He thought he was going to die alone in the Arizona desert.
But just as Colt Johnson lost hope, a stranger appeared and changed both of their lives forever.
“I just kind of like making right with God, I was praying and I was like, ‘Oh man, I'm going to die out here and just be another one of those stupid tourist stories,’” Johnson remembered thinking.
Now, a year after a Valley visitor nearly died alone in the desert, his story of survival is going viral, garnering more than a million views on Instagram after his wife posted the details of what happened.
Johnson thought he had prepared for a hike in the Superstition Mountains on a day with triple-digit highs: a gallon-and-a-half of water, a small survival kit, trail snacks, and a solo route planned for early morning.
His goal was to get some quiet time in nature in the midst of a family vacation and be back with his pregnant wife and child by lunch.
“It was supposed to be a loop,” he told ABC15. “I thought I’d be OK.”
But a few hours in, the Arizona heat started to take its toll. Johnson remembered feeling lightheaded, a wave of the chills, and then everything went black.
“I must have passed out,” he said. “I had peed my pants and fallen on a cactus while I was out there.”
With no cell phone service, no water, and no one else on the trail, Johnson pulled out the one tool he thought might get attention: his handgun.
He fired three shots into the air, paused, and then fired three more.
“It’s a distress signal,” he said. “But I didn’t think anyone was going to come for me.”
As he waited and faded in and out of consciousness, Johnson ate what he thought was going to be his last meal.
“I came to, I just remember just praying. You know, and thinking like, ‘Dude, I cannot, I cannot leave my wife alone with two kids. I can't die out here, but if I am going to die, I'm going to eat those gummy worms,’ and just a lot of prayers, a lot of a lot of thoughts running through my head,” he remembered.
What Johnson didn’t know was that someone was nearby. One other person had been on the trail that day — a last-minute decision — and had heard the gunshots.
That man was retired firefighter John Zeto, who had been training for that exact kind of moment.
Zeto had recently moved to Arizona from Tampa, Florida, and was enthralled with the hikes in the Valley. He was determined to train and condition himself for extreme-heat hikes.
He spent months going from flat trails on cool days to difficult hikes when the temperatures hit more than 110º.
“I have no idea why I was prepping for this guy, but I was,” he added. “Colt was not supposed to die that day.”
After hearing the gunshots and finding the shell casings, Zeto’s training kicked in, and he draped Johnson around to stabilize the 6'5" hiker.
“I didn’t drink a drop of water the entire time getting him off that mountain,” Zeto recalled. “Every bit of it went to him.”
Since that moment, the two men have stayed in touch. Johnson calls Zeto “his angel.”
His wife Malia agrees.
“John was definitely an answer to prayers,” Johnson said. “He was my own personal angel, for sure. I owe that guy my life."
Zeto says the experience has only deepened his commitment to being ready on the trails. In the past year, he performed CPR on three different people, helped people with broken bones and continues to hike regularly with a pack full of emergency gear in case another stranger needs it.
Johnson says that level of preparedness is what saved him.
“However well prepared you think you are,” Johnson warns, “I guarantee you’re not. You need way more water, shade, and supplies than you think you do. It is no joke down there.”
