By Jonny Humphries, BBC News
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The mum of a man missing in Tenerife has said her son had been excited for his first holiday with friends.
Debbie Duncan has flown out to the island and said she was in turmoil as it passes 48 hours since Jay Slater was last heard from.
The 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, left his friends on a night out after attending the NRG music festival.
His family said he got into a car with two men he met in the early hours of Monday and ended up in a national park about 40 minutes drive away.
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Shortly before 09:00 BST that morning he called his friend Lucy and said he was trying to make the 10-hour walk back to their accommodation in Playa de las Americas, but needed water and had 1% battery on his phone.
The call then cut out and Mr Slater has not been seen or heard from since.
Social media posts from Sunday evening showed a smiling Mr Slater in a grey t-shirt with green patches on the shoulders.
He also posted an image at 07:30 showing his hand holding a cigarette at the property he travelled to with the two men.
His last known location was on a path in the mountainous Rural de Teno national park in the north-west of the island.
Ms Duncan told the BBC: “I’ve not slept at all, it’s like it’s not real.
“It was his first holiday abroad with his friends and I was encouraging him to go, I said ‘you will have a great time’.”
She said she and her son’s friends had pieced together his movements on the night he was last seen, determining that he left in the car possibly at about 06:00.
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She said: “He’s not really a drinker is Jay but he had been drinking shorts and spirits that night.
“Everyone loves being in his company, and he was having a laugh with these guys.
“He wouldn’t have seen the danger, he didn’t have his wits about him, he just wanted to go and have fun.”
Ms Duncan said her son did not appear to be in fear or worried about the men he had left with when he called Lucy.
But his friend said it appeared he did not realise how far he had travelled when he left the tourist hotspot in the south of the island.
She said his friends and family thought he had his bank card and money with him, and he had memorised his mother’s phone number so he could have called if he was able to borrow a phone.
‘Nice, bubbly guy’
Ms Duncan said local police and mountain rescue teams had been “working tirelessly” searching for her son, including using drones and dogs.
But she said she was growing increasingly desperate.
“He’s just an all-round nice, bubbly guy with hundreds of friends who love being in his company,” she said.
“He’s gorgeous, he’s beautiful. He’s my baby.”
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office told the BBC: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”
