Rescuers had to winch a 500kg rock to free Australian hiker Matilda Campbell from a crevice between two boulders. - NSW AMBULANCE/FACEBOOK
SYDNEY: It was a close call for an Australian hiker when she found herself stuck between two massive boulders after slipping in while trying to retrieve her mobile phone.
For seven hours, the woman hung upside down inside the narrow crevice before she was safely extricated by rescuers.
The hiker – identified in reports as Matilda Campbell – was walking in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley region earlier in October when she fell into the 3m-deep crevice.
She had already been hanging upside down for over an hour when rescuers arrived. Still, it took several hours more to free her.
“In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic, I had never encountered a job quite like this. It was challenging but incredibly rewarding,” Peter Watts, a paramedic with New South Wales (NSW) Ambulance service, said on the service’s Facebook page.
Campbell’s friends had tried to free her, but she was stuck so deep inside the crevice that they had to call for help.
Only her feet are visible in one of the photographs shared by the ambulance service on Facebook on Oct 21.
Emergency services had to mount a complicated effort to keep the area stable with a hardwood frame, as they tried to carve out a gap big enough to free her.
Even when they managed to winch a 500kg rock out of the way, they still had to work out a way to get the woman out of the “S” bend she found herself in.
Watts later told Australia’s ABC that Campbell had been a “trooper”.
“We were all like, how did you get down there, and how are we going to get her out?” he said.
Seven hours after getting stuck, Campbell was finally pulled out with just minor scratches and bruises, according to NSW Ambulance.
“Thank you to the team who saved me. You guys are literally lifesavers,” she wrote in a message online.
Her phone, though, did not make it out. - The Straits Times/ANN
