The Mount Isa RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter crew has located and rescued a man who spent two nights stranded in remote North Western Queensland, after his vehicle became bogged on a waterlogged road.
He is the eighth person the Mount Isa rescue chopper crew has airlifted to safety from flooded and waterlogged areas of outback Queensland, since Monday.
The chopper was called into action by the Queensland Police Service (QPS) at 9am this morning, to search for the missing motorist, after the alarm was raised when he failed to arrive at his planned destination.
It is believed he set out for Doomadgee from Mount Isa on Tuesday morning, in a white utility, but nobody had heard from him since he called in to say he was still travelling and was close to a cattle station in the Lawn Hill National Park area.
The rescue helicopter crew followed the route it was believed he had taken and spotted his stricken car, with the man asleep inside.
“He was in good spirits when we picked him up, though somewhat sunburned as he had gone for a walk to see if anything was nearby but returned to his car, which was the right thing to do,” said RACQ LifeFlight Rescue Aircrew Officer Billy McCreadie.
The man was airlifted to Mount Isa Hospital for further observation.
He is the eighth person the Mount Isa rescue chopper crew has airlifted to safety from flooded and waterlogged areas of outback Queensland this week.
Yesterday (Weds 28th Dec), the crew was tasked by QPS at 1.30pm to locate two travellers whose ute became bogged while they were trying to avoid being stranded in Queensland, by flooding in the Central West region.
The man and woman had set out from Mount Isa for Darwin, but only made it to about 30 kilometres outside Urandangi when conditions became more challenging and their vehicle could go no further.
The pair was found by another chopper, which had joined the search, from a local cattle station.
The motorists were flown by that aircraft the cattle station then airlifted by the RACQ LifeFlight Rescue Helicopter crew to Mount Isa.
These missions followed the successful search and rescue on Boxing Day, in which the LifeFlight crew located and airlifted five people who had been stranded since Christmas Eve, after their vehicle broke down on a remote road in North West Queensland.
A woman from the group had walked 35 kilometres on flooded, waterlogged dirt roads before she, and then her travel companions, were spotted by the chopper crew.
All five were transported to safety in Lake Nash.
