How man survived five hours in the bush including being eaten by a wombat
Allegedly stripped naked and shot twice in pitch darkness, Joshua Dempsey reveals how he survived five hours in remote bushland using nothing but vines and pure determination.
A man who was allegedly kidnapped, shot twice and left for dead in a remote national park has revealed his incredible story of survival after he was forced to fight off a wild animal and use bush vines as tourniquets to stop himself from bleeding to death.
In an exclusive interview, Joshua Dempsey, 33, recounted the terrifying ordeal that began on November 16, when he was allegedly abducted from a home in Port Macquarie on NSW’s mid-north coast.
Dempsey claims he was driven 30km into the dense Bago Bluff National Park, where he was ordered out of a car, stripped naked and brutally shot.
“I was ordered out of the car and made to strip naked,” Dempsey said. “I looked around, but it was too dark to see. It would have been pitch black if not for the cars’ headlights. I just knew I was in the bush.”
Dempsey was shot shortly after exiting the vehicle.
“I just realised I had been shot,’’ Dempsey said. “Got it in the leg. I saw the blood everywhere. I thought, ‘f**k, I’m gonna die. I’m done.’”
The first bullet tore through flesh and muscle. Blood spilt onto the dirt. Dempsey hit the ground.
He was then shot again. The second bullet ripped through his left arm.
“Next thing I know, they are all gone and I am there with blood all over me, bleeding to death,” Dempsey said.
Alone, naked, and bleeding profusely under a starless sky, Dempsey was confronted with the grim reality of his situation. He had lost an estimated four units of blood – more than half his body’s total volume.
“I wasn’t really in pain because of the shock and adrenaline,’’ he said. “I ended up just lying there for five minutes, in shock. Nothing had really registered.”
The gravity of his situation soon hit.
“That is when I realised I was going to die,” Dempsey said. “I realised that one must have hit an artery because of the amount of blood. I was bleeding to death.”
And that’s when he noticed the ants.
“I was being attacked by ants,” Dempsey said. “I started moving to get away from them. But I couldn’t get up — my legs didn’t work. I knew I had to move, so I started dragging myself forward with my arms.”
Describing his desperate crawl, he likened himself to a character from the TV series Vikings.
Dragging himself with his arms like “Ivar the Boneless from Vikings”, he crawled about 20 metres before realising it was hopeless.
“I was never going to get anywhere,” Dempsey said. “I was at least a 10-minute car drive back to the highway. I was going to bleed out long before I got there.”
But Dempsey decided he wouldn’t just lie down and die. With survival instincts kicking in, he knew he had to stop the bleeding.
“I knew I had to stop the blood, so I reached about and ended up finding this vine,” Dempsey said.
“I snapped it off and tied it around my leg. Tied it as tight as I could. I then ripped down another one.”
He then faced the agonising task of creating a tourniquet for his wounded arm, a feat he accomplished using his teeth.
“I obviously couldn’t use the arm I was trying to tie to tie it so I had to use my teeth,’ Dempsey said. “I tied it as tight as I could and in doing it, I ended up cutting up the inside of my mouth, and it started pissing out blood too.”
His mouth was now bleeding, but he’d managed to stem the flow from his arm and leg. Exhausted and weak, he made a calculated decision to preserve what little energy he had left.
“I thought about dragging myself some more, but I realised I would never make it out,” Dempsey said. “I figured I would only make the bleeding worse. So I decided the best thing I could do was elevate my leg and arm and sit there. Just f**king hope someone found me before I bleed to death.”
As the night wore on, a new terror emerged from the darkness.
“I was lying there for a bit when I felt something on my shoulder,” Dempsey said. “Near the gunshot. I turned around and I had some animal trying to eat me.”
He fought back with what strength he had left.
He tried to get a look at his attacker as he summoned all of his strength to punch at it. Dingo, he thought first.
“But it was too dark to see what it was,” Dempsey said. “I remember thinking, ‘No way, I’ve been shot twice, but I am going to die by being eaten alive.’”
He lashed out. Punched, scratched and slapped at the snarling mystery with teeth.
“After a while, it dropped off,” Dempsey said. “I still don’t know what it was, but I reckon it was like a wombat or an oversized rat because I reckon a dog would have finished me. I can tell you, I shit myself.”
The hours passed as he drifted in and out of consciousness, his body ravaged by blood loss.
“I got shot about two o’clock,” Dempsey said. “I had no sense of time and I was in and out of consciousness for the rest of the night. I ended up losing about four units of blood. I’ve lost more than half of my blood, you know?
“At this point, I’m thinking, how am I even alive? This is a miracle. Then, a moment later, I think it doesn’t matter. It’s hopeless. I am going to die any moment. I just lay there waiting to die.”
The arrival of dawn brought a sliver of hope.
“I felt excited that I had made it to morning,” Dempsey said. “I could see the trees and the bush. See birds and hear them chirping.”
But his hope was fleeting. The daylight revealed the true extent of his isolation.
“I could also see that I was in the middle of nowhere,” Dempsey said. “My chances of being found were not good. I screamed for a while, hoping I would be heard, but I gave up. Didn’t have the strength.”
A figure appeared through the trees around 7am. It was a bushwalker on a quiet morning hike.
“Next thing you know, he is standing right in front of me,” Dempsey said. “It was a man. A bushwalker.”
The hiker was stunned to find a man, naked, bloodied and clinging to life.
“He was in more shock than I was,” Dempsey said. “He looked at me for a while and then said, ‘Are you right?’ And I said, ‘I’ve been shot, can you call the ambulance?’”
The man gave Mr Dempsey his water bottle before calling for help.
“Then the next thing you know is at Port Macquarie Hospital. And then woke up in ICU.”
Three people – Nykeeta Jones, 38, Dahkota Harris, 27, and Matthew McDonald, 25 – were charged with offences relating to the incident.
Jones was charged with possessing a shortened firearm, possess ammunition, possessing an unauthorised pistol, kidnap in company with intent to cause actual bodily harm and discharging a firearm intending to cause grievous bodily harm.
Harris was charged with kidnapping in company with intent to cause actual bodily harm and shooting with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
McDonald was charged with kidnapping in company with intent to cause actual bodily harm, discharging a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and robbery while armed with a dangerous weapon.
Police are yet to reveal an alleged motive for the attack, and the case remains before the courts.
In a separate incident, Dempsey was charged with offences relating to the seizure of 8.37 grams of methamphetamine when police stopped and searched his sedan on Ocean Drive, North Haven, on July 21.
He was released from custody after agreeing to undergo rehabilitation for addiction.
“I really struggled with PTSD following the incident and ended up in a very bad place,” Dempsey said.
“I tried to get help, reaching out to rehab and drug and alcohol counsellors and went and saw my psychologist, but in the end I felt completely alone. I ended up self-medicating to deal with my issues, and that is a decision I regret. But I am dealing with the consequences of what my addiction led to, and I am in a rehabilitation centre completing a program now in a bid to turn my life around. I want to share my story when I come out the other side in a bid to make sure others don’t go down the same path.”
Dempsey is due to face court on October 23.
Originally published as How man survived five hours in the bush including being eaten by a wombat
