A BRITISH TV presenter was left petrified this week when her two sons almost died climbing the highest volcano in Bali.
They were rescued after 40 hours stranded on 10,000ft Mount Agung, surviving on rainwater with no phone battery to call for help.
Brits Matthew, 22 and Andrew, 18, were due to return home to the UK on Friday, just as their mum Katherine Forster was set to report on the UK elections.
Instead, she was huddled in her kitchen with a team of friends and family trying to track the boys down after they failed to get on the plane.
The relieved mum said she experienced the “worst day of my life” before they were eventually found “weak, but alive”.
A friend the boys had made while travelling got hold of Katherine on Thursday morning and told her no one had heard from them in 30 hours.
They had embarked on the 3000m trek to the top around 8.30pm UK time, 2.30am local time, to see the sunrise.
Although routes vary, local travel guides suggest it takes at least four hours and as many as seven to hike to the top of Mount Agung.
Their phones died and the pair relied on “scout training & extensive viewing of Bear Grylls videos to gather rainwater and build a shelter”, Katherine wrote on X.
The relieved mum shared an incredible selection of photos of her boys, documenting their near-death experience.
From a sunny snap of them enjoying their holiday to a picture of the pair sitting hunched in the centre of a group of mountain rescuers.
They had befriended a Swedish woman called Sarah in Vietnam, who thought to report them missing to the British Embassy on Wednesday night.
Katherine shared a snap on X of her son Matthew’s Snapchat map – which showed his icon next to the Mount Agung summit with a low battery signal next to it at the time.
It also said he’d been last active 12 hours prior.
And so began an amazing race against time to rescue the boys from the mountain, in darkness, with dozens of emergency responders.
Katherine wrote on Saturday: “Yesterday morning I should have been outside No 10 reporting.
“More importantly, my 2 eldest sons should have arrived home after a 9 week adventure across Southeast Asia.
“They weren’t on the flight. They’d hiked up 3000m volcano Mt Agung starting 2.30am Wed (8.30pm Tues night BST) to see the sunrise.
“Phones died near top. I didn’t know. By the time a friend of theirs got hold of me early Thurs morning they’d not been heard from in 30 hrs.”
She said: “Our tech savvy young friends & friends of friends spread the boys’ pics & last known location across social media.
“The Foreign Office were amazing. Local rescuers scoured the volcano.”
The mum shared a picture of a piece of paper covered in hasty, panicked scribbles with notes of times, dates, and contacts.
“Then suddenly it was the best day of my life. 40 hours after they’d set off, they were found. Weak but alive,” she said.
“The first rescuer to reach them said they thought they’d be dead. 3 dozen search & rescue, police, fire saved their lives.”
Incredible footage showed rescuers filming the boys as they made their way through the foliage, looking shell shocked and muddy.
Katherine said they were “beyond lucky to live to tell the tale”, and that “words have been exchanged” after they scaled the mountain alone without a guide.
She added: “They are so sorry.”
