What started as a pleasant New Year’s Day hike for a doctor and his girlfriend, turned into a rescue mission, with the need to carry a 280-pound man two miles to safety.
Dr. Dan Reardon and Dina Zaky were strolling around Escondido Falls on a holiday hike when they came across Mark Martinez, who’d fallen and hurt his ankle.
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The man was hopping around on one leg, trying to get back down the mountain in Malibu, California. They didn’t know it at the time, but Martinez had broken his ankle and one of his lower leg bones.
The young doctor hoisted the man onto his back, even though Martinez was one-and-a-half times Reardon’s own weight–and the hero spent two hours carrying him out of the woods.
Zaky ran ahead of them until she could find cell phone reception to call for an ambulance.
Reardon, a former ER doctor, is CEO of a company that helps people get into healthy shape by analyzing their DNA. He plans to help Martinez lose some weight after his new patient and friend recovers from the broken bones.
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“I’m happy to have been able to bring Mark to safety,” Reardon told TODAY. “The instinct of doctors is to help people and I don’t like to see people struggle.”
(WATCH the video of Reardon carrying Martinez below) — Photo: Dan Reardon, Facebook