An Australian woman, while scrolling through her phone gallery, witnessed the last moments of a drowning man in a popular waterfall in Grampians National Park, Australia on Saturday.
Anneka Brading, who was with her two friends, caught the moment on her GoPro camera at Mackenzie Falls when a 28-year-old man fell into the water. The man from Taiwan slipped and drowned as a nearby group of friends frantically looked for him. However, his body was found by the authorities, only next morning.
Soon after the picture was taken, she heard the screams from the people pointing towards the man in the background.
The Melbourne woman was filming with her GoPro unaware a man had just fallen in behind her. #9News https://t.co/Ey6ZRB6JCo
— Nine News Gold Coast (@9NewsGoldCoast) January 23, 2018
"At that point, we had no idea what was going on. We thought some sort of animal was in the water. We couldn't understand what was going on and they kept screaming and pointing," the 24-year-old woman told The Stawell Times.
As soon as the incident happened, Brading tried using her phone to contact the emergency services. However, there was no signal on any due to the network problems.
She said "I got out of the water and tried to call triple zero, asking everyone if they had service. Not one person had service," she further added "Everyone didn't know what to do and we couldn't understand [the man's friends]. My legs were shaking when I knew what was going on but no one knew what to do."
There were nearly 40 people who were present at the waterfall when the incident happened. There was even an off-duty lifeguard who dived into the water but was unsuccessful in helping the man as the pressure was too strong from the waterfall. The lifeguard was unable to identify the man as it was too deep and dangerous.
When Brading was still unable to notify the authorities, she ran a kilometer towards the car park. But to her surprise, there was still no mobile reception available there. Following which, she drove for 10 minutes and then notified the emergency services.
This is not the first time such an incident to has happened in the MacKenzie Falls. Earlier, in 2004, four of a family had drowned during their picnic.
