Brisbane, Australia
CNN
—
A woman who was trying to retrieve her lost phone from among boulders in Australia’s Hunter Valley became stuck upside down for seven hours before she was rescued earlier this month.
Photos of the incident posted on social media on Monday by the New South Wales (NSW) Ambulance Service show only the bare soles of the woman’s feet.
The woman was walking with friends on private property in Laguna, a rural town in the Hunter Valley about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Sydney, when she dropped her phone.
Somehow, as she tried to retrieve it, she slipped face first into a 10-foot crack between two large boulders.
According to the New South Wales State Emergency Service, friends tried to free her for an hour but eventually gave up and called for help.
New South Wales Police said emergency services were called at 9.30am on October 12 in reference to a 23-year-old woman who became trapped while trying to retrieve her mobile phone.
For the next seven hours, police, ambulance, fire brigade and volunteer rescue teams tried to free her, police said in a statement.
Several heavy boulders were removed to create a safe access point, and rescuers then built a frame to perform the very delicate operation, they added.
“Now having access to both feet, the team faced the challenge of getting the patient out of a tight S-curve within an hour,” NSW Ambulance shared a Facebook post.
To free the woman, a winch was used to move the 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) boulder, and she was finally released around 4:30 p.m. the same day.
Miraculously, she escaped with only minor scratches and bruises.
Peter Watts, a paramedic with the New South Wales State Ambulance Service, said he had never seen anything like it.
“In 10 years of working as a paramedic, I have never encountered such work. It was demanding but extremely rewarding,” Watts said. “Each agency had a role and we all worked together extremely well to achieve a good outcome for the patient.”
The woman, whose name has not been made public, was taken to hospital for observation. However, her phone remains trapped between the rocks.
