A Canadian who almost died when he fell off a cliff in the Royal National Park has contacted the surf club that organised his daring rescue to say he owes them his life.
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Nick Taylor, 22, was returning from the popular Figure Eight Pools near Burning Palms in October 2017 when he and his friends took a shortcut up a steep animal track to save time.
Mr Taylor fell from the cliff just as the nearby Burning Palms Surf Lifesaving Club members were starting their beach patrol.
It was Annabel Braithwaite-Young's first day as patrol captain and within minutes she was co-ordinating a huge critical emergency response.
"It was horrific. [Taylor] had holes in the front and back of his head. His brains were hanging out. His body was broken from top to bottom," she said.
Ms Braithwaite-Young sent four of her team to look after Taylor while she co-ordinated the rescue via radio with the State Operations Centre. The location is inaccessible by road and has limited mobile communications, but eventually a helicopter was scrambled to retrieve the injured backpacker after he was stabilised by paramedics.
"He had fallen about 10 metres. To get him out the pilot had to hold the chopper right on the edge of the cliff with the nose balancing on a tuft of grass. It was real MacGyver stuff," Ms Braithwaite-Young said.
She said it was a team effort, but singled out two of the younger recruits for the great work they did on the day. Mr Taylor was flown to St George Hospital where he remained in critical condition for 34 days.
For the club that might have been where the story ended. But out of the blue last month, Mr Taylor and his father contacted the tiny coastal club to let them know he had made a full recovery.
"My name is Nicholas James Taylor and I am the kid you guys saved. I don’t even know where to begin because I literally owe you guys my life.
"I can’t thank you guys enough, you are doing amazing things. I will forever be grateful for what you all did," Taylor wrote in the email.
Club secretary Peter Pearce said he was absolutely delighted to get the correspondence, including a donation the club would use to buy vital lifesaving equipment.
"We were tickled pink. It was a really dramatic rescue and it was great to know that it had a happy ending."
Figure Eight Pools is a treacherous, remote location and has been the site of many injuries over the years, with visitors getting swept off the rocks by waves.
"We have to patch a lot of people up. The rock platform can only be accessed on low tide in the right conditions. Most people are good, but there's always some who will ignore all the warning signs," Mr Pearce said.
NPWS has just released a risk chart on its website that can be used to pick the best time to visit. There is also signage on the track before the rock platform showing what safe and unsafe conditions look like.
Both Figure Eight Pools and Wedding Cake Rock have become social media magnets, attracting thousands of young, overseas visitors.
SLSC chief executive Steven Pearce (no relation) said the rescue was a timely reminder for all visitors to the Royal National Park to take care over summer.
"It's the most popular time to visit but visitors need to follow warning signs and should not swim at unpatrolled beaches," the surf lifesaving CEO said.
He said his organisation had been working with non-English speaking groups to alert them to the dangers. "We get a lot of migrants who may not be familiar with Australian beaches and how to deal with a rip. So this group is definitely a target for our education campaigns," he said.
The three SLSC clubs in the park (Burning Palms, Garie and North Era) have now been supplied with satellite phones to improve communications during emergencies, Mr Pearce said. They also have defibrillators.
A 20-year-old man drowned in November after jumping from a cliff into the lagoon at Wattamolla.
