10 News/madalyndavis/InstagramA British backpacker plummeted to her death from a popular ‘selfie’ spot for tourists in Sydney, Australia.
Madalyn Davis had only arrived Down Under late last year from Lincoln, England, with plans to forge ahead with a new, exciting life on the other side of the world.
However, the tail-end of one night out proved to be fatal when Madalyn fell from a local hotspot while watching the sunrise with her friends.
The incident unfolded after the 21-year-old had been attending a party in Vaucluse on Saturday night, January 11. At around 6.30am, she and a group of seven friends left to go to the nearby Diamond Bay cliffs, a frequent, albeit dangerous spot for photo-seeking tourists.
According to the Mirror Online, Madalyn and her friends were thought to have climbed over a fence to sit and watch the sunrise on the scenic spot, where Madalyn fell to her death.
A crew from Marine Rescue Middle Harbour is involved in a search for a woman in her early 20s missing from Diamond Bay in Sydney's east. Emergency services were alerted after a group of people taking photos inside the fence early this morning regathered & could not find the woman pic.twitter.com/Du5GCuPxTn
— Marine Rescue NSW (@MarineRescueNSW) January 11, 2020
The following day, Madalyn’s family scrambled to get in touch with her after failing to hear anything since Saturday. One family member wrote online: ‘Anyone seen Maddie? Not been able to get hold of her please get in touch if you were out with her last night.’
However, her death has since been confirmed by other family members. One wrote: ‘Thank you for all your beautiful condolences for Madalyn Davis and her family – it is an absolute tragedy to which nothing has been confirmed.’
Tributes have been pouring in from heartbroken friends and family, describing Madalyn as ‘incredibly beautiful and talented’ and ‘a free spirit’. One friend wrote: ‘I really don’t know how to process this Maddie, last time we saw each other was three years ago and now you are gone.’
Another wrote: ‘I will never ever forget the times we shared together the giggle fits we had in town. I will forever miss you, angel.’
An air and water search was launched around Diamond Bay Reserve after emergency services received reports of woman falling from a cliff. Madalyn’s body was then reportedly found at around 10:30 on the Saturday.
Upon learning of the recent death, Mayor Paula Masselos told The Daily Telegraph that she was devastated and talks were already in the pipeline to discuss how to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Masselos said:
I’ve already asked the general manager and we’re having a meeting tomorrow to discuss it. It depends in part on what the police investigation reveals. Extra patrols, more signs, the fencing we increased as well … when the rangers tell people not to go over boundary fences they don’t listen, they go further down and go over boundary fences further down.
The hotspot has proved to be dangerous in the past: in August last year, a 27-year-old woman fell to her death while posing for a photo on the cliff face.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.