An 84-year-old woman has been found alive after being missing for three days in Western Australian bushland.
In an incredible feel-good story, Patrica Byrne has found walking along the side of the road on Sunday, stunning police and making her family remark that they felt like they had “a lotto win.”
Mrs. Byrne spent a whopping 72 hours in the Stirling Range national park, with no food or water and drinking from puddles to stay alive in the 35+ degree heat.
The Western Australian wilderness is notoriously tough, with a record-breaking expedition through the extreme terrain just last month making headlines.
In what sounds like a bushwalk-turned gran vs. wild episode, her son John noted how his Mum was “just wearing a shirt and a pair of shorts.”
“We always knew she was a tough old goat…he would take on a gang of people, that woman, and to hear she came out the way she did was sort of what you’d expect from her.”
Emergency workers load the “tough old goat” into an ambulance
Even the police couldn’t dress the story up with professional lingo when speaking to reporters, with Sergeant Allan Mallard noting that “It was a bit of a shock, to be fair.”
“I was like, ‘Stop, stop the car,’ and tried to jump out of the car while it was still moving.”
Rescue workers had been combing the area since Mrs. Byrne was reported missing on Thursday before she was picked up 4km’s from where she was last spotted.
Her medical condition is still being assessed at the Albany health campus, but at this stage, it seems like the family can lay claim to their own Christmas miracle.
If this story pipes your interest in wilderness extremities, check out these crazy stories of survival, courtesy of The Clymb.
