Rescued Perth girl speaks of her ordeal

DENALI DEGRAF and NICK OLLE EL BOLSÓN, ARGENTINA,

The West Australian Updated January 7, 2012, 2:55 am

Emma Kelly, the 23-year-old Perth woman who was attacked and lost in the Andes for three nights, survived by eating flies and flowers, using pieces of clothing to collect water and digging a hole at night to sleep in for warmth.

Though still bruised and grazed, a nevertheless cheerful and upbeat Ms Kelly has told The Weekend West about her ordeal in an exclusive interview.

The devout Christian and physiotherapist had left Australia on December 10 for South America and had been visiting friends Jayne and Bruno Meister in El Bolson in south-western Argentina.

It was on December 26 that she decided to go for a hike from El Bolson along the scenic Cajon del Azul in the nearby mountains when things went terribly wrong.

"I started walking, and I thought, I'll take a little timer photo here, since I was feeling pretty proud of myself, I'd just gotten into the forestry bit," she said.

"As I was waiting for the flash to go off a man appeared from somewhere, but I just kept going.

"I bumped into him a bit later, we started chatting, we walked along together for a little while, and in the end he attacked me.

"After he left I was kind of afraid to go back to the path, I thought he might be waiting for me."

It later became difficult for her to find her way back to the trail.

"I thought I'll follow the river, that's a good plan, but it turns into sheer cliff faces quite quickly.

"I found it hard to keep a track, like there was one little house on the opposite side of the valley which I kind of used as a marker, but a lot of the time there was so much shrub you couldn't see out."

Back in El Bolson, the Meisters raised the alarm when Ms Kelly did not return that evening.

El Bolson chief of police Walter Lucero said that early on December 27, police brigades from two towns began fanning out across a wide section of the mountains.

They were joined by personnel from the fire department, the army, the local mountaineering club and other volunteers.

Since assaults on hikers are extremely rare in the area, the assumption was that she was lost.

"I spoke to some of the fellows who have been on the force the longest and none of them could remember an assault on a hiker," Mr Lucero said.

Local residents said it was safe trail and Mrs Meister agreed.

 

"Although there have been a couple of people who got lost, there's never been anyone else involved before," she said.

"There's usually many tourists going up and down the trail, the paths are wide, everyone suggests it would be very safe."

Back in Perth, Jamie and Leonie Kelly received the gut-wrenching call all parents dread.

Their beautiful, happy daughter was missing in the wilderness.

They immediately organised to get to Argentina as quickly as possible.

"It took a while for the reality of it to sink in, all we knew was Emma was missing for 24 hours, we didn't know where exactly, we didn't know the circumstances, and then family came to support, and within about two hours we started to put a real plan together," Mr Kelly said.

"There was a huge groundswell of support, from family, from the church, from the embassy."

Prayer chains were started, using the internet extensively, Mrs Meister said.

"Eighty or 90 per cent of the news on my Facebook page was all about Emma - 'pray for Emma Kelly, she's lost,' from people who had met Emma only once, people who had never even met Emma."

Ms Kelly, still lost in the forest, had no idea of the desperate, huge search to find her.

"I really had no idea that people were looking for me," she said.

"I kind of thought, well, it's going to be up to me to get someone's attention. I didn't realise the scale of the people who were searching.

"But I kind of felt OK . . . so many times something bad could have happened and it didn't. I had faith I was going to come out of it eventually."

She spent the next three days wandering in the forest along the Rio Azul.

"To survive when I could I went down to the stream and got water, and when I couldn't, I'd collect water with a little piece of clothing and squeeze it out.

"I ate March flies, it seems so gross now but it seemed like a good plan at the time.

 

"They tasted quite a bit better than I thought they would. Then I found some flowers, too.

"I was a Girl Guide, so I know how to dig a hole at night to keep warm, I knew my options were either to follow a stream or get up high to get a better view. I felt more prepared than some."

But at one point, while attempting to cross the river, she lost her jacket, her contact lenses, and backpack with basic supplies such as a torch and a sandwich.

"I had pretty much everything I thought I could possibly need, but then I thought I could cross the river, but was unsuccessful and lost pretty much everything in the process. The rapids were a bit faster than I was."

By the Thursday morning, her strong spirit was faltering and she reached her lowest point.

 

"I started thinking 'Oh gosh I don't know what I'm doing," so I had a big prayer.

"Then I had this idea, to get high, keep going up, up, up. Eventually the trees got thinner and thinner, and then I popped out on a path, and I thought 'oh my gosh, the path!' and I did a little dance on the side of the path . . . I started thinking maybe this isn't a path that's used very often, then I started seeing horse poo, and thought 'there's people and horses'.

"Suddenly I heard a person coming and I ran up to him and said 'Oh my gosh can you help me?'

"He was saying 'Yes, I know you'. He kind of gave me a hug and said 'it's OK, it's OK.

"He kindly gave me his shoes, his shirt, and said 'walk with me'.

"He walked me down the mountain, we bumped into some other tourists who had water and food."

Before long Ms Kelly was on a helicopter to the El Bolson hospital.

Back in Perth that night Ms Kelly's parents were getting ready to leave for Argentina when the Australian embassy in Buenos Aires called.

"I received the phone call, and I was listening but not believing, and I was so taken back by it I couldn't speak and I asked the embassy staff to tell Leonie what they told me but when I passed the phone over I was a bubbling mess," Mr Kelly said.

Seeing his tears, Mrs Kelly's heart sank.

"I thought the worst, and then I realised Jamie's tears were joy, not otherwise," she said. "They told us she was alive and enroute to hospital. It was a surreal moment because that day I was thinking they would probably call the search off before too long. It was three nights and three days she had been missing."

But their best moment of joy came when they got to Argentina and El Bolson and saw for real their daughter safe and sound.

"To see her smiling face was just incredible," Mr Kelly said.

The Kellys said they were immensely grateful for the help the Australian Government gave and were especially overwhelmed by the local effort.

"We know the search started very early, we know there were firemen, volunteers, police, there was a helicopter on standby, the aero club, we just couldn't get over the amount of resources that were put in to look for our daughter," Mr Kelly said.

"I just can't thank the local people enough, particularly Jayne and Bruno and Bruno's parents, and the church people.

"One of the highlights was going to meet the president of the local fire brigade to express our gratitude for all the effort they did in finding Emma, and he gave her a huge hug," Mr Kelly said.

"The local people have been great . . . we couldn't talk more highly of El Bolson, and we would certainly recommend Australians come and visit."

Ms Kelly said she had been stunned to find out how many people had swung into action, be it searching or praying or offering support.

"I was just kind of in awe about the people who were caring about the situation, ah, so exciting even to see that kind of thing published in the paper.

"It's not often you see the word 'God' written in print, I think God was really in the situation the whole time.

"I don't know what I would have done if I were somewhere . . . where I didn't know anyone.

"Jayne's family, and people at the church, just popping in and saying Hi, just making sure you're OK, do you need anything.

"The support network has been amazing."

The search for Ms Kelly's attacker continues, as the lone suspect who had been arrested was released when she did not recognise him in a police line-up.

On Thursday, with police from El Bolson, Ms Kelly returned to the site of the attack seeking further evidence.

But despite all, she's now heading home for Australia with excellent memories, despite the one exception.

"Come to Argentina, you'll make friends overnight," she said. "I think I ran into the one bad person in El Bolson.

"I'll definitely be back, there are more mountains left for