German backpacker's 12-day outback survival ordeal

0:00Good evening and welcome to Seven News. For 12 terrifying days, a German backpacker was lost and alone in the unforgiving WA Outback. Now she's breaking her silence. In her only Australian interview, Carolina Vilga reveals what went horribly wrong and how she found the strength to survive when hope was fading. Remote, vast and inhospitable. Carolina Vilga thought she'd die here in the vast Australian Outback. Her German hometown feels a long way away. More than a year on, she's still reflecting. It's sometimes it feels super-serious. Revealing for the first time, how her journey took such a terrible turn down a dirt road. Then I saw lights coming from the front and it was a car. I turned around the steering

1:05tire into the fence. It was an irrational moment out of fear. The concussion from the crash so severe, her next memory's hours later. You know, somehow I left the car. The next moment I really realized again was in the middle of the night I was walking. One night of aimless wandering became three. No sign of her van, let alone food or water. Only addressed to protect her body from brutal sun and bitter cold. Her mind defenseless against hallucinations. Just a pain, it's hard to explain because it's just so intense. It's like you cannot think about anything else. Until it became too much, her memoir detailing the impossible decision she faced, death from

2:06thirst, or at her own hands. And I didn't want to wait for it because for me, at some point I lost hope. One realistic theory of mine was that I already died and that this is hell. Carolina made two suicide attempts. Very emotional many times I thought of my family and was just thinking about all my all the happiest childhood memories and thinking of my family. It was actually carrying me through I didn't want to leave my family alone. Like worst, worst thought you can have. When you love your family and you have mom and dad, they fully love their kids and then the imagination of they will never know what happened to me. They will probably never find my dad's body so they can never set a point behind something. They will never figure

3:07out. And dad was the moment I fully broke down. I made my mom a promise that I will walk until I die. Like I will not give up. I want to live. I called in the Alfaq after almost two weeks a major development in the WA mystery that is captivated the country. Carolina Vilga has been found alive. This is the moment the country has been waiting for. Physically and mentally scarred after eight more nights surviving on puddles of rainwater, she was found malnourished and frostbitten in the chance encounter later handed over to the police. I could not believe it. I could not believe it. I was scared when I was looking at her and I was like, this is her ear. Can I be happy? She just walked out in my bag to hands and I knew who it was. I mean, who else would be

4:10out here really? Carolina, I'm glad you looked so well. Carolina promising to pay her back with an in-person visit. Carolina, a smile is more than enough.