To be a Stuart Diver is rhyming
slang for being a legendary survivor.
Stuart Diver was a ski instructor and the sole survivor of the 1997 Thredbo landslide in New South Wales,
Australia. Stuart was lifted to the surface 12 hours after rescuers heard his voice deep in the mass of
earth and debris. He was right beside his wife Sally, but his desperate efforts to save her were unsuccessful. He spent the next two-and-a-half days under the rubble in his underwear, with freezing water gushing past. Sixty-five hours after the landslide, Diver was saved, suffering only frostbite.
Stuart Diver is an
Aussie legend in our vernacular - as is Steven Bradbury.
Steven Bradbury, whose gold medal was the first ever won by an Australian at the Winter Olympics, was dubbed “the Accidental
Hero” after his four rivals all collided, tumbled and sprawled around the
ice, leaving him to skate alone past the finish line.
