On Sunday 29 June, I hiked with David in rugged terrain. We were in Mt Remarkable National Park, about 300 km north of Adelaide, South Australia. We started at 6:30 am for a 26 km walk. Our route was from Alligator Gorge to Melrose. This was along a section of the Heysen Trail. It was beautiful country, and we were having a great time. After about 4 hours and 10 km, we walked along a creek in a deep gorge. I slipped on a rock and tumbled into a shallow creek section. The water was about 30 cm deep. It briefly soaked both my top and bottom.

David offered me his beanie and an extra jacket. He climbed the steep, rocky embankment very carefully to get phone signal. At the top, he made a brief 000 call, Australia’s emergency number. But the signal was lost after a few seconds. He couldn’t describe the situation before the call dropped. He ran up and down nearby hills but no signal.  After 20 minutes he returned, afraid of leaving me for too long due to the risk of shock and hyperthermia.  It was PLB time.

David encouraged me to move out of the damp mud to a slightly drier position where I could sit upright against a rocky wall of the gorge. He placed Therm-a-Rest pads beneath me and behind my back to insulate me from the cold ground. David and I wrapped me in two foil emergency blankets we carried. I popped in some gloves from my backpack in an attempt to warm up. We then made the call to set off the PLB. While not life threatening at that moment – I was damp and getting colder and if we had no help by nighttime the situation would have become life threatening.  There was no way I could walk out with my ankle that hurt every time I moved it.

While we waited David attempted to start a small fire with matches, he carried but in the damp conditions we couldn’t get it burning well.  After one hour I encouraged David to walk for help, as he would probably have mobile phone coverage by walking 1-2 hours either up or down the trail.  Despite having all my warm weather gear (and some of David’s) and two foil blankets I was getting colder.  As David prepared to leave, we heard sirens.  They stopped nearby (but 50m above us on a trail above the gorge) and I blew my whistle.  David ran part way up the steep slope and two heads of local volunteer firefighters appeared, followed by several more teams of emergency services!

They decided to call a helicopter from Adelaide because carrying me out by stretcher would be very difficult. They made me comfortable with another emergency blanket. After 3 hours, paramedics were lowered into the gorge by helicopter. They gave me strong pain relief, placed me in a basket, and winched me about 100 meters into the helicopter.

I was flown to a nearby regional town to refuel. The paramedic carefully removed my boot and sock. They found a bone had punctured the skin, meaning I needed surgery. After that, I was flown to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for ankle surgery. It was a compound fracture. I am now in plaster no weight bearing for 6 weeks, then in a moon boot for another 6 weeks, I am very grateful to David for his calm response to the emergency situation and to be on the road to recovery.  I am sad that I will miss this year’s hiking season but looking forward to next year.