Some six years on from the devastating eruption of Whakaari/White Island, Kelsey Waghorn is returning to Capsule with an update on her recovery – after sharing a detailed account of her experiences with PTSD in her new book, Surviving White Island.
One of the absolute most-read stories we’ve ever run here on Capsule, was a How Are You Today interview with Kelsey Waghorn in July 2020. A check-in with her in December that year – one year after the Whakaari/White Island eruption – prompted a slew of reader feedback. It seemed you all had the exact same thing to say: What an incredible woman.
Kelsey is a truly remarkable human – her courage and generosity is inspiring.
She was just 25 when she was dealt a bad hand of cards which saw her on Whakaari the day of the December 9 2019 eruption. Kelsey – a tour guide at the time – was one of 25 people who survived the disaster, which tragically claimed the life of 22 tourists from NZ and around the world.
Kelsey sustained full thickness burns to 45 per cent of her body, requiring 17 skin graft surgeries. But, as she details in her incredible new book, Surviving White Island, surviving her physical injuries against the odds, was really only the beginning of her harrowing recovery.
Here, some six years on from the disaster, we catch up with Kelsey who so generously shares so much of her journey – from what happened that day, to her harrowing battle with PTSD as part of our How Are You Today series. Throughout these HAYT stories we have a meandering mental-health focused chat with some of our most well-known New Zealanders. Check out previous chats with people like Hayley Holt, Kiri Allan and Jacinda Ardern.
How are you today, Kelsey?
I’m really good. I’m actually getting over being sick at the moment, which I guess was actually always going to happen given the last few months. Saturday, I got randomly, rapidly sick, and then had Sunday off work, but then worked the next two days and just feeling a bit drained and a bit congested today. But other than that, I’m really good.
Oh man, it’s going around at the moment! So unfair to be sick in summer! Now, a massive congratulations on your book. It’s so courageous and amazing. There are so many things that struck me while reading it – I made such a list of notes reading it! Right off the bat though, something I found incredible was the sheer fact that you weren’t actually supposed to be on Whakaari that day. But in the book, it’s certainly not something you dwell on – it’s just a fact you include, it’s almost a footnote.
Yeah, it’s quite funny, because I had someone else this morning who kind of got stuck on that as well, and a few people have been stuck on that! But, we were all under casual contracts. It was not new, it was not a thing. So to me, it is a footnote. It’s nothing. It was just luck of the draw, or bad luck of the draw, I suppose.
It just happened to be the fact that I’d hurt my thumb a few days earlier and was taking a few days off. But, because it was a cruise ship and they wanted fast guides to get them around the island – the ones that knew how to get through the tour nice and quick so that they weren’t late back to their boat – I just happened to get called. I mean, I could have said no, obviously, but I didn’t.
I had this conversation with another guide who didn’t work that day, and she said that she wished it had been her. And I said, ‘No, I’m glad it wasn’t you. I’m glad it was me and not you. Like, I know how I react in life and death situations. Unfortunately, I know I do it well, and I didn’t, I don’t want that on you.’ I never, ever wish this on anyone. So no, I’m glad it was me and not you. It was just luck of the draw.
It’s horrible that you know this, but yes, you can certainly say that you are someone who functions extremely well in life and death situations. As we read about in the book, Whakaari wasn’t your first life and death situation, you had three horrible situations in the space of just a few years. You cared for a man who slipped to his death on a different island tour, plus, you were one of the guides onboard the Whakaari tour boat that caught fire and sunk on the way back from the island a few years before the eruption. Between you all onboard, you managed to get everyone safely into the water that day.
It was funny, because initially we were going to start the book with the boat fire. My sister read one of the really early versions of that and she was reading it, where it’s like ‘it was a grey, dreary day’, and Holly’s thinking, ‘wait, it was a sunny day that day’. And then she was like, ‘Okay, we’re at the island, well, here it comes’. But then we left the island and she’s like, ‘um, you missed the eruption!’ Then the boat catches fire, and she remembered. She got caught off guard by it. She forgot that part and thought that was a cool start because anyone who’s reading it will be thinking, ‘this is the eruption’, but then the boats on fire and it’s a whole other thing! It was cool, but in the end it was easier to write it chronologically.
Okay, this part is completely left field, but I listen to too many true crime podcasts, I think maybe in the hopes that if I’m ever in a dicey situation I will have somehow gleaned enough information that maybe I’ll remember those things when it counts and cheat death. But you actually kind of did this!
This leads on from us talking about how good you are in a moment of life and death. Because when the eruption happened, you immediately recalled a book you’d read, Surviving Galeras, where volcanologist Stanley Williams shared his experience of being caught in the crater of an erupting volcano and what he did to miraculously survive a deadly pyroclastic surge. Incredibly, you remembered his words, which likely saved your life – and the lives of many of those in your tour group.
Yeah, I’d read that book in 2016 so it’s not like it was the day before or anything silly. It was three years before. At the time when I read the book, it didn’t make sense, I guess in the sense that I didn’t give a sh*t about volcanology. I didn’t care about geology. I love the sea. I just wanted to be working on the sea. But one of my co-workers was like, ‘You should read this book’. And I was like, ah, boring, but sort of read the eruption part of it more so than the other parts but yeah, somehow that stuck and came through clear on the day, which is incredible.
