A 38-year-old woman has fallen 80 metres to her death from a popular tourist photo spot in Victoria.
Rosy Loomba fell from the Boroka Lookout at the Grampians National Park on Saturday afternoon while walking with her husband and two children.
“She was a good life partner for my brother and best mum for her kids,” Loomba’s sister-in-law told the Herald Sun.“(The family is) still in shock and it’s really hard to believe.”
It took police and SES workers more than six hours to retrieve her body, which had to be winched out after 9pm on Saturday night as a result of the harsh conditions.
The accident comes after police have issued several warnings in the area, urging people *not* to climb over safety rails and fences for potentially lethal photo opportunities.
“One of the issues that is constantly tying up our resources is individuals risking life and limb in a bid to get the ultimate selfie,” police warned back in January 2020.
“We regularly see dangerous photos and videos geo-tagged to the area where individuals have compromised their own safety to get a particular shot.
“We also frequently work with local rescue teams on missions to bring individuals to safety who have ignored signage and climbed over safety barriers or fencing.
“Our missions do not always have successful outcomes.”
But despite countless warnings, hundreds of Melburnians and tourists alike take photo’s on the cliff’s edge every year.
In an effort not to glorify absolute stupidity, I’m not going to include photos or videos here, but a quick search of the geo-tag on Instagram will show countless photos at the spot, including at least one video of a man doing a backflip on the edge of the cliff.
I simply cannot stress to you just how much of a bad idea this is. Not only are you risking your own life, but you’re also risking the lives of SES workers, who will have to try to save you if your backflip for the ‘gram doesn’t go as planned.
Just don’t do it.
“What we saw (on Saturday) was a really tragic outcome of behaviour that unfortunately, we see too often,” Police Minister Lisa Neville said on Sunday.
“Do not take these. It not only puts you at risk but it actually risks our lifesavers
and emergency services workers that have to go either to rescue you or your body.”
