Author’s Son Says He Never Had Doubt of Survival During Ordeal

Alex Dunne set out on a day hike when a weak ankle and a nasty fall left him stranded on a mountainside thirsty, hungry and delirious for nearly a week.

“There was never a time I thought I wouldn’t come out of it alive,” he said Friday from the hospital where he isrecovering.

The 38-year-old son of best-selling author Dominick Dunne said he had planned to go mountain biking, but changed his mind and set off instead on a hike through Madera Canyon in the Coronado National Forest, intending to be back in a day--two at most.

Alex said the weak ankle buckled and he fell 25 feet down a hillside. The fall caused a back problem to flare up and left him in so much pain that all he could do was roll sideways.

He said he lay on a mountainside for several days, his throat too parched to respond to nearby searchers calling his name. Finally, bolstered by an afternoon rain Thursday, he forced himself to rise and walk, believing that it was the only way he might survive.

Alex made a 4 1/2-hour trek down a mountain path late Thursday to the car he had left at a trail head Aug. 5.

There, he found sheriff deputies who had organized search efforts. Alex’s older brother, actor-filmmaker Griffin Dunne, and several dozen members of the rescue team who had been scouring the forest since Monday had left the site a few hours earlier.

“I knew I had a lot of explaining to do,” Alex said.

Sitting in a wheelchair and taking liquids intravenously, Alex was expected to stay overnight at the hospital for observation and X-rays.

The elder Dunne, who left covering the O.J. Simpson trial to help with the search, said he planned to incorporate the ordeal into a book he is writing about the people involved in the trial.

“I’ve now become part of the O.J. story--I’m now one of the subplots,” he said with a chuckle.