Woman stuck for 7 hours in Rock Crevice while chasing for lost mobile

• She dropped her phone while taking photos, causing her to wedge herself in the crevice.
• The rescue team spent seven hours freeing her from the crevice.
• Specialist rescue paramedic Peter Watts praised the team's collaborative effort.

A woman's adventurous spirit took a perilous turn in Australia's Hunter Valley region on October 12 when she turned a routine photo opportunity into a dramatic rescue. Matilda Campbell, 23, wedged herself upside down in a narrow crevice between two boulders after dropping her phone while taking pictures. The New South Wales Ambulance service detailed her unusual predicament in an Instagram post on Monday, describing how she was literally “between a rock and a hard place.”

The rescue team spent a total of seven hours freeing her from the roughly three-meter (10-foot) crevice.

In a light-hearted Facebook post after the incident, Campbell shared a photo from her rescue that showed her soles wedged between the boulders. Accompanying the image, she cheekily remarked, “Not my feet on display like that,” along with a laughing emoji. In another post, she humorously reflected on her accident-prone nature, stating, “No more rock exploration for me for a while.”

Peter Watts, the specialist rescue paramedic involved, expressed that he had never encountered a job quite like this in his decade-long career. He remarked on the rewarding yet challenging nature of the rescue operation. Friends of Campbell trekked to a location with better phone reception to alert emergency responders after their attempts to free her failed, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

 

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Watts praised the multidisciplinary team for their collaborative effort, stating, “We all worked incredibly well together to achieve a good outcome for the patient.” The rescuers constructed a hardwood frame to ensure stability during the operation and carefully removed several heavy boulders to create a safe access point.

Once rescuers gained access to her feet, they faced the tricky task of guiding her through a tight “S” bend, which took more than an hour. They needed a specialized winch to shift a massive boulder weighing 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) out of the way.

Despite her precarious position, Campbell remained calm and cooperative throughout the ordeal. “Anything we asked her to do, she was able to do to help us get her out,” Watts noted.

The good news is that rescuers freed her with only minor scratches and bruises, although they sadly left her phone behind in the crevice.

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