Australian Influencer Reveals Backyard Sauna Nearly Killed Her

An Australian influencer detailed a near-death experience involving an outdoor sauna.

Revealing the traumatic ordeal via TikTok in a post shared last week, Dominique Elissa explained that she’d been preparing to host a wellness retreat on a remote property in northern New South Wales when things took a terrible turn.

“[I’m] in the middle of nowhere, there’s not a neighbor for 200 meters, there is no reception,” Elissa, 29, said in the video, referring to non-existent phone coverage. She added that she’d been relaxing in the outdoor sauna one night prior and turned it on to heat up prior to stepping outside.

“I’m about to put my swimmers on to go … and I hear ‘Boom.’ I look up. The entire sauna exploded,” the social media star told the camera. “It was, like, a 10-to-15-meter high explosion. All the power went out, my phone was about to die, I had no reception, I am screaming, ‘Help, somebody help me.’ It was a horror movie.”

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Thankfully, the influencer, who is also a pilates instructor, said she was able to get in touch with local authorities despite the lack of cell coverage. “Thank God, I’m literally shaking, I can’t breathe,” she recalled. “Three fire trucks come to take down this huge fire. Luckily, the sauna was about 50 meters from the house on a hill. The whole sauna burnt to the ground. It was the most horrific thing to experience because I was a few minutes from going into that sauna.”

Elissa somehow managed to muster the might to continue with the next day’s wellness workshop, although she struggled to stop “shaking with anxiety.”

Reflecting on the experience at the end of her video, the influencer said, “I am so grateful to be alive, so grateful to be here. I’m definitely going to see a therapist … get some help, but my life lesson to you is that life is fragile, you have no idea what curveballs life is going to throw at you.”

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She admitted she spent the days following the retreat “laying low,” telling fans, “It’s how you react that matters.”

Elissa, also a podcast host, boasts more than 73,000 followers on TikTok and 284,000 followers on Instagram. Many of her fans took to TikTok to share their sympathy while also enquiring as to the brand of the sauna. “Omg that’s so horrific! Are you able to please share the sauna brand if you know? I was wanting to purchase one for my home but this makes me so hesitant now wow,” wrote one fan.

Another commented, “[Please] let us know the sauna type? Infrared or rocks? Just any more details about the sauna so I can avoid! I’m scared now.”