A Sydney woman has been winched from the bush during an epic overnight rescue by Illawarra emergency services crews.
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Crews spent Monday night sleeping on boulders at the base of Carrington Falls after trekking through darkness in search of two lost bushwalkers, one of them injured.
Rescuers contended with leeches and near-impossible terrain before reaching the pair. At the worst of it, it took them 70 minutes to travel just 80 metres.
Crews went into the bush Monday night after a Sydney man and woman dialed triple-zero and reported themselves lost, at about 6pm.
The couple was located about 2am with the aid of an ambulance rescue helicopter but the woman, who had an injured leg, couldn’t be winched out in darkness, said Kiama SES team leader Andrew McKenzie. “It’s a tight space, so the helicopter had to get below the treeline,” he told the Mercury. “If the pilot can't have adequate visuals - cues and references to maintain his hover – it puts the risk too high, though it could be done if it were life threatening.”
The search involved Kiama SES, Illawarra Police Rescue Squad, NSW Police, NSW Ambulance and NSW Parks and Wildlife Service.
Search parties opted to sleep at the rescue site until the chopper could collect the woman at first light.
It took four hours for crews and the woman’s boyfriend, Vivian Castelino, to make the return hike. They emerged from the bush about 10am Tuesday.
Mr Castelino said online advice had led him to believe the bushwalk would be an easy two-hour affair.
“It was misleading,” he said. “We've done a lot of bushwalking, but we’ve never done a bushwalk with an unmarked trail.”
“We had water and food, but we had finished our food. We were scared.”
Many in the crews credited NSW Parks and Wildlife’s Sam Demuth with pulling off the search. Mr Demuth has extensive local knowledge and has helped to find at least 15 lost bushwalkers this year. He said bushwalkers shouldn’t attempt unmarked tracks without a map, compass, GPS and personal locator beacon.
“With the current weather pattern - dry, wet, dry, wet - it covers up any creek that was there,” he said. “As soon as it gets anywhere near dark … there’s no visible track to follow.”