Police are urging travellers to properly prepare before driving in the outback after botched Google Maps directions left an Alice Springs nurse stranded in the Central Australian desert without food or water.
The 22-year-old, who asked their name not be used, was driving solo from Alice Springs to the popular Harts Range rodeo late at night, more than a week ago, when the navigation app led her in the wrong direction. Instead of the correct sealed Stuart Highway route, she was directed up the Ross Highway, and across the rough dirt tracks and paddocks of the remote Ambalindum cattle station. The young nurse would later discover Google Maps was directing her to the actual ranges, not the community of Harts Range itself, where the rodeo is held. She said “alarm bells started to go off” when she was still driving along a fence line, with 11 kilometres remaining on her journey. But then, her car suddenly nosedived into a ditch. “It couldn’t go backwards, couldn’t go forwards,” she said.
After desperate attempts to dig her car out of the ditch using an esky lid and an empty beer bottle, she sent an SOS text via her mobile. “I said, ‘I’m alone, my car’s stuck in a ditch, don’t know what to do, 22-year-old female, no injuries’ … and sent my location as well,” she said.
She soon fell into a deep sleep and woke at dawn to find her phone battery almost drained. She discovered the location her phone had sent out to emergency services was incorrect. “I got a text message back saying: ‘We’ve just heard from the police that your father tried looking for you and couldn’t find you,'” she said.
Despite only having an esky of 18 beers to keep her going, the young nurse said she stayed calm. Hours later, a plane flew overhead, circling twice before disappearing, and shortly after police pulled up. “I didn’t offer them a beer, but I just said, ‘Thank you so much for coming to get me,'” she said. The police later explained they only found her because the owner of Ambalindum Station, where she was stranded, had volunteered his plane to help search for her. “I was speechless,” she said. She now knows she’s not the only one who has been led astray.
Senior Sergeant Michael Potts, from Alice Springs Police, was involved in the rescue effort. Senior Sergeant Potts said it was lucky she had a new phone model, which could link up to satellite systems to provide an SOS function. he said before travelling in the outback, people should ensure they had a satellite phone, personal locator beacon (PLB), or emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) on hand.
She soon fell into a deep sleep and woke at dawn to find her phone battery almost drained. She discovered the location her phone had sent out to emergency services was incorrect. “I got a text message back saying: ‘We’ve just heard from the police that your father tried looking for you and couldn’t find you,'” she said.