A nonverbal teenager was rescued from a California forest after clinking rocks together to alert searchers to where he was.
Officials say that the 16-year-old used the rocks – which are his favourite objects – to make a noise to guide his rescuers to his location.
The teenager became lost when he was hiking with his mother and sister in Crescenta Valley Park just south of Angeles National Forest, near Los Angeles.
The alarm was raised when he ran into trees and disappeared during the Sunday morning hike, according to NBC Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that they searched for the developmentally disabled youngster for six hours before a deputy heard the sound of clinking rocks coming from a steep ravine.
A Burbank police helicopter was then guided in to look into the canyon, where the unnamed teenager was located “in the brush.”
“Our team member went down the mountainside and made contact with the missing person. Recognising the sensitivity of the situation, he worked to build a rapport with the teenager,” the sheriff’s department’s Montrose Search and Rescue Team posted on Facebook.
“After gaining the trust of the missing person, he led him up the mountain to safety. Once at the top, he was treated by paramedics and released to his family.”
They added: “Our Department was thrilled this incident had a happy ending.”
Montrose Search and Rescue Deputy Steve Goldsworthy told reporters that he had found the teenager “sitting under an oak tree.”
“His mom had told me he had this affection for rocks,” Deputy Goldsworthy told NBC Los Angeles.
