Footloose - Tragedy in the Outback (July 2005)

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Little did I know about the time I was penning the words on survival for the May issue of ‘Footloose’ that a tragedy was being played out in the outback.

It was back in late January of this year that Martin Pudney had bought a new Nissan XTrail and elated by his choice of new vehicle he decided to head north to give it a bit of a try out in the Northern Flinders Ranges. Although 30-year-old Martin was working in Adelaide he had been born and bred in Whyalla in the state’s north so wasn’t unfamiliar with the country or the extremes of weather.

Now the Flinders are hardly an intimidating place in normal tourist eyes and pretty benign when the weather is cool and pleasant during the peak tourist time. But as Martin headed north in the peak of summer the region is neither cool nor benign.

While a Coroner’s Inquest is still to be conducted from what we know he travelled to Arkaroola where he took on some fuel, mentioned to someone there that he was heading for Wilpena Pound and then headed off. However, he took a diversion!

Echo Camp Backtrack is a popular 4WD track through a remote area of the Arkaroola wilderness area, which many 4x4 readers would be familiar with. To an experienced four-wheeler, even in a reasonably stock standard 4WD vehicle, the route is hardly challenging. Even a relatively inexperienced driver in a ‘real’ 4WD vehicle would have little trouble. But in a ‘soft four wheeler’, such as an XTrail – or Honda CRV or any of that ilk – the track throws up a few more challenges, which in this writer's eyes are not insurmountable or life threatening– but challenges none-the-less.

Echo Camp Waterhole has water in it occasionally, but not during the warmer months.

Martin Pudney’s vehicle was found on a steep hill, some distance along the track, about 20km from the resort. From the police who attended the scene, they could see where he had got stopped and had gouged holes in the track thru’ spinning his wheels. But it was hardly bogged – while it was a little intimidating by all accounts, because of the steep edges to the track, police got into the vehicle and backed it down the hill, no digging or recovery required! No tyres were damaged and tyre pressures seemed unaltered.

What followed next for Martin, made what was an inconvenient situation into a life threatening one.

He left his air-conditioned vehicle with its near full tank of fuel – taking only his mobile phone with him. However, while the whole area is pretty well covered with UHF repeaters where even a hand-held UHF radio would work on many of the hilltops, there is absolutely no mobile phone coverage.

And it was HOT! The day of the tragedy the temperature in the Arkaroola area was around 46-48°C in the shade, with a hot northerly wind blowing from the heat soak of Lake Eyre. Police on the scene in the relative cool of the late evening were drinking about a litre of water an hour as they investigated around the immediate area.

Martin’s body was found just seven kilometres away; he obviously had quickly succumbed to the heat and the onset of dehydration and heat stress. He had not backtracked from the vehicle, but had walked on as if heading for Arkaroola Springs, a small blue dot marked on some maps of the area. How easy is it to find and does it have water all the time? Good questions which only someone very familiar with the immediate area would know, or may be willing to guess! Still, maybe he had become disorientated and had simply wandered off the track a short distance without even realising it?
Back in the abandoned vehicle police found a bladder of water containing about six litres of the life saving fluid! It seems that there was no sign of any water being carried by Martin!

The lessons of inexperience and inadequate preparation are once again obvious! A series of small mistakes, culminating in leaving the vehicle, lead to a tragic outcome!

If you like to read the actual 'Finding of Inquest', it can be found at:
http://www.courts.sa.gov.au/courts/coroner/findings/findings_2007/pudney.finding.htm

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