Photography: Eilish Burt Photography.
For years after the deadly 2019 Whakaari/White Island eruption, Kelsey Waghorn questioned whether she would ever get back on a boat or take to the sea again. The former tour guide was left with full-thickness burns to 45 percent of her body, required 17 skin graft surgeries and had to learn to walk again in the wake of the disaster.
Adjusting to life with her new fragile skin and recovering from such deep trauma meant exploring remote environments again felt near impossible. But a little more than five years later, Kelsey has done more than she ever imagined possible – and now she’s finally ready to share it all, with the release of her book Surviving White Island.
Kelsey, 31, says, “I wasn’t in a place before now to commit to something so huge and exposing as the book. It was very big and scary.”
Minfuld of others
She was also mindful of the other families involved – 22 of the 47 people who were on the island that day lost their lives, with everyone else injured.
Others are at different stages of their healing journey,” explains Kelsey.
“Their stories are not mine to tell.”
A memoir of survival
Her memoir comes with a disclaimer. This is exclusively Kelsey’s experience. On December 9, 2019 Kelsey was at home in Whakatāne with an injured thumb and was supposed to be taking the day off work. But when the company she worked for, White Island Tours, needed an extra tour guide, she agreed to help.
Taking a breath, she remembers, “It was just a normal day until it wasn’t – until that second where everyone started going, ‘Wow, what is that?’ Then it went from a normal tour to a fight for survival.”
Caught in the surge
Kelsey, who had five years’ experience as a guide, and the group she was leading were about 400 metres from the main crater when the volcano erupted silently, setting off a pyroclastic surge – a deadly, fast-moving mixture of extremely hot volcanic gas, ash and rock.
She describes it initially as feeling like standing on the beach on a really hot, windy day. But as the seconds passed, people’s skin began to burn and screaming filled the air. After the pyroclastic surge stopped – she estimates it lasted around two minutes – fuelled by adrenaline, Kelsey led her group back to the wharf. Another boat, which had been circling the island at the time of the eruption and had missed the brunt of it, picked them up.
Acts of kindness amid terror
Kelsey recalls the kindness of those uninjured but terrified passengers who “tipped fresh water into our mouths, rinsing our melting skin and trying to remove as much ash and debris as possible”.
In the months afterwards, survival and recovery were all-consuming.
Lost time & unforgettable care
“At least the first month in hospital, I have no accurate recollection,” says Kelsey, who was in an induced coma for five of her 66 days in hospital.
What she clearly remembers is the care.
“The love and care from all the medical staff in Hutt Hospital, and my family, was just unbelievable. I didn’t know it was possible to feel that well cared for and protected.”
Facing the mental scars
Since then, recovery has been relentless as Kelsey also faced the mental trauma head-on. It’s an ongoing process and the disaster will never leave her, but she also feels ready to embrace opportunities and start saying yes again.
That’s meant travelling the world, discovering a passion for working with dogs (largely inspired by her constant companion, beloved border collie cross River) and writing her book. True to her fiercely determined nature, Kelsey wrote it in just one year, taking her laptop everywhere, including while travelling through Borneo and China last year.
Writing through the trauma
“It [the book] played in the back of my head constantly for at least the first six months, trying to pull together the stories, notes and messages from family,” shares Kelsey, who works in a dog daycare
and wants to pursue a career focusing on dog behaviour and psychology.
“It was pretty extreme.”
In late 2023, she returned to the sea, travelling by ship with the Antarctic Heritage Trust for a two-week research trip to the remote sub-Antarctic South Georgia Island.
Testing her limits
“It made me realise I can do those hard things and be in hard places,” she says.
“I’m not made of glass like I thought I was.”
Next on the bucket list is a trip to Antarctica she’s planning next year.
“I have got myself to a point I am happy, healthy and back to living life, not just trying to get through it,” enthuses Kelsey.
“I have a few years to make up for and I’m actively trying to do that.”
Surviving White Island by Kelsey Waghorn (HarperCollins NZ, rrp $39.99) is available February 24.