In the book you really let us in on what it was like on Whakaari the day of the eruption – but also in those days, weeks and months later of your recovery. Far out, I’m so glad you shared this and so thankful, because I know I learned a lot from it. One of the things I’d never heard much about in the recovery process, was in those intense first few weeks and months, where you were very heavily medicated. As a result, you were having some just insanely wild and often frightening hallucinations. I’m wondering how much that informed your recovery, mentally. Because obviously at that stage, physically you were safe – your body was been looked after by the best people possible – but your mind was in another realm, living another kind of horror.
I’m really lucky that I had my family and my nurses. I mean, the nurses would have dealt with this before, right? So they were just like, ‘Oh, here we go!’ For them, that was nothing but for my family… it wasn’t.
I remember – I think it was the hallucination I had that I was being kidnapped, and my sister Holly had just got back from popping home, and Mum was with me and knew that I was a bit all over the show, but for whatever reason, didn’t tell Holly.
So Holly comes in and I’m going on about how I’ve been kidnapped. And Holly’s looking at me, looking at Mum, like, what the f**k’s happening?!
Because yeah, this stuff was happening in front of me. I could feel it and see it and taste it, but I was being told that it’s not real. It’s very weird to be in the middle of something and being told at the same time that what you’re seeing isn’t real.
I remember another one where I was really uncomfortable in bed, because there were all these wire cables across the bed. I was trying to get away from them, and my family was like, ‘no, you’re in bed, there are no cables’. It’s so weird, because it felt so real.
I don’t even like drinking a lot – I’ll have a couple, but I don’t like the feeling of being drunk. And, God, I don’t know why people take ketamine for fun? Still to this day when I need to have surgeries and if I get a call when they ask about any allergies to medication I say no, but please don’t give me ketamine – and they normally just chuckle. Like they know.
That sounds insanely horrible and disorienting – trying to work out what’s actually real. Thank god you had people who you could really trust to tell you the truth.
Yeah, as disorienting as it is to be told in the moment that what you’re seeing and hearing and feeling isn’t real, it’s even worse to not have anyone to correct you. So, those moments where it was the middle of the night and there’s someone standing in the room and you’re freaking out – but there isn’t that person there with you to say, look, that’s not real.
That sounds truly horrific. The other part of your journey that really struck me, was your journey with PTSD, which we really don’t hear about often enough. We’re much more likely to have heard about PTSD as some sort of flippant, throwaway comment. But this was such a valuable insight into the realities of it. And the frustrations of it. Our physical recovery tends to be quite predictable and linear, whereas, when it comes to our mental recovery – there’s no roadmap for that. How has it been recently for you? How are you going now?
Thanks, I’m good! I haven’t had anything flare up for a while, which is really nice. But yeah, you’re right, you only hear little bits of PTSD and none of it’s ever good. You don’t really hear of anyone getting through it.
And yeah, people do say it quite flippantly. The number of times I’ve had people be like, ‘Oh I have PTSD from this!’ And I’m like, okay cool, I’ve actually had it and that’s not what PTSD is – you’re just a bit sensitive. I get why people get upset now by people being flippant.
I remember someone with OCD getting upset with, I think a coffee company called Obsessive Coffee Disorder or something, and at the time, I didn’t really get it. But, I get it now.
It can also be quite funny though when people catch themselves though – like even silly things like they’re hurt themselves a little and they’re telling me about it and then they’ll go, ‘oh no wait yours is way worse!’ And it’s like, it’s fine, don’t worry about it!
But PTSD is a real unknown. People don’t talk about it and, like I said, you never hear anything good about it, I mean, in fairness, there is nothing good about it, but you don’t hear about people getting through it and being functional and it not still affecting them.
I thought it was an important part to go over because I didn’t have those resources early on and didn’t have that knowledge. I had people tell me about their experiences and what helped them – but I found what was helpful for them, for me, it made me worse.
So yes, the physical part was definitely a lot easier than the mental part. Just when you think you’ve got through it, and okay, it can’t get an worse – then it does.
Oh yes, that’s when the floor tends to open up and you fall through another dimension into hell.
Yip, it’s horrendous. And I was 25 when all this had happened. When I got a new psych and was talking about the eruption, and it was like, okay let’s go back, how was your childhood like, and what else has happened along the way? They were like, ‘WHAT? You were 25 and all of this had happened?! No wonder you’re the way you are!’
Did that feel quite wonderfully validating hearing that? That no, your brain is not broken – you’ve been through some incredibly traumatising and your brain is actually reacting to it in a very reasonable way?
Yeah, that was what sort of helped me get through the PTSD as well. Actually having people reaffirm that what my brain and nervous system was doing was actually really normal in very abnormal circumstances.
Just being told that your reactions are actually normal, and that you’re not, like, all of a sudden broken and this freak of nature. It’s just that given what you’ve been through, it’s actually surprising you’re functioning as well as you are!
