Everything to Live For: The Inspirational Story of Turia Pitt (8 page)

As the Sawyers started to retrace their footsteps, they ran into Lon and told him what they’d seen and about someone calling out ‘fire’. They suggested he should take a quick look and assured him they would tell anyone else they came across to go back.

Although Lon was familiar with the terrain of the Kimberley, he was not familiar with this part of the course. He continued walking to see if he could locate the people who had called out ‘fire’ from the valley. When he reached the top of the gorge he saw the fire racing over the valley and saw two people standing as if uncertain what to do, and he realised they were in danger. He called down to them and they didn’t answer, although in all probability his voice could not have been heard over the noise of the fire. Terrified that he was about to witness people die, he called out again and through the billowing smoke saw the man running and heard screams from the woman as smoke billowed over her. He was later to find out that the woman was RacingthePlanet founder, Mary Gadams, and competitor, Ron Rutherford.

Devastated by this vision, and believing he too might be in danger, Lon turned and started to head back as fast as he could until he collapsed with leg cramps. Fortunately, Martyn saw him fall and he and Brenda went to help; Lon told him what he’d seen and said they needed a rescue helicopter. Martyn told Brenda he would stay with Lon but for her to keep going and get to checkpoint two as quickly as she could to get help.

When Lon had recovered from his cramp he took off ahead of Martyn, anxious to tell anyone still on the course to return to checkpoint two immediately. He reached the checkpoint just after Brenda, who had already warned Dr Waite that people might be trapped by the fire and a rescue helicopter would be needed. When Lon arrived he took Dr Waite aside and told her that he’d actually seen people being burnt and heard screaming.

It was now just after 2 pm.

D
R
B
RANDEE
W
AITE, AN
A
MERICAN WHO HAD WORKED WITH
RacingthePlanet since 2005, first dialled 000 at 2.02 pm and was put through to Western Australia’s Fire and Emergency Services Authority’s communications centre in Perth (FESA Comcen). Following is the transcript of the conversation:
¹

There are some long pauses and talking in the background and Dr Waite tells the operator the ‘GPS has now gone quiet.’

While it could be expected that Dr Waite, as an American, might be unfamiliar with the territory and the roles of the various agencies, the inquiry raised serious questions about the operator’s response; it found that not keeping Dr Waite on the line while communication was established to the right agency was a serious failure.
²

After Dr Waite’s unsuccessful FESA call, she phoned event director Samantha Fanshawe at checkpoint four and advised her there was an emergency and that people were trapped by the fire. Fanshawe then made her own call to 000 and was put through to FESA.

Fanshawe told the operator ‘. . . there are bush fires out here and there is a possibility that there are two people trapped in a bush fire . . .’ She did not tell the operator that people had been burnt or needed medical attention.
³

Somewhere along the communication chain, the fact that people had been burnt was lost; the inquiry heard this may have been due to a poor connection between satellite phones.
⁴

Although Fanshawe was unable to provide the GPS coordinates for the exact location of the ‘incident’, she attempted to describe where they were. Unfortunately, she was unaware that the FESA call centre was in Perth and the operator was not familiar with some of the remote place names she mentioned in Far North Western Australia. Fanshawe said she would phone back with the coordinates. At the end of the call, she told the operator that they had access to a helicopter and asked if it would help if they got it to start looking, ‘. . . or is search and rescue done through you as well?’
⁵

RacingthePlanet had an arrangement with the Beyond Action team that their helicopter could be co-opted as first responder in an emergency. But instead of contacting the Beyond Action pilot, Nathan Summers, Fanshawe tried to call the Heliwork base in Kununurra to activate their ‘back-up emergency helicopter’. Her calls were unsuccessful, again due to bad satellite reception. Regardless, RacingthePlanet had not booked a back-up helicopter, declining the option offered by Heliwork the previous day, so there was no guarantee there would be one available in the case of emergency anyway.
⁶

Fanshawe next called Garcia Prieto at checkpoint three and told him there were runners missing between checkpoint two and The Barrels and they needed to contact the media helicopter and get it to have a look. He told her the helicopter was actually there at checkpoint three; she then spoke to Nathan Summers and asked him to fly over the range and investigate the situation.

Summers took that call at about 2.35 pm.
⁷

When Fanshawe rang FESA back with the GPS coordinates at 2.45 pm, she was asked how many people were injured. She replied, ‘Two people missing. No one injured.’
⁸

After their narrow escape from the flames as the fire swept through the gorge, Ellis and Heather made their way down into the valley, heading back to checkpoint two but also looking out for any runners behind them. They came across the two people Lon Croot had seen – Mary Gadams, who had burns on her hands and legs, and another competitor, Rod Rutherford, who had managed to escape and wasn’t burnt. They bandaged Mary, after which all four started walking along the layers of ash back towards checkpoint two, looking for anyone in front of them who may have been injured. Everything was burnt – the pink course markers were burnt and the trees were still on fire.

