I stress that most incidents do not involve people doing anything stupid but there are exceptions. It was raining on 22 February and there aren’t any obvious hand holds on Katoomba Cascades, which would always be somewhat slippery. You can get to the top quite easily by following the path.
On Sunday 22nd February 2026 a rescue operation was launched after a 22-year-old man slipped while attempting to climb up the waterfall along Katoomba Cascades track. The male sustained a head injury and lost consciousness; he was assisted by a friend until emergency services arrived.
Two other recent rescue operations are more typical. On Tuesday, February 3, after a 12 hour search by police, SES, Ambulance, and RFS, 71-year-old David Elliot was rescued from the Wild Dog Mountains after he activated his PLB. Even with the PLB, he was hard to find because of the steep terrain (near Breakfast Creek) and the thick vegetation, so even with the helicopter right above him, rescuers were unable to find him initially. Mr Elliot was praised for following the TREK protocol. He’d left really clear intentions of where he was going and had told someone reliable those intentions so rescuers knew where to look for him when he was declared missing the day before.
Rather more mysterious was the death of a teenager in January.
I don’t recall any incident before where the person died in the Blue Gum Forest. There have been lots of people rescued from that area, but they all survived. The 16-year-old bushwalker was found dead in a creek in the Blue Gum Forest.
He and his 17-year-old friend travelled to Leura train station on Tuesday 27 January before walking to Mount Hay to begin a three-day hike.
Just before 6pm on Wednesday, the two walkers became separated, and the older hiker activated his personal locator beacon (PLB).
Police launched a land and air search for the pair and the 17-year-old was winched to safety from the Acacia Flat campground in the Blue Gum Forest.
We will have to wait for the inquest to find out what happened, but it seems likely that has it was a hot day, and it’s a long walk from the station with little shade, he was injured and ran out of water. He didn’t drown as the creek he was found it was quite shallow.
