In the early hours of a cold winter night in 1997, Stuart Diver and his wife Sally were sleeping peacefully in their apartment at Bimbadeen Lodge in Thredbo, New South Wales, unaware that the earth beneath them was about to change their lives forever.

At precisely 11:35 PM, the ground began to tremble as a deafening roar filled the air—like a low-flying plane making its approach. Within moments, 4,000 tons of mud, debris, and the collapsed building above them came crashing down. As the walls caved in and the floor shook violently, Diver was caught in the fury of the landslide, with his wife trapped alongside him.

The aftermath was a scene of chaos and devastation. The couple was buried alive beneath the rubble, entombed in complete darkness, with no escape route in sight. In the midst of the chaos, Diver fought through a wave of terror and confusion, scrambling to free himself and find a way to save Sally.

He described the suffocating panic as the roof collapsed, pinning Sally to the bed. The sound of breaking glass filled the air as Diver tried desperately to move, only to be met with injury after injury. Soon after, freezing water from a broken mains water pipe began to flood the space around them. Despite his frantic efforts to stop the water from drowning them, Diver could not save his wife.

“Sally dying in my arms will stay with me forever,” Diver later wrote in his memoir Survival.

For the next 65 hours, Diver remained trapped in the wreckage. Miraculously, he found a small pocket of air by arching his back and tilting his head, managing to survive in a small space amid the crushing weight of the rubble. Despite the overwhelming grief of losing his wife, Diver’s inner strength and sense of calm kept him going.

The rescue operation was a race against time. Emergency responders and rescue teams fought tirelessly to reach Diver, but the odds were against them. The severity of the landslide left little hope for survival in such harsh conditions, but Diver defied the odds. When he was finally freed, he had been buried under the wreckage for over two days.

In the years following his miraculous survival, Diver would embark on a long and difficult path toward healing. The mental and emotional scars of the landslide, as well as the grief of losing his beloved wife, were deep. However, through therapy and sheer determination, he gradually found the strength to rebuild his life.

Stuart Diver’s story of survival is one of immense resilience. The emotional and physical journey to recovery was fraught with challenges, but his incredible will to live and the undying support of those around him helped him navigate the aftermath of a disaster that claimed so many lives.