Because at that time, the looks I was getting from people that don’t know about PTSD, they thought I’m insane – I’d lost the plot and I was crazy. So that’s the narrative I took on a couple of years after the eruption – that I was a problem, I was broken, I was crazy, I was breaking down. Like, this is all my fault.
And so obviously, things got real grim. Once you feel that way, it feeds the PTSD which reinforces that feeling. It was a vicious cycle of things getting infinitely worse, until, I guess everything fell apart, everything broke down. And then I got the right help – sort of by fluke and from there, it slowly got better and the ship righted itself.
I mean, congratulations for getting through it, it’s incredible and inspiring. Did it come as a huge shock that the mental recovery was going to be so difficult? I mean, it seemed like you’d bet the odds to stay alive in those first minutes, hours, days and weeks – but now this even bigger challenge seemed to be on you?
Absolutely – immediately after the eruption it was like, okay, I’m supposed to be dead. Like, statistically, I shouldn’t be here. So it was like, all right! We’re all good now! After getting out of that pyroclastic surge, I felt like, it was all right, we’re out, everything is going to be fine. It wasn’t until my family told me the extent of it weeks later. And then, this complete other part of it with PTSD.
How have you tackled PTSD and writing this book – and then of course having to do all these publicity interviews for the book. How are you getting through this? Has it been triggering? Or does it not really pose a problem at the moment?
At the moment it’s good and it hasn’t posed a problem for a while – touch wood! It has been a lot more full-on because I decided to do the book within the year. So just trying to write between work – and then I had travel already planned and a bunch of just life admin and other stuff. It filled up every waking moment of my days.
And then no, I kind of didn’t think ahead to the publicity side of it, until I got the email mid-January this year, where it was like, right, let’s start thinking about this. The media side has probably been more overwhelming than anything else to be honest.
I’m really not surprised to hear that, because yip, this book is a tough, heartbreaking read at times. But what really made me feel sick, was reading about the awful way you were treated by the media. You wrote about some of the really underhanded things that news organisations did to try to get to you – pretending to be family members or dressing up as medical staff to try to get into the hospital room to get a photo of you, to talk to you, to get an update on your condition. Some even just made things up. All while you were trapped, unable to move, stuck in a bed, fighting for you life – and now feeling fearful that someone might just burst into the room. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
Yeah, I felt very sorry for the media coordinator for this, because she started talking about interviews and I just slammed the brakes on. I was like, ‘you’ve read the book. You know how I feel about this!’
She had to sort of coax me through it, and was very careful as to who they picked for me to speak to and I had a lot of control. That was a good experience for me to gain back a bit of trust. She’s been incredible walking me through it – sending me articles and proof the people I’m talking to for this aren’t bad people!
But I also reached out to a few people online that I knew had both good and bad experiences with certain media outlets that I’d heard about and sort of picked their brains on things. I’m really grateful for people like Millie (Elder-Holmes) who was someone I reached out to and she was amazing. She gave me some tips on how to walk through it that really helped. And then I had my parents helping reread things and proofread things, or listen it, so I had that second set of ears and eyes in case I miss something. I’m very lucky that I’ve got their support to help me through this.
But yeah, initially it was a shit show. Even with the boat fire there was shit that came out, like that we jumped into freezing cold waters. No! It was the middle of January! The air was warm! It was lovely!
God, look I’m so sorry that happened – it’s just beyond disappointing to hear. But, I’m so happy and thankful that you decided to tell this story on your terms in your own words in this book.
Yeah it was disappointing but also helped get the book across the line as well! It’s because people kept saying that I should tell my story – because I did a few public speaking things and people would tell me to write a book. And yes, because I had total control of the narrative, I felt safe doing it. No one can twist this – or if they do, it’s something I’ve said, and it’s something I’ve said wrong. So then the book started to feel safe.
I thought, as long as the publisher is of sound mind, this isn’t a salacious story, perhaps this is the safest way to do this and get this out, without it being misconstrued. Because, between the publisher and lawyers and everyone checking it over the course of the year, we’ve made sure everything was sort of as safe as possible. I mean, it could have been a very different story – I could have absolutely reamed some people, but we decided no, I mean, maybe that will be volume two [laughs].
You guys were the first ones I spoke to after the eruption and did my first proper interview with. I think Capsule had just started up? I was like, you guys have only just started, you can’t have f**ked up yet. [Laughs]
[Laughs] Great thought process. And thank you so much for having faith in us like that and trusting us with your story. It’s so good to see you doing so well now. I guess to finish up – what have you got coming up in 2026 that you’re looking forward to?
Honestly, I’m looking forward to having a break, which doesn’t happen very often for me, but I’m going to Queenstown for a week in April for my birthday, so that’ll be nice to get away and chill after this whirlwind of the start of the year. There’s a conference I’m going to in June which I’m excited about and a course I’m doing at the end of May that I’m excited about to. That’s about as far ahead as I’m planned!
Well, I hope you get to have some rest and get over this cold this weekend. Thank you SO, SO much for your time. We love you!
Surviving White Island by Kelsey Waghorn is out now, RRP$39.95, Published by HarperCollins Aotearoa New Zealand in paperback, e-book and audio
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