Stranded by Google Maps
Three college friends find themselves fighting for survival in the 110-degree Australian outback after a single wrong tap on Google Maps leaves them stranded.
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Three college friends find themselves fighting for survival in the 110-degree Australian outback after a single wrong tap on Google Maps leaves them stranded.
Full transcript of Stranded by Google Maps
One tap on Google Maps trapped three college students in a hundred-and-ten-degree death zone. Driving into Australia’s brutal Keep River National Park, their sedan sank axle-deep into shifting desert sand. With zero cell service, they watched the signal bars vanish under a blinding sun. Outside, forty-five-degree heat baked the vehicle like a steel furnace. They shared just one bottle of water, rationing the warm liquid by the milliliter. By day three, severe dehydration set in, their dry throats screaming for moisture. On night four, desperation took over. They abandoned the car to walk into the pitch-black. They marched twenty kilometers through the dark, guided only by starlight. Finding a muddy creek, they filtered brown sludge through a t-shirt to wet their tongues. Weak and hallucinating, they scraped rocks and branches to spell "HELP" in the dirt. On day five, a rescue helicopter spotted their crude sign from above. But the pilot's first words delivered a devastating gut-punch. They were only three kilometers away from a paved highway. One offline map download would have saved them ninety-six hours of absolute horror.