A British tourist rescued from the Australian outback had to be saved a second time when he returned to the wilderness to look for his belongings, it was reported on Wednesday.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said the 50-year-old man was taken to Alice Springs hospital on Wednesday morning after spending four nights lost in the rugged Northern Territory.
It was the same area north of Alice Springs where he was rescued last week after three nights in the outback.
The Sydney Morning Herald website reported that on both occasions the man, whom it named as Martin Lake, called police on his mobile phone to tell them he was lost, sparking major air and land searches.
Northern Territory police superintendent Richard Bryson said the man’s second rescue was believed to be connected to the first.
“Because of his condition we haven’t had an opportunity to drill down to the nitty gritty of his circumstances,” he said.
“But in a general sense it’s been proposed that he’d lost something on the first occasion and he’d taken it upon himself to go back to the area in an effort to locate it.” — AFP