Thirst!

May 13th, 2023| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Ms. Lilliam Ip set out optimistically to Bright, at the base of the Victorian Alps, a large mountain system in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria. But this 48-year-old woman failed to check in with relatives five days later, and they raised the alarm.

Rescue authorities scoured the remote, hilly terrain and her car was finally spotted at the end of a dirt road by a police helicopter.

Wodonga Police Station Sgt. Martin Torpey said:

She used great common sense to stay with her car and not wander off into bushland, which assisted in police being able to find her.”

He said Ip was planning on taking a short day trip to a nearby dam, and had only a couple of snacks and some candy with her, but no water. When she hit a dead end in the road, she realized she had taken a wrong turn. She attempted to turn her car around and retrace her route, but it became stuck in the muddy track. Her cellphone was out of range, making it impossible to call for help. Aerial footage taken by police shows the moment she was spotted by rescue helicopter—waving her arms on a narrow dirt trail, surrounded by towering trees.

Said Ip:

I thought I was going to die there. My whole body shut down on after four days.”

Ip told Australia’s Nine News network that, the day before, she had apparently penned a farewell note to her family. When officers arrived on the scene in a police van, her first request was simple: “Water and a cigarette.”

While she couldn’t move her car, she was able to use the heater to stay warm during the cool nights of the southern hemisphere fall.

But how did she survive for five days? With no water.

I failed to mention she had with her … a bottle of wine in her car that was intended as a gift for her mother. Our lady Ip doesn’t drink, but on this calamitous occasion she did.

Sgt. Martin Torpey:

That got her through.”

Of course, Ip isn’t the first person to be stranded and forced to survive on an unconventional diet. A sailor from Dominica made it through 24 days adrift at sea with little more than a bottle of ketchup to sustain him. (Heinz later tracked him down after an international search and gave him a new boat.)

Wine, however, is a known diuretic that removes water from the body and can cause dehydration, and nope, it doesn’t make the survival-kit list.

But it did. This time. For Ip.

Ip was taken to hospital for observation, where she was treated for dehydration and later released, according to police.

Torpey:

After being lost in the bush for five days, she was extremely relieved and grateful to see us, and we were just as happy to see her.”

I don’t know much about these things—wine, I mean, seeing that I’m a good Baptist, but this I know: there is another kind of thirst that the Bible recommends.

As the deer pants for the streams of water,
so my soul pants for You, God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before the presence of God?
Why are you depressed, my soul,
and [why] are you disturbed within me?
Wait on God, for I shall again give Him thanks
[for] the deliverance [that comes] from His presence.
By day Yahweh will command His lovingkindness;
and by night His song will be with me.
Psalm 42:1–2, 5, 8

SOURCE: Washington Post