‘John swam to get help. I never saw him again’
Survivor recalls 2007 ordeal in Thai cave
Almost 11 years ago, Helena Overton, too, was trapped in a Thai cave, when a travel adventure went fatally wrong.
Overton, of Solihull, England, recalls the terror that gripped her on that fateful expedition in October 2007, of which she was the sole survivor.
Her boyfriend of four years, John Cullen, died. Their two guides and five other tourists — three of whom were children — were also swept to their deaths.
The couple were travelling for a year when they met up with a friend who had just done a cave tour. “He told us to do it, so we booked,” she says.
But Overton, 32, had a long-standing fear of drowning, and knew she was out of her comfort zone. “It wasn’t my type of thing. I said to John, ‘You’ll take me back to the beach tomorrow?’ and he said ‘Yeah.’ ”
With them were a German boy and his mother, as well as two Swiss girls and their stepmother. Accompanied by local guides, the group took a two-hour boat trip to a village, from where they trekked for two hours through the jungle to reach the mouth of the cave.
Twenty minutes in, disaster struck. “We heard this massive roar,” she says. “We turned around and the water had just come in. It was like a big wave.”
Horrified, Overton saw the German boy engulfed by the flood. “The water was rising and rising and we were getting pushed up. I just thought ‘We’ve had it,’ ” she says. But, above the water level, she found a small ledge.
“John told me to sit there so I did. He was on it for a bit, but then he decided to go and get help. I never saw him again.”
Overton, knowing nothing of this, remained perched on the ledge, waiting for rescue.
After a while, Overton began to accept that she was going to die there. “It was scary, because I was all on my own,” she says.
Eventually, she heard shouts. “I’m here!” she screamed back. “I’m here!” It was a local man.
He came barefoot and carried only a bamboo cane. He guided her out and they trekked back through the jungle, leeches climbing their legs. Overton was amazed to learn she had been trapped for 16 hours.
“It hits you later,” admits Overton. “I had so much guilt for a long time.
“But I’ve moved on. I’ve got married, I’ve got two kids — you have to get on with it. I probably would have done something really harmful to myself if I hadn’t. But it’ll never leave me.”