28-year-old Marko Cheseto Lemtukei, described by an Alaska online newspaper as a star runner found his way to safety early on Wednesday before he was hospitalised.
The newspaper said the runner has not been able to explain how he disappeared or where he had been since he went missing.
The star runner from the University of Alaska Anchorage had suffered severe frostbite on his feet during his two-day disappearance but he has told police he was not hurt in any way, the online paper wrote.
The newspaper quotes a university official saying Cheseto was being treated for severe frostbite.
The runner is described by the Alaska online newspaper as a “standout student athlete at UAA with close to a perfect 4.0 grade point average.”
He is one of the most decorated UAA athletes ever, having twice won regional Division II cross country championships, a 10-Kilometer race, according to the Alaskan newspaper.
He is well known in Anchorage’s running community too, having set a record in the Mayor’s Half-Marathon last year.
He’s scheduled to graduate in May as a nursing major, the newspaper said.
“He stumbled into the SpringHill Suites at University Lake a little after 3am. He could barely speak. He seemed hypothermic,” the Alaska newspaper wrote. “Snow was frozen to his jeans.” It snowed the night he went missing.
Police in Alaska have indicated they do not suspect foul play in the students’ disappearance, having spoken to him.