SALT LAKE COUNTY, UT (KMJ) – A Fresno teenager is now recovering in a hospital in Utah after being stranded in snow overnight.
Click to listen to the exclusive interview with his mother, Jenni Alcantara by KMJ’s Liz Kern below.
A phone call on January 2 turned Jenni Alcantara’s world upside down, when she learned her 17-year-old son, Nicolas Alcantara, who was visiting friends in Park City had gone for a hike but had not returned.
An Uber driver dropped him off in the morning but when he missed dinner plans at 6:00 his friends called police.
It was too dark to search for the teen.
Jenni said the search party had to wait until Friday morning to be able to get back on the trails.
It was 9 degrees overnight, and Nicolas had been missing for 24 hours. His family feared the worst and hoped for the best.
Jenni said her father and sister Kelly flew with her to Utah to support her.
“Luckily my family, they were…they kept me strong. My sister reminded me that he was a Boy Scout so he has survival skills. And my dad, as well. And the first thing I asked him when he got in the car, when he picked me up was ‘Is he gonna make it alive?’ ‘Is he going to survive?’ and my dad looked at me and he said ‘Yes he can do this.”
His rescue came midday Friday around 12:30, when he was spotted by two skiers, one from Clovis.
His mom Jenni recalls the moments before the Life Flight helicopter landed after learning Nicolas was alive.
“When we got to the church parking lot, the chopper comes over the mountains, and the helicopter lands and I’m thinking my son’s going to come off on a stretcher, ” said Jenni, “and I’m waiting for that and somebody walks off the helicopter, and it was him.”
Both parents work for the Fresno Unified School District, and Jenni said her husband stayed back to take care of their other children until he could join her.
Nicolas remains in a Utah hospital, where he is currently undergoing treatment for frostbite on his feet.
Doctors are telling the3 family that the prognosis is good – they believe he will not have any serious damage and could be released soon to return to Fresno.
Link here: to A GoFundMe page set up to help the family with expenses incurred.
