Tourist lost in desert for six days

A tourist who wandered for six days through the Australian desert was rescued after
he managed to contact his family in Romania on his mobile phone.
Police say the man is lucky to be alive after setting off from Yulara, near Uluru,
on a 45km trek to Lake Amadeus last week.

He took just four litres of water with him, which he ran out of three days into the
hike.
Exhausted and dehydrated, the man became lost when he decided to walk back to Yulara.
But he did manage to get to within mobile phone range and raised the alarm,
contacting his relatives in Romania to tell them that he was lost in the desert.
He gave the coordinates of his location from his GPS and police were alerted to the
missing man shortly after 8am (CST) on Wednesday.
A search was mounted immediately using a helicopter and the man was found 22km from
Yulara.
Police said the man told officers that he had not eaten or drunk water in three days.
He was taken to the Yulara Health Clinic before being taken by plane to Alice
Springs Hospital.
Officer in charge of the Northern Territory Police missing persons unit, Detective
Senior Constable Kerry Harris, said the man was extremely lucky to have survived the
ordeal.
He said the incident should serve as a warning to others about the dangers of hiking
in the desert.
"This particular individual was an experienced hiker who had trekked through South
America and Asia," he said.
"But even someone with his experience almost failed to survive. He failed to take
enough water and clearly failed to anticipate the reality of hiking in such extreme
temperatures as we have in central Australia."
Three people have disappeared in the same area over the past few years, and police
said that despite the huge amounts of resources used to try to locate them, all are
still missing.
"It is extremely frustrating for police when people - especially overseas tourists -
take themselves off into the desert without proper equipment, food, water, suitable
clothing and footwear," Det Harris said.
"They fail to understand the rigours of the environment and when they get into
trouble it's virtually impossible to find them because of the vastness and terrain
of the area."