A group of family and friends holidaying at Crescent Head have been left battered after a series of big waves slammed into the rock pool they were swimming in.
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Fourteen people between the ages of 10 and 60 were swimming at Crescent Head’s Mermaid Pool when waves smashed the group into rocks shortly after midday Wednesday.
Three people sustained serious injuries, including a 60-year-old woman, a 10-year-old boy with head injuries, and a 48-year-old man with a suspected broken collarbone.
All of the group except the 48-year-old male were able to make it to the top of the cliff from the remote swimming hole, where they were treated by ambulance services.
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service was called to aid with winching the man up the cliff, but he was instead roped up, with the helicopter not used to transport any of the injured.
All members of the group were treated for abrasions at the scene, with 11 transported by ambulance to Kempsey Hospital and one taken to Port Macquarie Hospital.
Sophie Shepherd was one of the two swimmers who wasn’t taken to hospital.
She said the group, consisting of friends and family holidaying from Sydney, were swimming and standing around the rock pool when two big waves crashed into them.
“The second wave smashed everyone, some people stayed in the water, some of us got thrown into the rocks,” she said.
Sophie and another member of the group ran up the cliff to get phone service and ring an ambulance.
“Thank god my phone wasn't wet,” she said.
Despite being “battered and bruised,” Sophie said they were lucky to escape without worse injuries.
“Everyone’s going to be fine, it could have been a lot worse.”
Coen Moore lives nearby and was on the scene shortly after the incident.
He said that the group were “pretty shaken” in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
“They were all pretty scraped up, they had plenty of cuts over their arms, legs and backs,” he said.
