Bushwalk Australia

Great to hear of a happy ending
From ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-08/m ... sh/5799110

A woman who was lost in far north Queensland rainforest for more than a fortnight survived on river water, emerging from the ordeal almost 17 kilograms lighter.

Shannon Leah Fraser, 30, was severely sunburnt and dehydrated when she walked out of the dense bush today near the Golden Hole swimming spot, north-west of Innisfail, about an hour south of Cairns.

The Innisfail local had visited the popular hole with her partner three Sundays ago and had followed him for a walk in the rugged terrain but became separated, her brother Dylan Fraser told the ABC.

"She must have taken a wrong turn, and got lost," he said.

"I honestly didn't know what to believe, there were so many stories flying around, the police didn't have much of a lead."

For 16 nights Ms Fraser cried herself to sleep, but the thought of her three children made her persevere each day to reach safety.

When the sunburn took its toll, she laid in the river for three days to sooth her skin in the fresh water which flows from Queensland's highest mountain, Mount Bartle Frere.

"She was that exhausted , she couldn't walk, she just felt like giving up," Mr Fraser said.

"She just stayed strong, and made it out."

On the day Ms Fraser disappeared, she was wearing leggings, thongs and a shirt, but emerged from the bush wearing very little, with splinters in her feet.

"The trees ripped off her clothes," Mr Fraser said.

"She has lost a lot of weight, 16.9 kilograms."

When hope was diminishing and the search effort had ended, a farmer, who was eating his breakfast at Golden Hole, saw Ms Fraser emerge from the scrub this morning.

He took her to the Innisfail Hospital where she remains in a stable condition, surrounded by family.

Mr Fraser said they had been fearing the worst.

"It's just overwhelming, everyone has just been so upset," he said.

"We're over the moon to have her back.

"We were just trying to stay positive and trying not to think the worst."

Amazing survival!

An extreme form of dieting. I don't think it will catch on.

Wow. Great story of survival.

Another story from todays ABC

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-09/q ... ection=qld
Police say they are confident their initial search did not miss a woman who spent 17 days surviving in a far north Queensland rainforest.

Shannon Leah Fraser, 30, emerged scratched up, severely sunburnt and 17 kilograms lighter from the rainforest at Golden Hole, near Innisfail, on Wednesday after she went missing there on September 21.

She was taken to the Innisfail Hospital by a nearby farmer who spotted her.

Ms Fraser, an Innisfail local, had visited the popular hole with her partner three Sundays ago and had followed him for a walk in the rugged terrain but became separated and disorientated, her brother Dylan Fraser told the ABC.

She had survived on river water, small fish and insects during her ordeal.

A hospital spokeswoman said Ms Fraser was recovering well, despite her weight loss and injuries.

On Thursday Inspector Rhys Newton said authorities had searched an area with a radius of several kilometres around the water hole and were confident Ms Fraser had not been anywhere in the search zone.

He said police had only spoken briefly to Ms Fraser and hoped to interview her again when she was released from hospital.

"Can I say the methodologies that are employed in that search operations are tried and proven and extremely sound," he said.

"I am convinced that there was an extremely high probability of locating that missing person had she been in that area that we were searching."
Lone survival is 'more mental than physical'

A Queensland survival expert said beating loneliness and despair would have been as important as a fresh water supply for Ms Fraser in lasting 17 days alone.

"Very few people actually spend more than 24 hours completely alone in their entire lives so doing it for 17 days in an unfamiliar environment is going to be a challenge for anybody," former Australian Defence Force survival instructor Nick Vroomans said.

Mr Vroomans, who now runs the Staying Alive survival school in Laidley, west of Brisbane, said both physical and mental issues came into play.

"And one impacts on the other, but to me as I've developed in my expertise of survival over the years I've realised that more of it's mental than it is physical.

"Some people have survived long periods of time in particularly hostile environments and other people have died when you’d think they should have survived so it's a difficult question to answer."

But he said the human body was capable of great feats of endurance.

It’s not until people find themselves in these situations they realise just how resilient we really are.
Nick Vroomans, remote survival expert

"We're all wired for survival every one of us, otherwise we wouldn't be here," he said.

"We are an amazingly adaptable animal and it's not until people find themselves in these situations they realise just how resilient we really are."

Mr Vroomans said having a source of fresh, unpolluted water would have made a huge difference to Ms Fraser.

"It would appear that she never had the ability to light a fire or anything like that, which is quite debilitating," he said.

"If you can light a fire you're halfway home - you can also boil water and make it safe to drink.

"Obviously where she was the water was safe enough to drink and that makes a big difference so you're not going to get sick."
Lack of food not an issue: expert

He said it took a long time for lack of food to become a survival issue.

"As far as food's concerned, she was probably, at 17 days, about halfway to being in a very serious situation," he said.

"She could probably have gone for another couple of weeks and even though she'd be in a pretty bad way she would've been able to survive it.

