Horror as British tourist crushed to death by her own van in vicious storm

A Welsh woman on holiday in Australia has been found to have been crushed to death by her blown oven van during one of the country's worst cyclones. Eleanor Thompson, known as Ellie, was in Burringbar, New South Wales, when, after she had not shown up for work, she was discovered under the vehicle on March 11. The inquest in North East Wales heard that when Ellie was found, a severe tropical cyclone had hit the region with strong gales whipping through from the coast from February 22 for the following two weeks.

On March 8, Ellie from Flintshire in North Wales messaged her mum and spoke to her friend at around midday, but was not heard from or seen by anyone after her message. Two days later, when she didn't turn up for a shift at a bar, friends went to the house she had been staying at to see if she was okay.

In their search, they discovered that her Mazda van had blown over and was wedged in some overgrown vegetation, with Ellie trapped underneath it.

They called emergency services, and she was pronounced dead at the scene; however, her family believe she had been trapped under for several days and she had actually died on March 8.

Ellie's mum told the court: "Ellie knew people were concerned, she knew I would be concerned.

"I would definitely have had a text on Sunday because in the text on Saturday, she promised she would be in touch the next day."

An official post-mortem examination recorded her cause of death as multiple injuries. At the inquest, North East Wales coroner John Gittins said the local officer believed that either the weather or the slope on which the vehicle was parked may have caused it to roll, even suggesting forgetting to apply the handbrake as a potential cause.

Ellie's dad told the inquest the family had an "unanswered element" after visiting the site, and could not understand how or why Ellie was in front of the van when it was thrown forward.

Mr Gittens added: "Although no causal link can be drawn, it's of significance at the time of her passing, an unprecedented and severe tropical cyclone, Alfred, was impacting the region."

The inquest concluded an official verdict of "accidental death" but praised Ellie's family for attending. The coroner added: "You must be incredibly proud."

While Mrs Thompson said: "The tributes we had on social media and from her friends, people who spoke at the funeral, it was truly, truly moving. It really has given us great comfort."

Ellie was also an experienced solo traveller, having visited Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam on her own in 2022 before heading to Australia the following year.

Ellie was also converting a van and had promised to go on a road trip with her dad the following year.