He Survived Six Days Lost in the Bush on Chips and Creek Water — How William Did It

When the police helicopter found him on Thursday morning, November 12, William was asleep on a flat rock beside a creek, deep in the bushland of eastern Victoria. He had been missing for six days. He was 17 years old, he had autism, and he had gone into the bush with no phone, no food and no water. He was, in the words of the police who found him, in good spirits and mostly in good health. His mother had a simpler explanation for how he survived — and a joke about what comes next. "He's grounded for life," she said. "He's not going anywhere ever again."

The rescue is a remarkable story on its own. But the reason it is worth understanding is the tactic behind it: the one simple decision that, his mother says, saved his life.

Six days in the bush

William — police have identified him only by his first name — disappeared on Friday, November 6, while camping with a teenage friend near Walhalla, a former gold-mining town about 185 kilometres east of Melbourne. His mother, Elizabeth Barkley, had dropped the boys off near Stoney Creek Road that afternoon. According to Associated Press reporting, he took a wrong turn after going to retrieve equipment, and never came back.

Victoria Police launched a massive search across difficult terrain. For six days, helicopters, ground teams and volunteers combed the dense bushland around Walhalla East. The breakthrough came on Thursday morning, when a police Air Wing helicopter spotted a fishing tackle box in the bush about two kilometres from the campsite. Zooming in on the area, the crew found William lying on the flat rock beside the creek. He had been sleeping under towels when the helicopter approached, and he reportedly waved at the officers after waking up — pumping his fists in the air, clutching his chest, as the rescue footage shows. A flight officer was winched down and brought him back to the command post, where he was reunited with his mother.

Video from the rescue helicopter showed he was shirtless and sunburned, wearing shorts and boots, using towels as blankets. He was taken first to Latrobe Regional Hospital for monitoring, then transferred to The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne for further tests and specialist care after his blood pressure dropped due to dehydration. His family have said he has Level 2 autism. Acting Inspector Jason Benbow, who led the search, described the rescue as an emotional experience for everyone involved — and credited the tackle box with helping to save the teenager's life. It was the one visible thing in a landscape that had hidden him for six days.

The tactic that saved him: stay put

So how does a teenager with no supplies survive six days in the bush? His mother explained it plainly: he just stayed in one spot. That is not a small detail. It is the single most important rule of survival when you are lost, and it is the one that most people break. The instinct is to keep walking — to find the road, the campsite, the way out. Every step takes you further from the last place anyone knows you were, and further from the search area drawn around it. William did not do that. He stayed near the creek, and the creek is what kept him alive.

He drank from it, and he rationed what little food he had. According to his mother, he survived on a family-sized packet of chicken-flavoured potato chips, carefully rationed so that it lasted him about two days. The rest of the time, it was creek water and shelter — the towels, the rock, the creek bank. The weather helped: the Southern Hemisphere spring had been mild in the alpine region where he was lost, with little rain. Six days without food is survivable for a healthy teenager. Six days without water is not — and the creek is the difference between this story and a very different one.

There is a lesson in the rescue itself, too. Search teams look for signs, not people: a tackle box, a towel, a footprint, anything that does not belong in the bush. William's tackle box, two kilometres from where he was last seen, is what the helicopter crew spotted first. Staying in one place does not only conserve energy and keep you near water. It keeps you findable. A search area is drawn around a last known position. The further you walk from it, the larger that area becomes, and the thinner the searchers are spread across it.

What to take from it

None of this is a substitute for preparation — William's family would be the first to say so. He went in with no phone, no food and no water, and he was lucky in the weather, lucky in the creek, and lucky that the search found his tackle box. But the part of his story that experts repeat is the part he got right without knowing it: when you are lost, stop. Stay where you are. Find water. Make yourself visible. Wait for the search to come to you.

William is now recovering in hospital, and his mother says he is fit and healthy, with only minor scratches. The six days that could have ended very differently ended instead with a helicopter, a winch, and a reunion at a command post in Cowwarr — and with a mother who has already decided the terms of his next adventure. He is grounded for life.

For more on staying safe in extreme conditions, see why the first freeze of the season is arriving weeks late and how long stockpiled food really lasts.