My partner Erica and I were walking the coastal track at the Royal National Park near Sydney. Erica rolled her ankle on an uneven surface and collapsed due to unbearable pain in the ankle.

We rested for a bit and walked a hundred metres to a creek nearby. The pain was unbearable, and Erica couldn’t step on her foot, leaning on me. She put her foot into the icy creek, but the pain kept getting worse and the ankle stared to swell up.

Erica couldn’t step on the foot and even the slightest movement caused a lot of pain. With no mobile reception, the day drawing on an end, and the temperature dropping, we decided to activate our PLB.

As we waited for help, a friendly bush rat came and drank cocoa from one of our cups.

An hour later, a police helicopter appeared, soon followed by a medical helicopter. The latter landed on a rocky platform around 100m away from us, and the paramedics assessed the ankle, bandaged it, and administered painkillers.

Erica was taken to the helicopter on stretchers. Three hours after activating the PLB, we were at a Sydney hospital, doing an XRay and hearing with great relief that there’re no broken bones.