Harrowing footage has emerged from a daring rescue that saved the lives of seven tourists who were left clinging to a cliff as waves lapped below.<\/p>\n
The heart-stopping rescue took place over the weekend at North Head lookout in Durras, New South Wales, after a family-of-seven, four adults and three children, got into a bad situation. <\/p>\n
It is understood that they had spent the morning walking along the base of the cliffs when the tide suddenly started coming in. <\/p>\n
With nowhere else to go, they were forced to climb the rocky cliff face and wait for help as the waves became increasingly high and powerful.<\/p>\n
Eurobodalla SES commander Peter Collins told news.com.au it took three nerve-racking hours for all seven of the tourists to be rescued, but thankfully, everyone was okay.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get a fair few calls from people who are stuck places and usually we can just walk them out,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when we got there, I knew this was not going to be an ordinary rescue. This was a very, very dangerous situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were so close to the waves breaking at the bottom and I thought, gosh, if a huge wave comes in, it\u2019s going to wash them straight off and they\u2019d be gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The holiday-makers had been walking around the bottom of the rocks on Sunday morning when they called police at 9am stating that they needed assistance. <\/p>\n
The police then called Westpac Rescue Helicopters, who flew out to the scene, but soon realised it was far too dangerous for them to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe chopper would have just blown them off the cliff face,\u201d Mr Collins explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that is when they called us. By the time we got there, it was around 11.30am, so they had been stuck there for 2 and a half hours already.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crew began by setting up an \u2018Arizona Vortex\u2019 frame at the top of the cliff, which is basically for edge protection. <\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, we lowered one of our more experience members down to them,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey assessed them for first aid, and to see whether they needed water or any other assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey then decided the order in which who was going to be rescued first and all that, starting with the youngest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were actually quite calm, but when they started raising them, they were quite white-knuckled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took them one-by-one and had set up our own first aid station while the ambulance was on the way. <\/p>\n
\u201cOther than a few scrapes, there were thankfully no serious injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miraculously, all seven survived thanks to the help of the SES crew.<\/p>\n
Mr Collins said it was probably \u201cthe biggest rescue\u201d he had ever been involved in and urges others to take care when walking around the rock edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team were all just so happy at the end of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was the biggest rescue I have been involved it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re walking around rock edges, you need to be really aware of what could happen, especially when there are big waves. <\/p>\n
\u201cBasically the rule is, if the rock is wet, don\u2019t go there.\u201d<\/p>\n
On their Facebook page, the NSW SES Moruya and NSW SES Batemans Bay Units shared the experience to their followers, who applauded their efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rescue was for 7 holiday makers stranded in the Rocks near the North Head Camp ground, South of Durras,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201c\ufe0fThe casualties consisted of three children and four adults… [who were] hiking around the waters edge and became trapped by the high tide along with a rather large swell.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey managed to climb up to a ledge about 10 metres above the waves to await rescue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Westpac Rescue Helicopter was activated, however the operation deemed too dangerous to try and winch the casualties off the cliff face, thus activating the Eurobodalla SES Vertical Rescue team to perform the Rescue.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon arrival, it became evident that this was going to be difficult and extracted rescue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSlowly, 1×1 the casualties were extracted to the top of the cliff by us lowering a NSW SES Team Member, 40 metres down a cliff face to hook up a casualty to then be hauled back up to the top.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Rescue Operation took us over three hours to perform. The casualties were tired and cold, but in good spirits and very glad to be back on high ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuge thank you to all NSW SES Batemans Bay and Moruya Teams who performed the Rescue, outstanding job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoa, that looks proper dangerous,\u201d one commented.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat work everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell done Eurobodalla SES! Thanks for your service to our community.\u201d another said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were so lucky you guys were able to rescue them, well done all of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2025, the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) recorded its second-busiest year on record, with volunteers responding to over 60,000 incidents and answering more than 140,000 calls for help. <\/p>\n
This represents an average of approximately 1,100 incidents per week, with peak demand occurring in January, March, and May 2025, driven by severe storms and flooding. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harrowing footage has emerged from a daring rescue that saved the lives of seven tourists who were left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[302313,63,689,302317,302310,8665,302323,302312,302320,11980,302319,2456,302316,43,302324,104599,795,302318,302314,673,44,64669,677,302315,286577,302322,701,302311,41,39,42,40,302321],"class_list":{"0":"post-624160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-aid-station","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","11":"tag-cliff-edge","12":"tag-cliff-face","13":"tag-coast-guard","14":"tag-coasttwo-divers","15":"tag-dangerous-rescue","16":"tag-daring-rescue","17":"tag-dream-job","18":"tag-experience-members","19":"tag-facebook","20":"tag-harrowing-scenes","21":"tag-headlines","22":"tag-holiday-makers","23":"tag-horror-scenes","24":"tag-inc","25":"tag-morning-walking","26":"tag-multi-agency-search","27":"tag-new-south-wales","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-nsw-state-emergency-service","30":"tag-oceania","31":"tag-ordinary-rescue","32":"tag-peter-collins","33":"tag-point-lookout","34":"tag-queensland","35":"tag-rocky-cliff-face","36":"tag-top-news","37":"tag-top-stories","38":"tag-topnews","39":"tag-topstories","40":"tag-tourist-hotspot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}