Surviving White Island and what happened next — Stephanie Browitt's story
4/24/202653 min
At 23 years old, Stephanie Browitt willed herself to stay awake long enough to survive a volcano eruption on New Zealand's Whakaari / White Island. More than six years later, her resilience and sanity remains as strong as ever.
The rescue mission to White Island in November 2019 was led by three civilians, who immediately flew from the mainland, as the emergency services deemed the island too dangerous for their trained paramedics to get there.
Stephanie clung on to consciousness, despite severe burns to 70 per cent of her body, because she knew she had to get back to her beloved mum, Marie.
The blast killed 22 people, including Stephanie's little sister Krystal. Eventually their father Paul also succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
During the early stages of Stephanie's fight to recover, her sister's fate was kept a secret to give her something to fight for.
After dozens of operations, years of physical therapy, grieving the sudden loss of half of their family, and growing even closer to her mum, Stephanie decided together wither her mum, Marie, to take on the cruise company that allowed them to go to this island despite knowing there was a warning in place.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Eliza Kirsch.
It explores natural disasters, survival, grief, death, burns recovery, Turia Pitt, memoir, writing, books, mother daughter relationships, ICU, coma, body positivity, resilience, heartbreak, family bond, love, stories of survival, incredible stories, grief, death, losing a father, big sister, losing a sibling, sisterly bond, Melbourne, cruise ships, near death experience.
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[intro music] In December 2019, Stephanie Browett, along with her mom, her dad, and her sister, flew up from Melbourne to Sydney, where the four of them boarded one of those super massive cruise ships called the Ovation of the Seas, that was going to take the family around the South Pacific. One of the day trips the cruise was offering when they got to New Zealand was the chance to visit a live volcano on an island named White Ari, or White Island. This is New Zealand's most active volcano. But the Browett family didn't know that. They weren't told. Nor did they know that the day before the ship had left Sydney Harbour, the New Zealand authorities had issued an alert that White Island was now entering a phase where an eruption was more likely than normal. And so on the ninth of December, Stephanie, her dad, Paul, and her sister, Crystal, joined a group of day-trippers who set out for White Island, and they went about exploring its weird gray and brown lunar landscape that was splashed with yellow and green. Then at two PM, as they were walking away from the steaming crater, the volcano erupted, ejecting