‘Very weird hobby’ helps rescue lost California hiker from snapshot, searchers say

Benjamin Kuo has what he calls “a very weird hobby.”

“I love taking a look at photos and figuring out where they’re taken,” Kuo told KNBC. On Tuesday, his fascination with satellite photos may have saved a man’s life.

Rene Compean became lost Monday while hiking in the Angeles National Forest in Southern California, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported.

The 45-year-old had sent a photo of his legs dangling over the edge of a canyon to a friend before texting that he was lost and his phone battery was dying, McClatchy News previously reported.

On Tuesday, sheriff’s officials released the photo to the public in hopes that someone might recognize the scenery and help them pinpoint Compean’s location.

Someone did.

“You don’t think that sitting behind a computer and looking at a picture and saying, ‘Oh, it looks like that might be where he is,’ would lead to a person being rescued,” Kuo told KCBS.

But he went ahead and notified the sheriff’s office of his hunch, including GPS coordinates, KNBC reported.

“I was hoping I didn’t send them on a wild goose chase, and then they’d get mad at me,” Kuo told KCBS. Searchers dispatched a helicopter, which found Compean on a ridge less than a mile from Kuo’s coordinates Tuesday afternoon.

Compean, who was found safe and did not require medical care, did not have the GPS tracker on his phone turned on, sheriff’s officials said. Searchers had found his vehicle parked at a trailhead but didn’t know which trail he’d taken.

“I crazy appreciate what you did...I really don’t know if I could make it there another day. It was just so cold,” Compean told Kuo in a virtual meeting on Tuesday, KNBC reported.

This story was originally published April 14, 2021 at 4:10 PM with the headline "‘Very weird hobby’ helps rescue lost California hiker from snapshot, searchers say."