Imagine being trapped on the ledge behind a waterfall, high on a cliff. You can’t climb up the slippery rock, and it’s too far to jump down. How long would you hang on?

This wasn’t a harrowing scene from a Hollywood survival movie. It was the terrifying situation climber Ryan Wardwell found himself in while rappelling down California’s remote Seven Teacups falls. The water pressure sucked him in, pulled him away from the ropes, and deposited him behind the tumbling water.

Tulare County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Kevin Kemmerling outlined the grim situation. “There was no way for him to warm up or dry out in there, so it had to have been miserable.”

Mike Crane, a CHP patrol flight paramedic, added, “I got the impression that maybe he didn’t know if he was ever going to get out of there.”

Wardwell had one glimmer of hope: a note left on his car asking any passerby to call 911 if he was gone for too long. So he held on.

On the second day, Wardwell heard something—a remote-controlled drone. The search drone flew along the cliff, slipped behind the waterfall, and found him alive and conscious.

Local law enforcement was relieved, but now faced a new problem: how to rescue a man through a waterfall. They called the CHP, which sent a helicopter. A rescuer dangled beneath the aircraft while the pilot held it steady above the falls, then descended through the water to hook onto Wardwell and airlift him to safety.

He was treated for dehydration and minor injuries.

You can see the rescue for yourself in the video embedded below: