
In 2010, Lisa Hose was in the news for being the first woman to win The Biggest Loser in Australia. The WA woman lost 56kg – nearly half her bodyweight – and said she was doing it because she wanted to be “a better role model” to her two daughters, then aged 12 and 14.
Now Hose is turning to the media because her older daughter, Chelsea, is stuck in Peru due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hose is in tears as she tells her story to Mamamia.
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“It’s been an absolute nightmare and we are getting nowhere,” she says.
Chelsea and her friend Tayla left Australia at the beginning of March for a four-week trip to South America.
“Chelsea’s just finished her teaching degree,” Hose explains. “It was her celebration trip for finishing uni. They just thought they’d do this before they started settling down.”
She says at that time, South America was “not on the radar at all” when it came to coronavirus. Chelsea and Tayla had been in Brazil and were planning to spend just one night in Lima before flying on to Mexico.
“They got an email in the morning saying that their flight was being delayed, and then they got a phone call saying, ‘Your flight has been cancelled. The airport’s closing tonight.’ That was it.
“Had we had any foresight that Peru was going to shut its borders, we would have got them home.”