THE grandmother who survived 75 hours trapped under her car has struck a media deal to tell her story.

Canberra Hospital today confirmed Tumut woman Deborah McKnight had agreed to sell her story to Channel Nine's A Current Affair and Woman's Day.

After a visit from her family, Ms McKnight's condition has improved from critical to stable.

Ms McKnight tried to amputate her leg to set herself free after her phone battery died.

Yesterday her family yesterday revealed the agonising details of her three-day ordeal trapped under her car after it rolled over an embankment beside an isolated country road on Christmas Day, The Daily Telegraph reported.



Her recovered mobile phone shows she tried six times to ring triple-0 - from an area prone to poor reception - before the phone lost power.

Her daughter Ebony last night also revealed the frantic text messages she sent her mother as the family became more and more worried.



"It was very traumatic," she said.

"She told me she tried to cut her leg off but she couldn't get through the bone. I don't know what she used.

"I felt sick when she told me that. She doesn't know how she survived, she said she thought of her grandkids and kids. She is very tough.

"She is a fighter. I love her. She did me proud."

Ms McKnight, 45, who lives alone in Tumut, in the state's south, was driving along Wondolga Rd about 3pm on Christmas day after dropping Ebony and grandchildren Brianna, 1, and Jayden, 2, at nearby Batlow.

She told police she swerved to miss a kangaroo and lost control of her Holden Commodore, which was still full of the kids' Christmas presents.

The car crashed through a guard rail and over an embankment, tumbling upside-down as it hurtled 30m from the road and 15m down a cliff - until its fall was stopped by a tree. It landed, almost hidden, on its roof.

Ms McKnight's leg was folded underneath the car between the roof and the ground, crushing it and making it impossible to move.

And there she waited for 75 long hours. As the heat and a Boxing Day hail storm made her fight for survival even tougher, Ms McKnight tried to scream for help as vehicles passed on the road above.

With poor mobile coverage in the area and a dwindling phone battery, she tried to ring triple-0 six times on Sunday night - at 7.47pm, 7.48pm, 7.51pm, twice within a minute at 7.55pm and at 9.35pm.

Later that night Ebony made the first of 17 calls to her mother but it is believed her phone had already gone dead.

At 9.25am on Boxing Day, Ebony texted her mother: "Where are you? I'm really worried. Please ring me as soon as you read this. Love you. XOXOXOX."

At 11.25am the same day, Ebony texted again: "Mum I'm getting really worried. Please ring me." That evening, at 9.25pm, Ebony's brother Dylan tried to call.

Their father Garry Moses rang at 9.28pm. He got the same dead signal.

As the days rolled on, Ms McKnight's crushed leg began decomposing and maggots began eating at the flesh.

Paramedics believe the maggots may have saved her life, but she also had to survive the threat of dehydration.

An inspection of the crash scene yesterday revealed the meagre offerings Ms McKnight had to get by on.

There was a VB six-pack wrapper, two empty VB bottles, an empty Nippy's Iced Coffee flavoured milk.

There was also an unlit cigarette and an Australian Defence Credit Union stubby holder strewn in the wreckage.

Only about 500m away, neighbour David Dowling heard nothing for more than three days.

He drove past the crash site, where Ms McKnight was lying trapped only metres below his sight, on Monday but heard nothing. "I never noticed. I only found out what happened when I heard the sirens and they found her," he said.

It was only when local teen Caleb Wilks was walking to a neighbour's property in the rural area bordering the Snowy Mountains that he heard Ms McKnight's moans.

That was about 6pm on Wednesday - three days and three hours after Ms McKnight's ordeal began.

She was flown to Canberra Hospital, where surgeons decided to amputate her left leg above the knee yesterday. She was in a critical but stable condition last night.

Paramedics had considered amputating the leg at the site amid concerns about lifting the car for fears of releasing the compression.

Ms McKnight's son Dylan yesterday said the family had heard about a crash in the media and rang police about the same time she was found to report her missing.

"She's been through some hard times so I think that helped her survive," he said.

Her other son Ryan said he was shocked when he received a phone call at work telling him the news.

"It's pretty good, hey? It's not a bad effort to stay alive for 75 hours," he said.

Tumut Police officer- in-charge Sergeant Brian Hammond confirmed Ms McKnight had told officers she tried to cut her leg off but couldn't find anything sharp enough to do the job properly.

"She was desperate. It's a miracle she has survived," Sgt Hammond said.

"She said she started thinking about trying to amputate her leg herself, then she tried to amputate her leg but couldn't find anything sharp enough."

He said police had yet to formally interview Ms McKnight but had received an early explanation from her as they extracted her from the vehicle. "She claimed that a kangaroo has jumped on to the road, she has taken action to avoid the kangaroo but has ended up losing control of the car," Sgt Hammond said.

"She (ended up) partly in the car, partly out of it and her leg was trapped underneath the roof of the upside-down vehicle. She could not move."

Friends yesterday said Ms McKnight had recently told them she was worried about the car and had a "really bad feeling about it".

Her former partner Mr Moses yesterday visited the crash scene to collect the Christmas presents.

Bits of the grandchildren's Lego had been left scattered among the broken bumper bar, crumpled car number plate and other debris at the scene.

"She's a tough woman," Mr Moses said.