Facebook post from Greece saves British tourist’s life

A photo of a breathtaking view posted on Facebook saved a British tourist

British tourist Sandi Allcock, 55, was saved by Facebook after falling from a 350ft cliff while vacationing in Greece. She went to Crete after being made redundant in February 2014 and took a stroll along a picturesque clifftop when the ground beneath her gave way.

“When I opened my eyes, I was teetering on a ledge with a 1,000 ft drop beneath me. My arms were stuc in two olive bushes which had stopped me from toppling to my death,” she told the Mirror. “It was terrifying. I could only move my right arm – the rest of my body was in agony.” She was able to call emergency services on her phone but was unable to adequately describe her location.

An hour and a half later her battery began to run low and she began to suffer dehydration. “It was terrifying,” she says. “I spent precious moments trying to describe my view to emergency services but was getting nowhere. Putting a photo of where I was on Facebook was a way to quickly communicate where I was – I knew someone was bound to recognize my location or know someone who would.”

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True enough, a local scuba diver recognized where she was from the photograph she posted on Facebook and directed the rescue teams to save her. After a complicated rescue mission she was told that she was lucky to be alive despite having fractured 20 bones including eight ribs, her pelvis, both shoulders, seven spinal franctures and a dislocated collar bone. After three weeks in a Greek hospital she was sent back tho the UK three months later.

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