Stranded for 5 Days, She Survived on Bottle of Wine, Lollipops

Teetotaler had to drink the bottle meant for mom to survive
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted May 8, 2023 11:52 AM CDT
Stranded for 5 Days, She Survived on Bottle of Wine, Lollipops
Wine bottles are seen in a wine shop in Paris on Oct. 3, 2019.   (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

"The only liquid Lillian, who doesn't drink, had with her was a bottle of wine she had bought as a gift for her mother, so that got her through," says Australia's Wodonga Police Station Sgt. Martin Torpey. As the BBC reports, so describes the tale of 48-year-old teetotaler Lillian Ip, who found herself stuck in the Australian Outback last Sunday after having taken a wrong turn and gotten bogged down in mud. Per CBS News, what she had in the car were some lollipops and a bottle of wine—the latter meant as a gift for her mother—to sustain her during what turned out to be a five-day survival ordeal.

Ip was found on the fifth day in her vehicle, which she hadn't left because of physical issues, by a rescue helicopter. "She used great common sense to stay with her car and not wander off into bushland, which assisted in police being able to find her," says Torpey. "I thought I was going to die there. My whole body shut down on Friday," Ip tells the BBC, adding that she "was about to give up." She was treated in the hospital for dehydration and is now home. (More Australia stories.)

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