On Wednesday March 13th, 2024, a family was found standing by a car, in Western Australia, severely exhausted and dehydrated after being missing for three days.
On Sunday March 10th, 2024, a family of seven went missing in a remote flooded region after planning to travel 400 miles from Kalgoorlie Boulder to Tjuntjuntjara in Western Australia. When they failed to arrive in the Aboriginal community, many people were worried and confused. The family consisted of two elderly men, four children between the ages of 12 and 17, and an elderly woman that were last seen hiking in the national park before getting lost.
A search operation was launched by local authorities, volunteers, and family friends of the missing people only focusing on one goal: finding them alive.
Initial attempts at finding the family were hampered by the weather, which had inundated highways and closed the main railway to the eastern states. Western Australia Police suspended the search on Tuesday, with Goldfields-Esperance District Inspector Mick Kelly telling WA that the aerial search was abandoned after just an hour.
According to BBC they got lost when they were hiking, after losing the path they were originally hiking on and not being able to find it again, making it harder for the search and rescue team to find them on foot. One of the volunteers even said,”…We didn’t know where they were, the road is incredibly treacherous at the moment.” Thankfully, the family was reunited with their loved ones and received medical attention towards their well-being and any injuries they may have gotten from the three day hike.
The rescue operation and community were relieved that nothing bad or tragic had happened and that they found their friends alive even as far as saying it was a “great outcome”. “I didn’t think it would be quite so emotional because they’re really bush savvy, we thought they’d be okay,” Rhonda Thorncroft told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She continues on to say, “We were really worried about the little one, well all of them… we’ll be very happy to see them home, that’s for sure.”
