SYDNEY: German backpacker Carolina Wilga drank water from puddles and sheltered in a cave before escaping an 11-night ordeal in the Australian bush, police said on Saturday (Jul 12).
The 26-year-old walked “confused and disorientated” 24km away from her van after it got stuck in remote bushland in Western Australia.
The backpacker had lost hope of being rescued, police said.
But on Friday, she managed to flag down a woman who drove her to police in the agricultural community of Beacon, northeast of Perth.
Wilga was airlifted to a Perth hospital for treatment.
“She spent 11 nights exposed to the elements and survived by consuming the minimal food supplies she had in her possession, and drinking water from rain and puddles,” Western Australia police said in a statement.
“She sought shelter at night where possible, including in a cave.”
Wilga was suffering from exhaustion, dehydration, sunburn, “extensive insect bites” and an injured foot, police said.
The driver who spotted her, Tania Henley, told public broadcaster ABC that she saw Wilga waving her hands by the side of the road.
She appeared to be in a “fragile state”, bitten by midges and suffering from the cold.
“Everything in this bush is very prickly. I just can’t believe that she survived. She had no shoes on, she’d wrapped her foot up,” Henley said.
The rescue was down to “sheer luck”, Western Australia police acting inspector Jessica Securo told a news conference in Perth after speaking to Wilga.
“She is still in disbelief that she was able to survive. In her mind, she had convinced herself that she was not going to be located,” said Securo.
“She basically looked at the direction of the sun and tried to head west, thinking that that would be her best bet of coming across someone or a road.”
Wilga told police she was “very confused and disorientated”.
Until her rescue, she had been last seen on Jun 29 arriving in the van at a general store in Beacon.
