Injured teenager survives for SIX DAYS in Australian bush with no food or water after car crash

Kathleen Bautista, 19, survived leg and abdominal injuries alone for nearly a week
Alive and well: Kathleen Bautista survived for nearly week without food by drinking creek water
ACT Police
Sebastian Mann11 September 2015

A missing teenager has been found safe and well after surviving nearly a week in the Australian bush following a car crash.

Kathleen Bautista, 19, is believed to have survived by drinking creek water after her Hyundai i30 plunged 15m down a steep embankment in the Cotter reserve area of Canberra on Saturday.

She ate nothing for six days as rescuers mounted a frantic search. She was finally found at around 10.30am local time this morning.

Her relieved father, Ronnie Bautista, told the Canberra Times the family had never lost hope.

"I'm just ecstatic, just really very happy and over the moon that Kat's been found safe and sound," he said.

Ms Bautista was found as search teams scoured the area. One rescuer noticed her when she managed to lift her hand to get their attention.

Despite leg and abdominal injuries as well as dehydration, the university student is said to be in "very good spirits".

"She was lucid, had a clear conversation with us, she was chatty and even started telling jokes so she was relieved and she thanked us profusely," said search team member Lachlan Ryan told the paper.

"She was actually, despite her circumstances, in very good spirits."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in