Dramatic photos have emerged of a bushwalker left jammed upside down for hours in a deep rock crevasse after a mobile phone rescue mission went horribly wrong.

Matilda Campbell was bushwalking with friends at Laguna, near Cessnock in the Hunter Valley, earlier this month when she dropped her mobile phone while taking photos.

Campbell, 23, slipped into the three-metre-deep gap between two boulders while trying to retrieve her phone – and was left dangling by her feet for seven hours.

With no phone reception, Campbell’s friends spent an hour trying to free her.

When that failed, they searched for a location to call emergency services.

“In my 10 years as a rescue paramedic I had never encountered a job quite like this. It was challenging but incredibly rewarding,” specialist rescue paramedic Peter Watts said.

He worked with a multidisciplinary team, including the Cessnock Volunteer Rescue Association and NSW Rural Fire Service, to remove several heavy boulders to create a safe point to get to Campbell.

Rescuers also had to build a timber frame to ensure rocks weighing as much as 500 kilograms remained stable while the rescuers worked.

Once paramedics could reach Campbell’s feet, they still had to work out how to get her through what was described as a “tight S-bend”.

That took teamwork and a specialised winch to move one of the biggest boulders.

In all, seven boulders had to be moved to get to the stranded bushwalker.

Watts said Campbell was in good spirits, despite her perilous situation.

“She was such a trooper,” he said.

“I would have been beside myself stuck in that sort of situation, but when we were there she was calm, she was collected. Anything we asked her to do she was able to do it to help us get her out.

“I was very impressed with how chilled she was.”

Campbell was eventually freed seven hours after her ordeal began, suffering only minor scratches and bruises.

Her phone could not be retrieved.

This week, she thanked her rescuers through social media.

“Thank you to the team who saved me,” she wrote.

“You guys are literally lifesavers … too bad about the phone though.”