On Thursday the Wilderness National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) station commander, Garth Dominy said that a search party was initiated along the Silver River, inland of Wilderness on Tuesday to look for a local father (34) and daughter (11).
The man’s sister called the NSRI saying they went camping on Thursday, 26 March, to wait out the lockdown. She said she dropped them off at the start of a hiking trail and they were only supposed to return after the 21 days lockdown.
However, she received a call from them on Tuesday afternoon saying that their supplies are running low, the call was dropped and no further contact could be made.
The man’s brother assisted and pointed the campsite out to the NSRI.
Four NSRI Wilderness crewmembers volunteered to do a preliminary search of the area which went on until 11 pm on Tuesday. The search was stopped as the dense vegetation made it unsafe to access the area at night.
“It had come to our attention during the night that the father and daughter had their dog and a kitten with them on the camping trip,” said Dominy.
On Wednesday morning, three members of the NSRI Wilderness crew and four members of the EMS rescue paramedics and an EMS rescue manager from the WC Government Health EMS and WSAR, George Fire and Rescue Services attended the briefing and preparations were made to restart the search. The SA Police Services were also updated.
After getting permission from a local landowner to use his private land for access to the remote and dense bush area, they eventually found the two campers.
The father and daughter duo were doing well and had already been packing up to go back home.
