RESCUERS FIND MISSING WOMAN “CAKED IN MUD” 2KM FROM HOME
March 2, 2020
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RACQ CQ Rescue has today found Yalbaroo woman, Barbara Marinic, 83, lying in a cane field “caked in mud” four days after she went missing.
The elderly woman wandered away from her home early Friday morning and rescuers have spent days since scouring nearby cane fields and bushland between Yalbaroo and Pindi Pindi, about 70km north of Mackay.
The Mackay-based helicopter was tasked at 11am today, the fourth day in a row, to search an area adjacent to the Bruce Highway.
About 12.30pm, the rescue crewman in the back of the chopper spotted a “hole” in a cane field at about 100 feet. The helicopter circled around and hovered about 50 foot above to find the missing elderly woman “caked in mud, lying flat on her back, with her hand across her face and leg on a strange angle”. The crew on board thought she was deceased as she didn’t move despite the downwash from the aircraft.
The rescue helicopter was landed on a dirt clearing about 200 metres from the cane paddock and the Critical Care Paramedic and rescue crewman waded through knee-deep mud and dense sugar cane to the woman’s location.
“As we approached her she lifted her hand slightly – we couldn’t believe she was alive,” a crewman said.
“She was absolutely caked in mud and sludge – you couldn’t tell her dress was black and she still had the straw hat at her feet,” he said.
The woman was in an altered state of consciousness and severely dehydrated.
She was found within 100 metres of an area searched extensively by the helicopter crew yesterday who thought they had detected movement near a dam’s edge.
It appears the missing woman had crossed the Bruce Highway, fortunately navigated around a large dam and entered cane fields just two kilometres from her home where she has become stuck in mud.
Police and SES crews, who were just 400 metres away when she was located, were immediately alerted to the find. The woman was loaded on board the rescue helicopter and flown to Mackay Base Hospital at 1.45pm.
Rescuers described locating the missing woman alive as “absolutely awesome” on what was the fourth day of an extensive air and ground search including police and SES crews.
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Please credit any released photos and video footage to RACQ CQ Rescue.
Please note: Full title of rescue service is RACQ CQ Rescue.
For further information please contact:
Naomi Noy
RACQ CQ Rescue
Ph: 0417 578 182