A woman revealed how she survived nearly two weeks stranded in the Australian Outback after stumbling upon a watering hole, while rescuers were searching for her two friends who had decided to seek help.
Tamra McBeath-Riley, 52, was being treated in an Alice Springs hospital for dehydration and exposure after she was found last night.
She had set off with her friends Claire Hockridge, 46, and Phu Tran, 40, from Alice Springs for an afternoon drive on November 19 when their car got stuck in a riverbed.
A search was continuing today for the missing friends, who had decided to leave Ms McBeath-Riley and trek 12 miles towards a highway.
Ms McBeath-Riley said they stayed by the car for about three days trying to free it, but they moved on after running out of supplies.
“During the day it’s just really hot so we dug ourselves under the car. At night [we] could sleep in the car,” she told ABC.
The trio left the car with a note indicating which direction they were travelling in and stumbled across a cattle watering hole about a mile away.
Ms McBeath-Riley said she decided to stay at the waterhole with a dog they were travelling with, as she did not think it would survive the walk.
“When the helicopter found me, I thought that Claire and Phu had reached the highway. So to find that’s not the case is worrying,” she told reporters.
