A woman who fell four metres while gardening in her backyard at Thirroul has sustained serious injuries, including a broken shoulder, upper arm and pelvis.
The incident occurred on Friday, May 1, when the 49-year-old resident of Seabreeze Place clambered over the rear boundary fence of her property and fell into a river bed below.
Fortunately, she had her mobile phone with her and was able to call her husband, who then contacted emergency services.
NSW Ambulance Inspector Norm Rees said the woman was in excruciating pain when multiple ambulance units and emergency crews arrived at the scene around 11.25am.
"She was laying in a relatively dry creek bed, she wasn't in any threat from the water," Inspector Rees said.
Emergency crews had to descend the embankment to provide treatment for her fractures, taking spinal precautions during the rescue operation.
"She was in a fair bit of pain, it took a while to manage that," he added. "We'd stabilized her and medicated her enough to manage her pain."
SES volunteers, police rescue personnel and the NSW Ambulance Special Operations Team then set up equipment to move the injured woman up the embankment.
"It was a vertical extrication because of the distance and it was a sheer wall, it wasn't just an embankment, it was a sheer wall where it had been retained," Inspector Rees explained.
While the woman suffered significant injuries in the fall, Inspector Rees noted she was fortunate not to have landed on bamboo poles protruding from the embankment.
"She shouldn't have been on the wrong side of the fence, but she's lucky she missed all the spikes," he said. "She's lucky that she only got the injuries that she did, and she'll be out of action for a fair while."
