Woman stuck upside down under rock for hours after trying to retrieve dropped phone

If you're out and about in nature and drop your phone down a three-meter crevice between some boulders, maybe don't try to retrieve it.

The Register offers that advice after the Ambulance service in the Australian state of New South Wales this week reported the case of a woman who fell into such a crevice and spent hours inside it before being rescued.

The woman apparently dropped her phone, tried to reach for it, and ended up falling headfirst into the crevice, hanging by her feet. Her friends spent an hour trying to get her out before calling emergency services.

A woman's feet wedged between boulders in Australia. Image: NSW Ambulance – Click to enlarge

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Specialist rescue paramedics arrived and set about creating a safe place from which to work and move boulders.

Rescue workers attempting to free woman who lost her phone. Image: NSW Ambulance – Click to enlarge

They eventually constructed a hardwood frame, and used a winch to move boulders. The woman's feet became accessible, but the passage out of the crevice was described as a "tight 'S' bend." Removing the woman therefore took another hour.

She emerged with only a few scratches after a seven-hour ordeal.

The phone was not recovered. ®