WA woman relives close call canyoning

Pam Brown, The West Australian
February 28, 2012

When the makers of the new Australian TV series I Survived...first called Kelly Brajkovich, she said no to an invitation to appear. She did not think that her story of surviving the canyoning disaster in Switzerland in 1999 was worthy when compared to that of some other Australians to be featured in the pay-TV series.

But friends persuaded her that she did have a story to tell and her description of clinging to the side of the canyon as a flash flood swept away her friends is compelling.

Raised in the Swan Valley, Ms Brajkovich had just turned 21 and was a month into a long-planned, two-year working holiday when her tour group arrived in Interlaken.

The self-described adrenalin junkie leapt at the chance to take the optional canyoning excursion. The cousins she was travelling with stayed in the city while she headed up the mountain with two friends from the tour.

When they stopped to go to the toilet, she left them to join the first of four groups heading down the canyon. It was one of a series of small decisions she made that day that ended up saving her life.

What the guides did not realise was that rain had caused a build-up of water behind debris further up the canyon. This "dam" burst and sent down a flash flood that killed 21 tourists, including 14 Australians. Ms Brajkovich's two friends were among those lost.

"Initially, it is like a smack in the face and you come out and you don't know what's happened." she said. "The accident happened on a Tuesday and after we were all taken to a town near Interlaken and not allowed to leave for the rest of the week while our statements were taken. That in itself was a traumatic experience. I had survived and I was finding it hard to deal with those poor people whose family had not come back."

She came back to Australia and thought she had got back to her adventurous self until about a year later when she made a trip to Bali.

"I went out on a boat into the middle of the ocean snorkelling. I put on a face mask and snorkel and I was sure I was fine. But when I put my head into the water I started hyper-ventilating and had all these flashbacks."

She said she did feel like she had been given a second chance at life. She had thought about why she had made the small choices that day that allowed her to survive.

"But you realise you are looking for an answer that is not there," she said. "That is what happened and that's where you were put. You question it but I don't think there is an answer."

http://l.yimg.com/ea/img/-/120228/27...3l-17kof3t.jpg
Kelly Brajkovich in Switzerland just before the canyoning disaster.