White Island volcano eruption survivor shares recovery story | Photo

White Island volcano survivor Stephanie Browitt has opened up about painful recovery she’s endured in the months following the horror eruption.

One of the White Island volcano survivors has shared harrowing details of her recovery since the eruption in December 2019.

Stephanie Browitt suffered extensive burns to 70 per cent of her body when she visited the island with her father and sister, who didn’t survive the horror eruption off the island’s east coast.

On Sunday, Ms Browitt shared a recovery update to her social media account, describing the agonising process of healing her skin and even learning how to walk again.

“In February I was still having skin grafts/surgeries done in hospital,” she captioned next to a photo of her bare legs.

“One of the last places to receive skin were my legs because I didn’t have any spots left for them to take from, so they had to wait for my donor spots to heal so they could take more again.

Stephanie Browitt (pictured) survived the horrific eruption on December 9, 2019 while her 21-year-old sister Krystal and father, Paul, were tragically killed along with 19 other people.

Ms Browitt shared on social media the agonising process of undergoing skin grafts and having to learn to walk again.

Mr Browitt said her legs needed multiple surgeries, which made learning to walk again all the more difficult.

“I’d be up and walking (sort of) and then I’d need another surgery and I’d be set back all over again,” she wrote.

“It was really upsetting. I had another surgery on my legs and they took some skin from my thighs and behind my knee cap. Let me tell you, the donor sites are the most painful things I’ve ever experienced.

“My pain turns to frustration.”

But the determined 23-year-old said that while physio sessions cause her unbearable pain, she will never say no to a session.

“You can do anything as long as you don’t tell yourself the opposite. I didn’t want to do physio because it was so painful … but when they came around I never said no.”

Ms Browitt was lucky to survive the December 9 eruption, which killed her father Paul and sister Krystal.

Stephanie shared a recovery post to social media.

The 23-year-old suffered burns to 70 per cent of her body.

Her family from Melbourne were on the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship to celebrate Krystal Browitt’s 21st birthday when she, Stephanie and their father and 23-year-old sister Stephanie took an excursion to White Island with other tourists on December 9.

Wife and mother, Marie, opted to stay on-board the cruise ship.

On the day of the tragedy, the Browitts reached the centre of the island at about 2pm, taking a picture together at the edge of the steaming crater lake at 2.04pm.

Six minutes afterwards they were headed to the jetty when Whakaari/White island erupted.

Krystal managed to capture the moment it began on camera, with a gas cloud beginning to emerge from near the crater lake.

In June, Ms Browitt revealed her fingers had to be amputated.

Their tour guide instructed the group to start running and before Ms Browitt was able to put her gas mask on her face she was hit by a wave of ash and rock.

“It felt like a wave, like it just takes you,” she said.

“I was just knocked over. I was tumbling, rolling, for minutes. I mean it felt like forever until it stopped and then it was just burning hot.

“I remember trying to stand up and it took so much energy just to stand up I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe how hard this is.’ My legs just felt like jelly.”

After getting to her feet and walking for a short time, Ms Browitt fell and tumbled down a small hill and landed among a group of people.

Help only arrived nearly an hour after the volcano erupted.

No one was able to move, Ms Browitt said, as they waited for help with the sun making her burns more painful.

She heard her father call out her name and called back to him before everything went quiet, Ms Browitt said.

Krystal, left, and Stephanie Browitt, right, were both on White Island during the eruption. Krystal tragically didn’t survive.

“I think a lot of people gave up on screaming,” she said.

“But every 15 to 20 minutes, I’d hear my name again. My dad was yelling out my name and I realised he was checking up on me to make sure I was awake.”

Ms Browitt was rescued by helicopter pilot Jason Hill but not before the pilots tried to load Paul in first, who told them to take his daughters first.

After landing at Whakatāne, a 20-minute flight from the volcano, Ms Browitt was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Ms Browitt and her father Paul were flown to Melbourne and Paul died in hospital four weeks after the eruption.

Tragically, Krystal’s body was discovered on the island on December 13.

– With the New Zealand Herald