"I thought I was Bear Grylls": Woman speaks out after being trapped upside-down for 7 hours
A young woman who spent hours stuck upside-down between two boulders has spoken out about her horrific ordeal as she was reunited with her rescuers.
Matilda Campbell, a 23-year-old from Newcastle, was on a trip away with friends in Laguna, about a 30-minute drive from Cessnock, when she dropped her phone between two huge rocks.
The young woman climbed down to retrieve her phone, and when she got stuck upside-down, her friends called 000 for help.
Paramedics had to move the boulders using a specialist winch to reach Matilda, before facing the tricky task of “navigating” her out from her precarious position.
After suffering minor injuries from the ordeal, Matilda has spoken out about how she ended up in the sticky situation.
“We wanted to see nature ... and we saw these beautiful rocks so we sat there ... and then my friend had my phone and it slipped off the rock,” she told 7News.
“And I thought oh no I’m still paying off that phone I need it ... so I ventured down and thought I was Bear Grylls ... and I slipped head first into the crevice where I was stuck for seven hours."
“I didn’t freak out at the start ... it took me about half an hour to realise I was fully stuck and then I started to have a big cry."
“I’m very thankful I was with my friends, otherwise it would have been a very different story.”
Campbell has since been reunited with her rescuers, to whom she says she owes her life, as she said, “I’m just thankful to see them again ... I wouldn’t be here today without them. So, I’m really thankful.”
Specialist rescue paramedic Peter Watts said the rescue was “challenging but incredibly rewarding”, saying after the rescue, “In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic, I had never encountered a job quite like this.”
In total, the woman spent seven hours hanging upside-down before she was freed, with only minor scratches and bruises but still without her phone, which could not be retrieved.
Image credits: 7News