A viral video showed the horrifying moment a hiker ended up sliding off a mountain in China. In the footage, the man almost fell to his death as he attempted to grasp for any handhold to stop his descent.
You can check out the video below, but let's get some backstory on what exactly happened in the events leading up to the incident. 42-year-old Yang Meng was hiking in the Fanzengjian mountains, in China's eastern Anhui province. He ended up slipping off the mountain last week. In dramatic fashion, Meng's 360-degree camera captured the entire thing. It definitely didn't look like a fun time.
So what exactly happened? The hiker seemed to be making good distance when his legs bucked and he fell forward. Suddenly, he was slipping down the mountain like the world's worst slip 'n slide. The smooth rocks made him go fast with no way of stopping.
Fortunately, a small tree ended up saving his life. He ended up hitting the tree and stopping himself from falling even further. Meng said his close brush with death terrified him.
Meng told CNN: "I realised I couldn't get up at all and was sliding faster and faster, that's when it hit me - I must be falling off a cliff. When I hit the tree, it felt like a heavy rock crashing down. I was just thinking, 'There's no way I'm dead.'"
A man accidentally slipped and fell off during hiking
byu/pratham_gajbhiye ininterestingasfuck
Hiker Details Fall
However, his brush with death ended up making him go viral. He posted it on China's version of TikTok and also it ended up Reddit.
One person wrote: "Holy cow! You can see the insane fear in his eyes." Another said: "I bet that was the longest 7 seconds of his life." A third commented: "That could've been soooo much worse."
The hiker later followed up that he didn't get hurt too bad in the fall. However, he did bruise his left leg. He said, "I guess I came out mostly unscathed. Just a little scrape on my left hand and a small cut on my thigh. Other than that, I was fine."
He also realized how short life is.
"Life is really short, so we need to cherish every day. I won't let this incident hold me back. If anything, it's pushing me to explore the world even more," he admitted.