Ellis and Heather were sharing their water with Mary, helping her drink and cool her burnt hands as she and Rod had used all of their water. Heather kept blowing her whistle to see if anyone responded and after about thirty minutes they heard a return whistle; several more back and forth whistles were exchanged and then they found Wade. They made their way towards each other and Wade briefed them on the injured competitors up on the ridge, stressing the seriousness of Turia’s and Kate’s burns. He also told them the group was short of water.

Wade handed Ellis the list of names and race numbers of the group on the ridge and Ellis gave him some water, then Wade started walking back towards the ridge.

Because Mary was injured, Ellis suggested that she and Rod should stay put and, leaving them with some water, he and Heather headed off for checkpoint three.

There were no trail markers and all Ellis and Heather had for navigation purposes was a rudimentary hand-drawn map of the course. Most of the trees in the valley were still burning and branches would suddenly drop with no warning making their trek nerve racking.

After walking for about forty-five minutes, they saw Summers and a member of the media crew, Nathan Tomlinson, in the Beyond Action helicopter. Ellis and Heather waved like mad, pointing towards the ridgeline where they knew the group of injured competitors were.

Summers quickly located the group on the ridge by the reflection from the stretched-out space blankets. As he approached, Summers could see people lying down; some were seated and stood up and waved. As Summers got closer and looked down he could see obvious casualties. He thought he might be able to land but realised as he hovered over the site that it was impossible because of the rocky terrain and trees; as well as being hampered by camera equipment attached to the helicopter.

While Summers kept the aircraft hovering over the group, the rotor blades raised clouds of dust and ash that settled on everyone’s burns and as he flew off, they knew rescue was near but not near enough. But still, the sight of the helicopter lifted their spirits; rescue must come soon.

Summers landed on the only suitable area – some distance away, on the opposite side of the valley – and leapt out of the chopper to meet Ellis and Heather. Ellis passed on the information about the other injured people. Summers immediately sent out calls on his radio but could not reach anyone’s satellite phone. Ellis urged him to get back up in the air, where reception might be better, as another helicopter was urgently needed. But the pilot was worried: the nearest emergency helicopter capable of winching the injured off the ridge was in Darwin, more than 800 kilometres away.

Summers’ helicopter wasn’t equipped for medical emergencies but he did have water, which he gave to Ellis to take to the ridge, and then he took off.

Ellis and Heather headed back towards the base of the cliff to see if there was any way to get the wounded down the cliff face so they could be evacuated.

In the meantime Trent clambered down the cliff to meet them; after he introduced himself he reiterated the grim news about the state of the girls. Ellis and Heather told him that Mary Gadams and Rod Rutherford were also waiting in the gorge for rescue.

Ellis and Heather then decided to sweep the valley back to checkpoint two to look for any runners who might have been behind them. They commenced the 5-kilometre hike through the narrow gorge and charred wasteland beyond, blowing their whistles every couple of minutes. They never heard an answering whistle.

To their dismay they found checkpoint two burnt out and evacuated. They continued hiking for another 6 kilometres to the Gibb River Road; they hoped to hitch a ride to checkpoint three and hand over the list of all the people stranded in the gorge who needed evacuation.

Once airborne, Summers got a call through to RacingthePlanet, advising them of the location of the ridge and asking them to urgently organise another helicopter and an ambulance. Then he made one more attempt at landing to get Turia and Kate off, but it was impossible; there was room for only one skid on the rock ledge.

As they watched Summers fly off, and now knowing there was no way a helicopter could land, the men wondered how they could get the girls down into the valley. There was some discussion about assembling makeshift stretchers from space blankets and broken branches; this was dismissed as too risky on such steep terrain because they could be putting the girls’ lives in more danger if they dropped them. They would have to wait.

Time wore on but the temperature had not dropped much – it was still around 35 degrees.

Summers collected Dr Julie Brahm, RacingthePlanet’s Australian-based medical assistant (a Canadian, at the time working for a rapid-response Australian medical team), from checkpoint three and flew back to the site; he hovered over the ledge while she jumped from the helicopter and ran immediately to the injured Turia and Kate.

Then Summers landed some distance away in the valley, where he made two broken satellite calls to Paul Cripps, the operations manager at the Heliwork base. He explained there were five people with serious burns who needed to be transported to hospital urgently. After that, he and Nathan Tomlinson walked back across the valley and climbed up to the ridge with more water.

Dr Brahm’s arrival and the calls to Paul Cripps were estimated to have occurred at between 3.45 pm and 4 pm.

After receiving the ‘two tourists missing; no injured message’, FESA passed the information on to the St John’s Ambulance Centre in Perth, which immediately relayed it to Sarel De Koker, the community ambulance paramedic in Kununurra.