Matthew Allen – 9 weeks in the Australian wilderness
Time stranded: 9 weeks
Distance traveled: under 10 miles
Terrain types: Forest
Deaths: 0
Situation ended: Accidently found by hikers
Location: Marramarra national park, Australia
(The Marramarra National Park)
Australia is one of the worst countries to get stranded in, and not just because of the intense heat. The areas known as bush can be so thick that it’s impossible to move through them, at least not without a ton of equipment. There are many survival stories of people getting stranded in Australia, but the story of Matthew Allen is one of those where we don’t have all the details, and something doesn’t quite add up.
It was late November 2012 when an 18-year-old accountancy student decided to try his survival skills in the Australian wilderness, but here’s where things get strange. He didn’t plan for the trip in the slightest and didn’t take any spare clothes, a tent, or any survival gear whatsoever. A friend of the family later told one of the investigating newspapers “He didn’t want to be found. He wanted to run away from his life.”
There have been no comments or interviews from the family and the man himself, and it seems the reasons behind him doing what he did will never come to light. It’s also been claimed that he suffers from some kind of mental health problem which led to him deciding to do what he did, but it’s not known what exactly the condition is.
The details of what happened to him can only be speculated, but it is known that he managed to survive in the wilderness for about 9 weeks until he was found accidentally by two hikers while lying on the floor. He had lost half his body weight and now only weighed just over 6 stone (84lbs), he was also partially blind and both his feet and lower legs were badly infected with gangrene.
(One of the many creeks within the national park, and most likely his only source of drinking water)
After leaving his home in Westleigh, New South Wales, it’s thought he traveled north and went into the southern area of the Marramarra National Park. Because the park is such a popular spot for hikers, Matthew stayed off the main paths and purposely avoided people, which is the only way that no one could have reported seeing him sooner.
His mother was the one who reported him missing and called the authorities on 27 November. Several search teams were sent out over the next few weeks but no one found any trace of him, though it’s not known how long he was purposefully avoiding people. This also happened during a record-breaking heat wave that reached temperatures of 45 °C and saw forest fires and droughts across the country.
It isn’t known what he survived on, and the Australian wilderness during the summer months isn’t the best place to go foraging. There aren’t as many edible plants as in a temperate forest, and the ones that are present are normally only in specific areas or have very limited nutritional values. Due to the length of time he was stranded, it would have been impossible for him not to have eaten anything at all, and the most likely and easy-to-find source of food would be frogs and insects that live around the many creeks and bogs.
He did lose half of his body weight but at the same time was stranded for about 3 times longer than it takes to starve to death. At the time he was discovered, he was lying on the floor only 200 meters from the gardens at the back of a row of houses, but the extremely thick undergrowth made it impossible for him to go in that direction, and it’s likely he didn’t know they were there.
He was partially blind when discovered and severely delirious, not being able to speak or tell his rescuers his name. Because he didn’t take anything with him, including a water bottle, the only way he could have survived would be to drink the mostly stagnant water found in the many pools spread across the national park, many of which could have ended his life through some kind of parasite.
The family and Matthew himself still haven’t done any interviews or spoken at length to a public source, but they did say that they are concentrating on Matthew’s recovery and that his vision was permanently damaged from being stranded for so long.
It can be annoying when there isn’t enough information to be found for a complete story, and there are people who think he stayed in almost the same place for the entire 9 weeks. Another story that raises more questions than it answers is the story of Ricky Megee who was in terrible condition after being stranded for over 2 months “somehow”. It isn’t clear how his ordeal started and there are numerous versions of the story, even from Megee himself, but the one thing we do know is that he was stuck in the wilderness and came close to death.