A diabetic camper who went missing in the Australian outback survived for nine days without access to food or medication. Troy Milne, 61, got lost on while on a camping trip with his wife after leaving the campground to get supplies. He was spotted by surveillance footage several hours later at a nearby gas station looking confused and asking for directions, before vanishing once again after his Jeep bottomed out in a dense patch of bushland, leaving him stranded. Without access to insulin, Milne’s blood sugars dropped dangerously low and he soon began to suffer dehydration and disorientation. “I thought I was a dead duck in the water,” he told 9News. “My sugar level dropped. I would’ve gone into a coma. I just drank water from a creek.” For over a week, police co-ordinated a massive search across the vast outback of Gippland, Victoria, fearing the worst. But they finally located Milne after he lit a signal fire in a last ditch attempt to save himself, alerting the authorities to his location. “To be able to contact Troy’s family and give them the fantastic news was a wonderful result,” said Wellington Police Inspector Wayne Rothwell. Milne was transported to a hospital for treatment, thanking the paramedics who discovered him for saving his life.
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