Hugo Reyes, more commonly known by his nickname "Hurley", is one of the middle section survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 in 2004 and Ajira Flight 316 in 2007. Hurley's father disappeared when he was ten and did not return until almost ten years had passed. Afterwards, Hurley developed an eating disorder, and after a traumatic accident he was sent to a mental asylum where he started seeing an imaginary person. Ever since, he has changed and has been extremely conscious of his sanity and how people view him. When Hurley won the lottery, he was not overjoyed, instead he was fearful that his life was going to change.

Hurley is typically happy-go-lucky and keeps the spirits of his fellow survivors up. He has an eating disorder but managed to overcome that with the help of Libby, and has even stuck to it after her death. Hurley is also the voice of reason in the group and uses his common sense to solve difficult situations. Typically friendly, he and Charlie Pace developed a very close friendship. Ever since winning the lottery with the mysterious numbers, he has searched for an answer for the curse of bad luck that supposedly plagues him. Although he was originally very loyal to Jack, Hurley was the first survivor to join Locke's faction, separating himself from the survivors.

After reuniting with Jack and a few survivors from his group, Hurley was one of the few people who managed to board the helicopter before the Kahana exploded. Hurley was also part of the Oceanic Six cover story, and carried on happily with his life for about a year before he began to see visions of the late Charlie off the Island. Eventually, he was readmitted to the Santa Rosa Mental Institute and conversed with Charlie, along with other deceased people, causing his mental state to deteriorate. He was removed from Santa Rosa by Sayid, and taken to a "safe house", where he was photographed holding a gun over the dead body of one of the men that Sayid killed. He was reported by the media as being a murderer, and was arrested by Los Angeles policemen. Hurley returned to the Island and was flashed to 1977 where he worked as a chef for the DHARMA Initiative. After the detonation of Jughead by Juliet, his fate is currently unknown.