DLNews Staff:

The Casselton (North Dakota) boy visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona with his mother, Carol, last Tuesday. Wyatt looked down on the world-famous gorge atop Bright Angel Point on the North Rim.

Wyatt Kaufman hasn't lost his smile despite the tragedy. His father shared his son's photos on Facebook.

"I went to the top of the lookout. It's flat up there, and you can see the whole canyon. It's beautiful up there," he told Good Morning America.

But the accident happened when he wanted to make room for other tourists: Wyatt lost his balance but could grab a rock. "I only had it with one hand," said the boy in an interview with the US broadcaster "KPNX." "I didn't have a good grip. He pushed me back. I lost my footing and fell."

It took the rescuers two hours to get Wyatt back to the cliff's edge.

Wyatt fell 100 feet. The rocks broke the boy's hand and nine vertebrae, dislocated a finger, ruptured his spleen, and collapsed his lungs, giving him a severe concussion.

But: Miraculously, Wyatt survived the fall!

It took first responders and national park staff two hours to climb down the cliff at Bright Angel Point and rescue the teenager from the gorge. They must carry Wyatt in a basket back up the narrow, steep, and particularly exposed trail.

The nurses gave Wyatt a gag gift.

Luckily, Wyatt Kaufmann doesn't notice much of this. "I just remember waking up and being in the back of an ambulance and a helicopter and then being brought here on a plane," he says from his bed in a Las Vegas, Nevada hospital. The gambling city is around 200 kilometers as the crow flies from the Grand Canyon.

Despite the near-death experience, Wyatt has retained his sense of humor. For the "Good Morning America" interview, he wore a T-shirt that said, "I do my own stunts." 

Wyatt Kaufmann was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. But not without a funny gift from the nurses. A t-shirt that said, "I survived Grand Canyon National Park."