A tourist has been rescued by a hero tradesman after spending hours trapped waist-deep in human waste when the floor of an outback toilet collapsed.
The unidentified woman stopped at the remote Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve, about 145km south of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, on Sunday with her husband and two children.
She then plunged into a two-metre deep sewage pit when the floor of the long drop toilet gave way due to being rusted through, and photos obtained by popular local social media page Action for Alice 2020 show a large hole opened up where the toilet seat had once sat over the pool of excrement.
We ran this story yesterday
But now we have stumbled across some photos of the scene
Just imagine being waist high in the hole pictured below that is full of human waste and having to wait 4 hrs to be rescued
You really can’t …..
This won’t feature in tourism brochures….… pic.twitter.com/D2uHulWgrT
— Action for Alice 2020 (@actionforalice) April 21, 2026
The tourist, believed to be from Canberra, was eventually saved when Alice Springs electrician Riley Sherman stopped at the site with a friend from interstate, and was able to use his work tools to take apart the toilet wall, NT News reported.
He then lowered a tow rope into the pit for the woman to stand on, and then lifted her out with his ute in a rescue that took about 45 minutes.
The woman was alone and had been stuck for about three hours when Mr Sherman arrived, as her husband had driven to Stuart Wells 53km away to find help or a mobile phone signal.
A witness who arrived at the scene shortly after the rescue estimated the tourist had been trapped about two metres below where the toilet seat had been, and said the hole was full of “shit, literal nappies [and] piss”.
The woman was shaken but uninjured except for a few cuts, and was taken to Alice Springs Hospital.
A spokesman from NT WorkSafe said an inquiry into the incident was underway.
“The notification was made by the agency with management of the conservation zone, as a collapse or partial collapse of a structure, which is a dangerous incident under the work health and safety laws,” he said.
“Initial inquires indicate a toilet fell into the sewage pit, causing the tourist to also fall into the sewage pit.”
The toilet appears to now be taped up and cordoned off.
Header image: Left, right, the toilet at Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve after the incident (Action for Alice 2020).
