SYDNEY - When Ben Maloney stumbled out of the Tasmanian wilderness after being lost for five weeks without food, doctors hailed it as a miracle. The young hiker's family, who had already held a memorial service for him, wept for joy.
Maloney explained, modestly: "I wanted to survive."
Nearly a fortnight on,
it appears that his remarkable story may not be quite as remarkable as it sounds. Maloney has admitted that he was not entirely without sustenance; he picked mushrooms and had rice rations that he boiled up with rain water. Nor was he constantly exposed to the elements during his ordeal on the island's Southern Ranges; he spent at least two nights in a hut.
There are even doubts as to whether Maloney, a 27-year-old former soldier, was lost at all, or for as long as he claims. According to the account that he gave to police, he was in one small area of dense bushland all the time and took 16 days to cover less than 6.4km.
He says that he heard a rescue helicopter early on, but failed to attract its attention and then spent the next six days in the same spot, waiting for it to return.
What is certain is that Maloney, who is unemployed, is now $13,300 richer, having sold his exclusive story to a commercial television network. He has scoffed at suggestions that he should give the money to the Tasmanian rescue services, which searched for him for four days in difficult conditions.
Maloney, from Geelong, in Victoria, says that he wandered off a path and became disoriented in the thick forest.
- INDEPENDENT
