This is actually believable. "Hiker lost for 24 hours ignored phone calls from rescuers because they came from unknown number."
Okay, true confessions... I think it's a joke, sort of like an article in The Onion. Because if the lost hiker had cellular coverage, they'd make an outbound call for help.
@paxterrarum Then again, he may have called friends or relatives for help, but they would no doubt be unable to rescue him themselves. The actual rescuers kept trying to reach him to determine his position. Did he expect his friends to come to his aid themselves?
@REDonaldAuthor
Well, I found out it's true. I checked it on the urban legends site, snopes (dot) com. Truth is stranger than fiction.
@paxterrarum Makes sense in a way. He wasn’t expecting phone calls from the rescue party and didn’t want to use up his battery on a marketing/spam call. Wrong decision but he thought it was the right thing to do at the time, I guess.