SANDS OF TIME Lost tourist’s beach SOS leads to dramatic rescue

Only by writing a desperate SOS in the sand of a riverbank was Mr Keys found and rescued after 47 hours alone in the bush.

He had gone swimming down a river but lost his bearings after taking a shortcut back to base camp. “I feel stupid but lucky”.

“It’s safe to say that I’m very grateful to everyone involved in my rescue”, he wrote on his blog. Mr Foat said, “I was stoked as this was the first good clue we had”.

So Keys made his method to a sandy embankment & wrote “HELP” – with an arrow pointing to where he was resting.

“Not once did I think I wouldn’t make it out of there”. “Nothing to do but keep swimming and that’s what I did”.

He was rescued a day later – after two days of helicopters scouring the area – and describes the moment of joy on his blog.

“As the morning went on I heard helicopters over in the distance and guessed they were searching for me”, he said. He then came across stream and followed it, assuming it was the one that led back to the camp.

It was at this stage Mr Keys had the idea of writing SOS message “HELP. I thought this would be enough to get any helicopter that saw it looking in the right place”, he said.

Geoff Keys, 63, wrote “HELP 2807” in giant lettering in the sand after getting lost in Jardine National Park, Queensland, for two days.

By that time, Mr Keys had spent his second night lost in the bush.

Mr Keys told the Daily Express that it was not until the following day and another night in the bush that he was finally found. His friends had reported him missing and the distant sound of helicopters overheard was a happy sign that he could be rescued.

“After we travelled another 6km I asked the pilot to turn back so I could head back to the drawing board, when out of the blue we spotted our missing man standing in the middle of the creek, waving at us”.

“He came around again while I continued to jump up and down like a lunatic and this time someone waved to me out of the window”. “I’m sorry about the worry caused to friends and family”, he said. “My ordeal was over”. A few hours later, a pilot noticed Mr Keys after he decided to go outside the original search zone “to scout a little further”. Police estimated the rescue cost to be $800,000.

Mr Keys who is well aware of how differently things could have ended is incredibly thankful to his rescuers.