Benjamin Kuo helped authorities rescue a lost California hiker thanks to what he calls his "very weird hobby," reports the Sacramento Bee.
"I love taking a look at photos and figuring out where they're taken," he told KNBC.
On Monday, April 12, Rene Compean was hiking in the Angeles National Forest in Southern California when he became lost.
Compean, 45, sent a photo of his legs dangling over the edge of a canyon to his friend saying he was lost and his phone was running out of battery.
On Tuesday, April 13, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department posted the photo hoping the public would be able to help them figure out where Compean was.
That's when Kuo's weird hobby came to the rescue.
Kuo reached out to the sheriff's office and told them where he thought Compean was, with GPS coordinates.
"I was hoping I didn't send them on a wild goose chase, and then they'd get mad at me," he told KCBS.
After searchers dispatched a helicopter, they found Compean on a ridge not even a mile away from the coordinates Kuo had given them.
Compean was safe and did not require any medical care.
"I crazy appreciate what you did," Compean told Kuo in a virtual meeting on Tuesday, according to KNBC. "I really don't know if I could make it there another day. It was just so cold."
"You don't think that sitting behind a computer and looking at a picture and saying, 'Oh, it looks like that might be where he is,' would lead to a person being rescued," Kuo told KCBS.
Photo: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department