Deborah Pilgrim, who was lost in bushland near Sedan for three days, speaks about her recovery a year after she was found

Deborah Pilgrim went for a morning walk on a camping trip when she became lost in the bushland for three days. A year after she was found – thanks to her ingenious SOS scrawled in dirt – the Surrey Downs woman has spoken out about her recovery.

• Deborah Pilgrim: How I survived three days in the bushland

The sound of the wind rushing through trees still unsettles Deborah Pilgrim, a year after she was lost for three days in the state’s remote Murraylands region.

“The swooshing of the trees, the noise of the trees, brings it all back,” Ms Pilgrim said. “It’s a bit of a trigger for me.

“In the winter time, especially if they come swishing up behind you, I just (mentally) hit the deck.”

The Surrey Downs woman, 56, who was on a camping trip with friends and her then partner near Sedan, has spoken publicly for the first time about her recovery since her ordeal, which sparked a large-scale search-and-rescue mission.

Ms Pilgrim took a sunrise walk by herself but became lost then ill.

Wandering through bushland on vast, remote properties, she left a trail of messages in dirt and in dust on abandoned cars, and lit many fires in the hope a smoke signal would be seen.

She became so desperate, she made the mistake of lighting a semi-circle of trees, which, when the wind changed, became a dire threat that made her think she’d “lit my own crematorium”.

While she recalled falling to her knees with relief when she was finally found after three days, she said readjusting to normality was difficult.

Deborah Pilgrim, pictured at home with her dog Summer, got lost on a morning walk while camping with friends a year ago. Picture: Dean Martin

“I wasn’t in a really good frame of mind and I had a lot of blanks to what happened out there,” she said.

Ms Pilgrim took six months off her job as a carer and deleted social media because of an onslaught of messages from strangers. “People think they’re saying the right thing and wanting to do the right thing, but it never is,” she said.

She sought professional help but found it difficult to eat and to stop the waves of adrenaline – flashbacks to her days in survival mode in the bush – in the months she was home.

Going out in public proved a challenge, too, as strangers approached her in shops and referred to her as “the lost girl”. “I’m normally such a confident, in-your-face person,” she said. “I’ve changed quite a bit. I’m under-confident now.

“I think about things over and over again before I even step out of my bedroom door, let alone my house.”

Ms Pilgrim woke up about 6am on Sunday, October 13 last year and decided on a sunrise walk, but became lost trying to head back to the campsite. By the middle of the day, she became violently ill from dehydration and passed out, not waking until after dark and then walking all night.

An SOS written on a driveway by Deborah Pilgrim after becoming lost in the Sedan area. Picture: SA Police

In the days that followed, she went into survival mode.

But when she set a semi-circle of trees alight to try to draw attention to her location, and the wind changed, she thought it could be the end.

“The shed (I was sheltering in) started getting hotter, and I thought, ‘I’ve lit my own crematorium, I’m going to die here’,” she said.

“That was horrendous. The trees that I had lit had fallen on the shed, and that sounded like an explosion, the shed was so hot.” But she escaped and managed to remain hopeful that she would be found.

“I was positive the whole time,” she said. “It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when.”

Eventually, a local landowner saw the letters SOS scrawled in the dirt driveway of his remote property and alerted authorities, leading to Ms Pilgrim’s rescue.

For all the difficulties she has faced, she said things are now improving.

She has found a silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic, as social distancing measures have aided her recovery.

“It sort of appeals to me that there’s no people around,” Ms Pilgrim said. She is looking forward to visiting her son Daniel and his partner Renee, who live in Tasmania, later this month. There is a particular appeal to the trip because it means she will get to meet her seven-month-old grandson Hunter for the first time.

“I’m lighting up now with a big grin on my face just thinking of them,” she said.