BAKERSVILLE, N.C. -- A 20-year-old hiker missing for three days on rugged Roan Mountain was found confused but unharmed and dressed in nothing but a curtain taken from an abandoned house, authorities said.
A spokeswoman at Spruce Pine Community Hospital said Larry Davenport of Yancey County was hospitalized for 'acute brain syndrome.'
The spokeswoman said Davenport was confused when he arrived at the hospital after his rescue Tuesday.
Davenport was the second lost camper to be found safely on Roan Mountain this month. On July 2, an 8-year-old boy disappeared from his family's campsite and wandered the mountain for seven days before rescuers found him.
Mitchell County Sheriff Coy D. Hollifield said Davenport disappeared Sunday afternoon from the western peak, near the Tennessee border, where he and friends had been camping.
He said Davenport was found by rescuers after he walked up to a residence about 8 miles down the mountain.
'He was wearing a curtain, that was it,' Hollifield said. 'There was an old house above where we found him and evidently he found that curtain on one of the walls.'
Hollifield said Davenport was covered with scratches and looked worn out from being out in the woods but 'I'd say physically he wasn't in too awful bad shape. Sometimes he was coherent and sometimes he wasn't.'
Davenport was exposed to nighttime lows of about 50 degrees, officials said.
Roan Mountain, one of the state's highest and most rugged peaks, is covered with dense rhododendron thickets.
Earlier this month, 8-year-old Michael Reel disappeared from a campsite on the mountain. He was found a week later -- thin, tired and slightly dehydrated but without serious injury.
Last summer, rescuers searched for an elderly man who also disappeared on the 6,285-foot mountain. He showed up unharmed after one day.
