Hiker Trying To Retrieve Dropped Phone Spends 7 Hours Wedged Upside Down in a Crevice

A young woman found herself in an unimaginable predicament earlier this month after a hiking mishap in Australia’s Hunter Valley. After slipping while trying to retrieve her dropped phone, the 23-year-old spent seven harrowing hours wedged upside down in a narrow crevice between two boulders as emergency crews worked tirelessly to free her.

The woman was trapped upside-down in this crevice for 7 hours. Photo via NSW Ambulance.

She was hiking with friends in Laguna, a country town about 75 miles from Sydney, when her phone slipped from her grip and landed deep in a rocky gap. While trying to retrieve it, she lost her footing and slid down a narrow, 10-foot chute. She found herself trapped face-first between the rocks with only her feet sticking out.

The remote location added to the complexity of the situation. There was no cell service, so her friends had to leave her to get help, contacting the New South Wales (NSW) Ambulance service. Paramedic Peter Watts, among the first to respond, later reflected on the unusual scene that awaited them. “My initial thought was, how are we going to get her out of here?” Watts stated. “In our ambulance rescue training, we’d cover trench rescue, confined space rescue, and vertical rescue, and it was sort of an amalgamation of all those things in the one job.”

A hardwood frame was built to ensure stability while the rescuers worked. Photo via NSW Ambulance.

All rescuers could initially see of the woman was her feet peeking out from a narrow four-inch gap. Given the depth of her entrapment, the team quickly realized that a simple pull wouldn’t work. In order to safely extract her, they would need to carefully remove surrounding rocks. Six large boulders stood between her and freedom, and the rescuers had to take great care to avoid inadvertently loosening rocks that could potentially fall onto her.

A specialized Tirfor winch was needed to move a 1,100lb boulder. Photo via NSW Ambulance.

Throughout the ordeal, the woman displayed impressive calm, even as hours ticked by upside down, a position that can be particularly dangerous. Prolonged inversion can lead to blood pooling in the head and other complications, so the rescue crew stayed in close communication with her. “She was so calm and collected through the whole thing,” Watts noted. I was very impressed. I would have been frantic. She was not panicked whatsoever.”

Once the major boulders had been removed, the final stage of the rescue involved manipulating her body to navigate the narrow, uneven chute. Carefully, rescuers maneuvered her into an “S” shape to slowly work her hips and shoulders free. After seven hours, just before nightfall, the woman was finally pulled out. She emerged exhausted and dizzy, but her injuries were minor, limited to a few scratches and bruises. She was taken to a nearby hospital for observation, while her phone remained lodged in its rocky resting place.