84 years old. our prayers are answered. we couldn t believe it we are like oh my gosh he s alive! shepard: hank got stranded last monday after he left a restaurant in cave creek and then missed his exit on i-17. i turned around but i ran right into a ditch. i got stuck in that ditch. then the battery went dead. my phone went dead and i went dead. [ laughter ] shepard: well, he had some leftover pasta but he says he didn t eat it because it made him thirsty. eventually though thirst got overwhelming. he opened the hood of his car and broke the windshield wiper fluid. i broke the top off the thing with a rock and sucked the water out of there. shepard: getting water was just part of the problem. he also had to contend with the cold and the darkness. sometimes at nighttime i got scared. i got panicky a little bit. i don t know if they were going to find me or not, you know. i can t walk. so i had to stay there.
i tried to walk away and i fell down. shepard: he says he read a car manual cover to cover just to fight boredom. but while searchers scoured the landscape, he was growing weaker by the hour. after the fifth day i says this is it. i said if they don t find me by tonight, i m not going to make another night out here. shepard: just then some hikers appeared, walked right up and knocked on his window. lay straight back down, okay? we gotcha. shepard: family and friends pretty relieved to hear hank was okay. yeah, a lot better. we are going to pick you up and walk you over to the helicopter now. bye hank. good luck. [ applause ] i said oh, hank, we love you and we are so glad we found you. he is like i m glad you found me, too. just to hear that he is okay, he is talking, you know, like we got a picture of him in the hospital already. and he is smiling. it s a great feeling. he is doing fantastic.