A significant update on his son’s “giant” health milestone was provided by the father of a teenager who jumped down a 120-foot cliff, one of the highest peak. After falling off a cliff on June 10 owing to altitude sickness, 14-year-old Zane Wach was placed in a medically induced coma and has been on a ventilator ever since.
Zane and his father were hiking Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the United States, in Northern California when he started having hallucinations and fell down the mountain. Ryan, Zane’s father, shared a noteworthy update on the teenager’s physical condition on June 26 in the wake of the horrific event.
The Facebook post read, “I’ll be brief today as it was a big day but very hard,” Ryan wrote. “Zane had the [ventilator] taken off and the breathing tube removed. This was a huge turning point that leads to many further advancements. He’s not doing much else at the moment, the largest focus is watching closely so that he does well breathing on his own as well and being able to cough and swallow.”
However, Ryan said it’s not all positive news. “The hard part is that he is well into feeling the effects of withdrawal,” he continued. “He’s been on a lot of heavy drugs for a while and getting off those is extremely hard and painful. As parents, it’s terrible to watch. We hope he gets through this with the least possible suffering.”
Zane Wach, 14, is in a medically induced coma after telling his father he saw “snowmen and Kermit the frog” and walked off a 120-foot-high cliff on Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range as his father watched in horror. Zane was hallucinating from altitude sickness and… pic.twitter.com/42xnD10I5e
— Robbie Mouton (@mcgmouton57) June 28, 2025
According to NBC station KSNV, Zane started showing symptoms of altitude sickness 19 hours into Ryan and Zane’s journey. As they continued to descend, Zane’s symptoms worsened and he began to “doubt their reality.”
He started to experience some hallucinations,” Ryan told SFGATE. “He knew he was hallucinating. He said he saw things like snowmen and Kermit the Frog.” “He told me he couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not,” the dad continued. “And he would shake his head in disbelief, like, ‘This is not real.’ Like he was in the movie Inception or something.”
Ryan Wach said his son Zane Wach, 14, experienced altitude sickness while climbing California’s Mount Whitney and seemed to be hallucinating before walking off the side of the trail. https://t.co/LqtF40bEkm pic.twitter.com/CJFt27wyVa
— E! News (@enews) July 1, 2025
As his delusions got stronger, Zane decided to walk off the 120-foot precipice. Ryan and an EMS worker they had passed on the route hurried to his son’s help.
They had to wait six hours before emergency personnel could come to their aid in a helicopter. According to People, Zane sustained multiple serious injuries, including a partially fractured pelvis, a broken ankle, a broken finger, and brain trauma.
“It’s going to be a survival story in the end, but right now we’re still in the middle of it,” Ryan said. Out of their $40,000 target, the family has raised $37,447 on GoFundMe thus far.
