Six months after surviving a horror helicopter crash in the remote Northern Territory, Craig Withers still remembers the moment it all went wrong.
"I looked down at the gauges," he said.
"The pilot looked at me, and then he just said, 'brace'."
Mr Withers and his two friends from Melbourne were enjoying a helicopter ride over the Top End when they suddenly plunged from the sky.
Their visit to the NT was one of tens — or even hundreds — of thousands during the popular dry season in 2022 as the pandemic eased.
But the misadventures of this tourism revival are stretching rescue services to their limits.
'The first impact was just so violent'
Mr Withers has publicly recounted his ordeal for the first time.
"Being in the co-pilot's seat flying along and then you can obviously hear the sound of the engine and the rotor and then there was just no engine, the sound just changed," Mr Withers said.
"The first impact was so violent and then it just didn't feel like it wasn't going to end, we just kept bouncing and rolling."
Falling more than 100 metres into rugged terrain, about 600 kilometres south-east of Darwin near Limmen National Park, the group of three — along with the pilot — miraculously survived.
Mr Withers said his first real fear wasn't for himself but for his friends.
"At that stage I could hear my best mate yelling out for his wife but couldn't hear her, so that was the first real fear that I had because I don't know if she was alive," he said.
Of the group, Mr Withers suffered the most serious injuries, including broken ribs and leg, two collapsed lungs, a torn shoulder and a spinal cord shear.
Despite being in excruciating pain, he managed to get up and walk from the crash site.
The group then began a 1-kilometre journey on foot, to reach help.
Mr Withers said the injuries he sustained completely changed his life and left him unable to work or exercise.
"I'm alive, and I'm very lucky and I'm very grateful for CareFlight," he said.
"But life as I know it is vastly different [now], and I'm still trying to understand what exactly that entails."
CareFlight's Acting Nursing Director, Brendon Kiley, was one of the crew sent out as part of the rescue mission.
He said hours went by before they found the injured group.
"We didn't know the nature of the injuries or how many people were injured," Mr Kiley said.
"Craig was the worst of the three and when we first got to the bedside he was in a great deal of distress and having difficulty breathing."
Remote rescues on the rise
CareFlight has been called out to 46 rotary wing missions in the Top End between May and August this year.
That figure has jumped by 11 in the past year.
"Traumatic injuries, a number of aviation incidents and then missing bush walkers and tourism-related injuries like injured ankles," Mr Kiley said.
"There is no reason to believe that the numbers won't either stay static or increase for next year."
With new NT government data showing more than 1.2 million domestic tourists visited the Northern Territory in the year ending June 2022, Mr Kiley said the influx of visitors could be having an impact on their workload.
"More people were keen to see Australia than they were to go overseas, and I guess as people start to trust travel then we will see an increase in numbers," he said.
Promise of a new helicopter
The federal government promised $10 million for a second rescue helicopter during the election campaign earlier this year.
Mr Kiley said, given the rise in emergency rescues, the extra resource was needed.
"Having two helicopters in the Top End gives us close to 100 per cent availability to perform the rescues and the medical services that we need to be able to do", he said.
"It's all about resourcing adequately for us to be able to provide the services to the communities and the travellers in the Top End, just to benefit health in general."
