A woman on a family road trip through the Australian outback spent three hours trapped waist-deep in a sewage pit after the rusty floor of a toilet gave way beneath her, dropping her almost two metres into the waste below.

With no phone signal in the area, her family was forced to drive an hour to the nearest town to find help, leaving her alone in the pit.

The woman, from Canberra, was visiting the Henbury Meteorites Conservation Zone, about 145km southwest of Alice Springs, with her husband and two children on Sunday when the long-drop toilet’s floor collapsed, according to multiple Australian news outlets.

A witness told the NT News there were "literal nappies", excrement and urine in the hole.

Her husband eventually flagged down a passing tradesman, who dismantled part of the toilet structure, lowered a tow rope into the pit and used his vehicle to pull her out, a process that took over 45 minutes, according to the NT News.

She was taken to hospital in Alice Springs and suffered only minor cuts, according to local media.

NT WorkSafe, which regulates workplace health and safety in the Northern Territory, confirmed it had been notified of the incident.

"Initial inquiries indicate a toilet fell into the sewage pit, causing the tourist to also fall into the pit," the agency said, adding that it had been classified as a “dangerous incident” under health and safety laws.

An investigation is ongoing.

Pit toilets are non-flush latrines that collect waste in a deep hole in the ground. They are common in remote and off-grid areas of Australia.

This is not the first time one has caused an accident. In July 2024, firefighters had to dismantle a pit toilet in Indigo Valley, Victoria, to free a man trapped inside, and in 2012 a 65-year-old woman was airlifted to hospital after falling into one in central Queensland, fracturing her leg.

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