Woman trapped upside down between boulders in seven-hour phone search nightmare

A woman sparked an epic mission involving a dozen emergency personnel after her attempt to retrieve a lost left her trapped between two half-tonne boulders.

Matilda Campbell slipped into the three-metre crevice in Hunter Valley in New South Wales, , earlier this month, after losing her phone, with her friends initially spending an hour trying to free her from what she later described as a "rock exploration disaster". They called local services on 000, who rushed to the scene.

, paramedics and specialist rescuers launched an hours-long operation to wrangle the woman from her tight spot, with pictures showing her bare feet poking from the narrow gap in the rocks. They were ultimately forced to excise a massive 500kg slab of stone to set her free, with some of her rescuers describing the experience as a notable first.

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A team of “multidisciplinary” emergency workers arrived to find that Ms Campbell was stuck in a "tight S bend", and quickly worked to establish a safe access point from which they could retrieve the woman. They removed heavy boulders and constructed a wooden frame, making "both feet" accessible, reports .

The entire process took an hour, with Peter Watts, a specialist rescue paramedic, saying he had "never encountered a job like this". He added: "In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic I had never encountered a job quite like this. It was challenging but incredibly rewarding. Every agency had a role and we all worked incredibly well together to achieve a good outcome for the patient."

The woman was ultimately freed having suffered little more than minor cuts and scrapes, but officials were unable to retrieve the phone she pursued into the crevice. Campbell followed up the ordeal with a post on social media in which she informed her followers that she was "recovering" from some injuries and vowed not to explore rocks again "for a while".

She wrote: “It’s safe to say I’m the most accidental prone person ever. I am OK just have some injuries I’m recovering from, no more rock exploration for me for a while!” She said she “wanted to give the biggest shoutout to my friends [and] the team who worked so hard to get me out", adding: "I’m forever thankful as most likely I would [otherwise] not be here today."