Lost Hiker Shares His Story

The lost hiker who wrote his last will and testament on his hat speaks out about his harrowing ordeal in the desert. INSIDE EDITION has the update.

"I'd had no food or water for six days," he said.

The lost hiker who wrote his last will & testament on his hat is speaking for the first time about his ordeal in the desert.
 
"I hid under a tree all day. At night it was freezing," Rosenthal said.

64-year-old Los Angeles real estate broker Ed Rosenthal survived six days without food or water in the harsh Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California.

"Your saliva turns to sand and rocks and, I don't even know if I did the right thing but I scraped my mouth out all the time, I couldn't eat anything," he explained.

With temperatures sizzling to 113 degrees, Rosenthal was convinced he was doomed.  

He wrote a will, detailed his funeral arrangements and left loving final messages to his wife and family, all on his hat.

"Who they should rely on for financial advice, who should be pall bearers. Have a good time not have a regular funeral, have a wake," were some of the instructions Rosenthal left for his family.

At a news conference, he read some of the messages off his hat.

No water five days.
Got lost on Saturday.


He also showed how he collected rain water in his mouth.

Luck was on Rosenthal's side. On his sixth day in hell he was finally spotted by a rescue helicopter, barely alive, and flown to the hospital.

"The helicopter that I had seen for days came into the canyon and the gentleman asked me, 'Hey are you that Rosenthal that's out here? I said yeah'," he said.

Rosenthal even managed to joke about his ordeal.

"I tried to drink urine. Forget it," he joked.