>> we're following an amazing story of survival, a 67-year-old man rescued from the bottom of a ravine nearly a week after reported missing and found by his very own determined children. we'll talk to them in just a moment. first nbc's kristen dahlgren is in valencia, california, with details. good morning.
>> reporter: good morning, we're told ladavid leveau is in good spirits. happy to be alive who when he went missing his children took matters into their own hands.
>> i thought i heard a voice and i said hello, and i screamed down there. someone said help.
>> reporter: that someone was david laveau a retired cable worker who rescuers pulled from the bottom of a cliff late thursday after his daughters heard his cry for help.
>> if anyone can find our dad, it's us. with he stopped at every ravine.
>> oh my god there's our dad. i looked down and i saw my dads acar. i finally got to him and of course i hugged him and we broet cried. i said, how did you make it? and he said, i drank the water in the river and i ate leaves and bugs.
>> he asked for a chocolate milkshake. he said he tried to crawl up the hill with a broken bones .
>> reporter: lavau had been missing for nearly a week and family members set out to retrace the route from oxnard, california, in the hopes of covering a trail. they found him in castaic, nearly 50 miles away .
>> he had to have had an accident and gone off the cliff and we were driving through and instantly heard someone yelling help from down below.
>> i said dad we're going to be there. hang on. he just was crying and crying and so i just slid down.
>> reporter: but at the bottom the grim future their father could have faced. lavau's blue car landed next to a silver one to a completely separate accident. the driver of the other car hadn't been so lucky, his decomposing body still in the vehicle.
>> the family that's been wanting their father to know what happened, and now they have peace. i wish it was better peace, i'm sorry for that.
>> reporter: california highway patrol is investigating the cause of lavau's accident.
>> supposedly just lost control there was a bright car and if you saw where the accident happened, several cars have gone off.
>> this is a bad section of road. this has been the fourth incident i've been on here where we've had cars over the side.
>> reporter: lavau was air lifted to henry mayo hospital suffering broken bones and dehydration, he's in stable condition and expected to recover.
>> i don't think his life is in danger right now. he's in a great deal of pain, very dehydrated and very hungry. he didn't have a lot of resources to handle with it so he suffered through it.
>> reporter: family and friends whose search efforts paid off glad lavau is alive because they took efforts into their own hands.
>> we found him. no one else did. we did.
>> reporter: the identity of the victim in that other car hasn't been released. as for lavau, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, multiple fractures in his back but only expected to be in the hospital, ann, for another three or four days.
>> that's pretty amazing. kristen dal gran thank you so much. we have chardonnay, sean and lisa lavau all with us.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> the first question is how did you know to look in that particular area? sean ?
>> we actually would not have a show long enough to talk about how long that happened. it was joint efforts in many different directions, and putting together chardonnay and her husband, jesse, and morgan gonzalez and her girlfriend bethany, and me and jessica, and lisa , and her daughter, and just everything collaborated and ended up just joining forces and ended up actually meeting almost at the same spot within a half hour. it just, it just, we were just talking about it, getting ready for this and we're still baffled ourselves.
>> you were doing this even though authorities were conducting their own search. what made you decide to jump into the search yourself.
>> actually i'll let my sister chardonnay talk about that. she really handled a lot of the beginning work of the missing persons as well as the detective work, so chardonnay, its eight yours.
>> well, my goodness, where do you start. what happened first is that immediately when our stories matched up that we had a problem, that my father was missing, we were connected through to the missing persons homicide department in los angeles with detective harris. detective harris ended up work ing with us and being able to put things together and try to wean out what could have been foul play and what was the real issue, and once the stories started matching up and us realizing that my father was missing from a period of time, that we were aware of certain things with text messages, that we were able to zero in and ping his towers of the satellite towers of the cell phone towers actually to be able to narrow down exactly where my father was coming through, and knowing that he was coming back through castaic.
>> which is pretty amazing. so when you finally then got to this location, and you heard his voice for the first time, lisa , you want to take it? what was your reaction?
>> well, i wish i could say that i was there. i was actually -- we went up to from 126 to the highway, and sean was getting out of his car at one area, so we had actually two cars and six people looking for my dad, so what happened is, one would go to one ravine and look over the hill and my daughter and i marquelle go to the next ravine and look over and as i was looking at the ravine before my brother, i left that ravine and i see jessica coming up the street saying, "we found him." i get out of the car at that point and all i know is i can see my dad's car, and sean and him saying, go get 911. so i left at that moment and it was a long ride down the mountain.
>> very amazing, and is it true that one of the first things your father asked for was chocolate milk ? he must be a big fan of that.
>> a whole lot.
>> we really have to correct this one. my father's favorite thing is a chocolate malt.
>> malt.
>> oh.
>> it wasn't chocolate milk .
>> sorry.
>> he loves his frosty freeze .
>> specifically frosty freeze .
>> i'm sure he's going to get a lot of those now. it's so great to hear what you've done. i bet the next time you need a loan or to call in for money if you're on vacation your dad's going to probably be more likely to say yes after all of this. you are all three heroes. thank you so much for joining us.
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44728314/ns/today-today_people/
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