An 18-year-old man said he is relieved to have been rescued after spending three brutal days missing in mountain ranges west of the Gold Coast. 

Nathaniel Green slept in his car at Mount Barney on Wednesday night so he could hike and catch the sunrise in the morning.

But things began to go wrong, leaving him lost.

“My phone died and I ran out of water so I got lost and I thought I was going down the route that I needed to go home and turned out it wasn’t,” he told 9News.

Emergency services were alerted to his disappearance when he didn’t return home that day and a search mission, comprised of some of Green’s friends, began.

“I saw choppers going above at night and during the day,” he said.

“Sort of seeing the helicopters fly over, even though they may not have seen me straight away, the most hopeful thing was knowing I was being looked for.”

Green ended up spending two nights out in the cold.

He was able to survive on a muesli bar, some lollies and running creek water.

After spending days crying for help, he was finally heard this morning.

“I don’t know who it was but whoever it was saved my life probably,” he said.

Green was winched to safety. Besides being exhausted and starving, he was okay. 

“At no point did I think I was going to die on this mountain, it was more a point of when was I going to get rescued, or am I going to get myself out of this situation,” he said.

Green admitted he is not an experienced hiker and this was his first time up Mount Barney. 

“As seen by the fact I got stuck on the side of a mountain,” he said.

“Someone was like ‘oh you should try Mount Barney because me and my mate climbed a different peak a month ago.’ I thought it’d be chill. It was not chill.”

Green will be spending the rest of his weekend recovering from the ordeal.