Man Missing For Two Weeks At Red River Gorge Found

Scott Hern, 48-year-old from Ohio, decided he was going to hike at the Red River Gorge in Wolfe County, Kentucky on July 6th. It was a sunny day, and a ranger saw Hern’s truck at Tower Rock trail. When that deputy was back on duty on Saturday, July 13, Hern’s truck was STILL there. So they ran his license plate and discovered there was a missing person report on him in Ohio, so they launched a big search-and-rescue mission.  

Chief John May with the Wolfe County Search and Rescue said his family provided Hern’s diary that had two key pieces of info: where he’d park his car and Bell Falls at Red River Gorge. They knew he had a new GPS watch so they tried to see if any data could help pinpoint his location.

On the team’s LAST day of searching, they spotted tracks and marks of a walking stick at Bell Falls…and then they heard someone yell.  The rescuers asked who it was and “he said Scott,” May said.  He was alert and alive. “Where he was at, he probably would never have been found. If he was not able to yell when searchers were in the general area there’s no way they would have found him where he was at.”