Barefoot And Alone In The Dark And Rain ... But Alive
Illawarra Mercury
Thursday April 18, 2002
The boy should not have been alive.
He had fallen 100m, 30 storeys, down a sheer cliff face.
He was in the dark and the rain, barefoot and alone, for several hours before a rescue crew heard him cry.
The high-pitched cry broke the silence of the night near the base of Mt Keira.
A rescue team first thought it was a possum, but the cry led them to five-year-old Tom, sitting in thick scrub in a blue T-shirt and orange shorts and no shoes.
He was where he had landed on the steep incline at the base of the cliff, 15m higher and to the right of his mother who had died instantly from the fall.
Police are treating it as a murder-suicide.
Wollongong Police Chief Inspector Michael Robinson said yesterday that the 31-year-old mother may have jumped with her child in her arms, cushioning the impact and possibly saving his life.
Her body was recovered from the base of the cliff at lunchtime yesterday.
From the top of the cliff you can see all of the Wollongong coastline.
It is a 100m drop to the foot of the cliff and the start of a 60 degree incline of thick trees and scrub which causes the feet to slip with every step.
The Westpac Life Saver Helicopter rescue team was winched down through a 2m gap in the eucalyptus canopy to reach the boy.
Tom was sitting in the rain, whimpering, cold and shivering and looked dazed and shocked, but alive.
For the next four hours, before the boy could be winched out of the scrub by helicopter at 2am, Dr Michael Novy cradled the boy in his left arm, checking him for injuries with his free hand.
He sat braced between a rock and a tree to keep from sliding down the mountain.
A combined rescue team of police, ambulance and rangers brought a stretcher in by foot and chainsaws were used to cut a larger gap in the canopy so the stretcher could be winched out.
Among the rescuers was paramedic Paul Featherstone, who rescued Stuart Diver in the Thredbo disaster.
The boy was airlifted to Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick.
© 2002 Illawarra Mercury