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Surviving White Island

The Story of My Long Path to Recovery, a Lot of It Sucked

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Surviving White Island

By: Kelsey Waghorn
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About this listen

Surviving the unsurvivable. Healing from the unhealable. This is an inspiring memoir of physical and mental recovery, by someone who lived through the Whakaari White Island volcanic eruption.

"I heard someone say, 'Wow!'

Someone else went, 'Look at that!'

I had my back to the crater. I turned around.

The moment I saw it, I knew what was happening. The island was erupting.

An enormous black-and-white plume was rising above the island, already higher than the peak. It was beautiful actually, set against the bright blue sky. Beautiful and awful. In my memory, it was silent, but that's because my ears had switched off—a survival response, apparently. In reality, our radios were already blaring something along the lines of 'ERUPTION! TAKE COVER!' and I was yelling, 'Everyone, with me! Run!'"

In this book Kelsey Waghorn tells her story for the first time, from physical rehab for her life-threatening burns to her mental struggle with PTSD. By a brave and powerful woman with a wicked sense of humour, this is an uplifting story of acceptance, strength, perseverance and hope.

©2026 Kelsey Waghorn (P)2026 HarperCollins Publishers
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