A woman was wedged between boulders for seven hours after she slipped head-first into a three-metre crevice while trying to retrieve her phone in regional New South Wales.
The woman’s friends initially spent an hour attempting to free her while she was hanging upside down before they called triple zero for help, NSW Ambulance said this week.
The operation to free her from the “unlikely predicament” in the Hunter Valley on Saturday 12 October involved a team of “multidisciplinary” emergency workers.
They removed several heavy boulders to create a safe access point. Then, “with both feet now accessible”, the workers navigated the woman – aged in her early 20s – feet first up through a “tight S bend”, which took an hour.
A specialist winch was used to move one 500kg boulder. A hardwood frame was also constructed to “ensure stability” during the rescue.
“In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic I had never encountered a job quite like this, it was challenging but incredibly rewarding,” specialist rescue paramedic Peter Watts said on Monday.
“Every agency had a role and we all worked incredibly well together to achieve a good outcome for the patient.”
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The woman was freed with only minor scratches and bruises. Her phone could not be retrieved, NSW Ambulance said.