"As long as she's not working too hard and using too many calories then it's a survivable situation.

"The first three or four days in a survival situation not eating is the worst that I've found.

"After that you tend to start to stabilise ... around about the 10-day mark you're not even hungry anymore."

Being a large woman and the fact she was in mild weather would have helped.

Yeah right

No crocodiles in the area? Lucky!

Just one big croc if you get my meaning.

walkerchris77 wrote:Being a large woman and the fact she was in mild weather would have helped.

Well she's not so big anymore. Plenty of searches elsewhere have missed people, I wonder what makes the copper so confident that his search was 100% effective.

No mention of a Mars Bar
Search & Rescue have talked with Shannon trying to figure how they missed finding her.
One thought I had was in a previous story Shannon had severe sunburn, so she must have had clear sight of the sun & any Helicopters looking for her?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-11/s ... ce/5806908

A woman who spent 17 days lost in a Queensland rainforest has told police she could hear the rescue helicopter and people calling out to her but could not reach them.

Cairns police also backed Shannon Fraser's version of events, saying they had no reason to disbelieve her.

And they ruled out foul play in 30-year-old's disappearance from the Golden Hole swimming spot, north-west of Innisfail, on September 21.

She had visited the popular hole with her partner and had followed him for a walk but became separated.

She emerged from the rainforest on Wednesday, more than a fortnight later, scratched up, severely sunburnt and 17 kilograms lighter.

She was helped by a local farmer before being taken to hospital, where she remained in a stable condition.

Detective Inspector Bruno Asnicar said police interviewed Ms Fraser in hospital for an hour and a half on Friday afternoon.

They went through what occurred from the time she became lost up to when she was found.
Police said Ms Fraser told them she could hear the rescue helicopter and people calling out but could not get to them.

"The area that she had moved in to was in fact deep rainforest, so there's very, very little visibility out for her," Detective Inspector Asnicar said.

"In that environment, when you're down or on the side of a mountain in a valley like that, I think it would be extremely difficult to move toward sound or even identify where the sound is coming from."

Detective Inspector Asnicar said following the interview with Ms Fraser, it was established she climbed out of the search area through the night.

"She'd been so disorientated she hasn't moved towards the helicopter and the search that occurred for some nine days," he said.

"At this stage we don't have any reason to disbelieve anything she said."

Ms Fraser remains in hospital, undergoing for various injuries including exposure.
'Critical look' at search and rescue promised

Detective Inspector Asnicar said emergency services would take a "critical look" at the search and rescue effort to see if there was anything they could improve upon in future.

"We were interested in talking to Shannon to identify how she slipped through the search pattern," he said.

"We will examine that over the coming weeks and see if we can do some things to prevent that from happening in the future.

"The investigation we conduct on any search is just to improve the performance of our searches.

Detective Inspector Asnicar said the search procedures were extremely rigorous and controlled independently through a search and rescue coordinator in Brisbane.

"We'll be having a critical look at the search itself to improve anything we can do in future," he said.

Les agrees.
http://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairn ... 7087017163

So the plot thickens.

I found the reporting all a bit much though... loved the line about her losing 16.9kg, it would have been far more accurate to say that she had lost about 17kg, rather than such a specific number (did she weigh herself when she got out of the car before the walk?). The Bush Tucker man article was just lots of pictures of him posed in various places, why are multiple photos of him relevant to the story?

Not that any of that adds or takes away from what did (or did not) happen to her, it just draws attention to the quality of the reporting.

Ummm... Who'd thought? Was she really 90kg before?

Wonder if she will sell her story to aca,

Hmmm... sounds a bit odd to me...

- Sunburnt? The scrub there is thick and tall (ie. rainforest). Unless you are in a clearing (ie cleared paddock) or in the river near midday, or on the boulder field/summit of Bartle Frere you would have to try really hard to get sunburnt.

- Chased by a freshwater croc? Really? I've never seen a freshy move towards a person, only seen them move away. They are fairly timid creatures.

- Lost for 17 days? - Just stop walking uphill and walk downhill. This will get you to a creek/river which will get you to the coast. The place she went missing at is right below the tallest mountain in Queensland. If you are in the open enough to get sunburnt, you will almost certainly be able to see this mountain, not a bad point of reference if you are trying to find your way.

Anyway, my bet is that she will sell her story (complete with the 'chased by crocodile' scene) to the highest bidder. I'm happy to be proven wrong, time will tell.
As a back up bet... If she does sell her story, I bet the proceeds don't go towards paying off the cost of the search.

Haha, I am also sceptical about her comment of sitting in the creek for 3 days...10 minutes of swimming in those creeks leave me close to hypothermic.

I watched the story on the Sunday Night show, still very hard to believe that she was lost for 17 days, she spent 3 days on a rock in the middle of a river, thats how she got badly burnt.
Anyway its a good news story & I wish Shannon & Heath all the best.
Regards Overlandman

At least shes ok. And probably a bit wealthier.