened and where Jack might be.

"He was extremely confused and disoriented," said Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Jason Park.

Sheriff's investigators planned to talk to him at length once he was recovering at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. They hoped to get more direction on where to look for Jack, who was hiking with Cendoya Sunday when the pair made a 911 call from a dying cellphone and set off the search.

The hiker who came across Cendoya went for help and found a firefighting training crew not involved in the search that just happened to be nearby, Park said.

They found Cendoya about a half-mile south of where much of the search had focused. He was surrounded by so much vegetation that the helicopter rescue crew had trouble keeping track of him once they found him.


Cendoya was in stable condition, Mission Hospital's Dr. Matthew Kaplan told TV reporters.






