FOR SEVEN hours, Matilda Campbell was trapped upside down in a rock crevice, unable to move away from spiders or shift her weight from her badly grazed side.
She was scared she was never going to get out, worried she hadn't told her family she loved them.
But she knew she had to stop crying and keep calm. She had her friend by her side, and put her faith in the huge emergency team sent into remote Hunter bushland to rescue her.
The 23-year-old Newcastle woman on Tuesday reunited with her saviours at Rutherford Ambulance Station after her incredible story of survival - and her feet - made headlines across the globe.
Ms Campbell was holidaying for the weekend with a group of mates at Laguna, south west of Cessnock, when she went for a bushwalk with a friend on the morning of October 12 and sat down on some boulders.
Her phone fell off, and when Ms Campbell tried to retrieve it, she slipped and became stuck in a freak accident that baffled veteran rescue workers and sparked a precarious seven-hour mission.
'I somehow knew I would be okay'
Ms Campbell had been trying to wriggle her way out of the crevice for about half an hour when her friends decided to drive about 45 minutes to find phone reception and call emergency services.
"It happened so instantly, I lost my footing and then all of a sudden, I'm in this hole," she said.
"There was sticks in my hair, there was dirt everywhere, I could see spiders in the distance ... it was fairly intense not being able to do anything with my body and realising that I am truly, truly stuck."
Ms Campbell said she had her first panic attack and a big cry before forcing herself to relax and breathe.
She said the voices of her friend and the emergency workers helped stop darker thoughts creeping in.
"Probably towards the halfway mark I was like, 'I'm not getting out, I haven't said goodbye to anyone, I haven't said I love you to my family' ... but then somehow I knew that I would be okay from the team," she said.
"At the end I was like 'just get me out' but besides that I had full faith in the services that had come to rescue me and I just realised that I had to leave it in their hands, do everything that I'm told, just so they can help me out as much as possible."
Ms Campbell knew rescuers were cutting away rocks to get to her, but had no idea the scale of the operation.
One boulder that was removed was estimated to be about 500 kilograms.
"As soon as I got out, I was curled in a ball, and I looked up and I could have started crying ... just from the relief of not being confined in that little space anymore," she said.
"I felt myself saying 'please don't let me go back in'."
She had no feeling in her feet from being upside down for so long and was helped to a stretcher.
She was taken to John Hunter Hospital for treatment for dehydration, fractured vertebrae and nasty grazes. She has to go back for a check-up in the coming weeks but said otherwise she's doing well.
A photo showing the soles of Ms Campbell's feet through the narrow gap has since gone viral online, appearing in UK media and on platforms like the New York Times.
"Out of everything, I was like, are you kidding me!," she said with a laugh.
"I'm excited to let that go and not be known as my feet anymore.
"I've never had this type of attention on me ... I hadn't really gone through it yet in my own head."
Ms Campbell said on Tuesday it was amazing to see and hug the people behind the voices that kept her calm and got her out.
"They've made my life, I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for them and I'm just really, really thankful," she said.
Ms Campbell wanted to warn others a phone was never worth a life.
"I'm not the survivalist I thought I was so unfortunately I think I'm going to be banned from the bush for a bit and then maybe if I go back again, I won't take my phone," she said.
Inside a 'technical, difficult and dangerous' rescue
A MAJOR multi-agency response unfolded in the remote Laguna area as responding emergency services realised the gravity of the situation.
Extra specialist resources were called in, a wooden structure was built to keep Ms Campbell safe as rocks were removed one-at-a-time, rescue plans A, B and C were made and firefighters cut a path through the bush for easier access.
Police and ambulance rescue specialists, as well as other officers and paramedics and crews from Cessnock's Volunteer Rescue Association (VRA) and the Rural Fire Service (RFS) made up the team.
Nicole Priest, a rescue and special operations paramedic from Rutherford, said no scene report could have prepared her for what she saw when she arrived.
"I think we just thought, 'wow, how are we going to get her out?'," she said on Tuesday.
"From a rescue point of view, it was a really technical and difficult rescue and a dangerous one as well."
Emergency services battled rocky and steep terrain, a lack of phone reception and cloud cover affecting even their satellite phones. Most agencies faced about an hour-long travel time to the remote location.
"It was so tricky and it just went on for so many hours so to see her come out and to get out safely, it was really good for us to see and we were all thankful she got out safely," she said.
Rescue and specialist operations paramedic Peter Watts was able to squeeze into a gap in the rocks barely wider than his own chest to make contact with Ms Campbell's feet.
"She actually slid down in a bit of an s-shape and we had to bring her feet out at a bit of an angle and come back around the bend to get her out, and that's where things started getting really tricky and slowed down," he said.
A few false starts saw Ms Campbell get stuck on the way out. She was re-lowered, re-positioned, and they kept trying.
VRA crew member of more than 30 years Jason Sattler remembers being bewildered by what he saw when he arrived on the scene earlier that day.
"Literally, just the soles of Matilda's feet," he said.
"It looked like there were two feet suspended in mid-air with no body attached to it.
"Then hours and hours and hours later, Matilda came out upside down."
