Everything to Live For: The Inspirational Story of Turia Pitt (9 page)

It was then 3.04 pm.

As soon as Sarel got the message, he rang the caller’s number that FESA had given him. This belonged to Samantha Fanshawe, who told him there were fires in the region and people were missing; she told him they were at The Barrels. Sarel, a recent arrival from South Africa, had only been in the job for one week. He had no idea where The Barrels were but when he looked at a local map, he saw it was in the direction of the Tier Ranges, and that was some distance from Kununurra.

In fact, The Barrels are a local landmark – ‘local’ encompassing vast distances in the outback. They are a large collection of randomly scattered drums believed to have once contained either diesel or tar used during the sealing of the original Broome to Wyndham–Kununurra road many years ago. The Barrels are where the road construction crews are believed to have had their campsite and are located off the Great Northern Highway near the Gibb River Road turnoff.

In spite of there being no confirmation of any injuries, Sarel took the precautionary measure of calling headquarters to request an upgrade to Priority 1 status so he could leave immediately to allow for travel time. He called in three local ambulance volunteers, one of whom was Turia’s friend Bonny, and by 3.15 pm they were on their way, driving one standard Mercedes ambulance and one four-wheel drive ambulance. Once in transit, Sarel called Fanshawe again and obtained more detailed instructions on how to get to The Barrels.

On arrival at about 4 pm, he saw a RacingthePlanet banner, the first time he became aware that it was some kind of event. Dr Waite introduced herself as RacingthePlanet’s medical director and explained that there was a fire and competitors were ‘missing’ but she didn’t know if anyone was injured. Straight away Sarel called the St John’s communications centre and informed them it was a race, there were fires in the region and there were competitors missing.

Shortly afterwards, Dr Waite took a call from Fanshawe: the gravely injured runners had been found and access was by four-wheel drive only. Sarel quickly organised for all necessary medical equipment to be transferred from the Mercedes ambulance into the four-wheel drive ambulance plus a four-wheel drive vehicle belonging to Racingthe Planet and the four St John’s personnel set off with Dr Waite at about 4.10 pm.

P
AUL
C
RIPPS, AN UNASSUMING MAN IN HIS MID-THIRTIES, LIVED
in Kununurra with his wife and baby son. Originally from the Central Coast of New South Wales, he took up the Heliwork WA job in 2006; he fell in love with the job and the challenges of flying in the outback. Much of his work involved flying tourists and miners around the Kimberley region and he never tired of the vast, magnificent landscape he flew them over.

There are no dedicated search-and-rescue operations in remote regions of northern Western Australia such as Kununurra; the remoteness means governments fail to see its cost-effectiveness. So anyone injured who needs rescue in a remote area has to go with what the nearest community offers. As far as rescues go, Turia and Kate were fortunate that Paul Cripps and his co-pilot, Bryn Watson, were available that day.

The first indication Paul had that there might be an emergency was a call he received from FESA in Perth at around 1.45 pm advising him of a broken conversation received from a Samantha Fanshawe via satellite phone saying some people had been burnt somewhere between Kununurra and Wyndham (a distance of about 100 kilometres). FESA told him they knew nothing of the event and consequently there was no emergency plan for it, and on the strength of so little information FESA couldn’t officially request Heliwork’s services.
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After FESA told Paul about its unsuccessful attempt at contact with Fanshawe, Paul also tried – and failed – to make contact with her. He then tried to call Nathan Summers by satellite and various VHF channels but had no success. Finally at about 4 pm he got the first of two calls from Summers about the burns victims in the Tier Gorge. Paul, a mild-mannered man, had been getting increasingly worried about that lack of information coming through. Now here it was. And people were hurt. His attention turned to getting help to them as soon as possible.

In his second call, Summers gave Paul the GPS coordinates and told him it was a very difficult location to access; he would not be able to land there as there was only enough room to place one skid on the ledge.

Paul called Bryn Watson, Heliwork’s senior base pilot; his tone may have been calm but Bryn got the ‘time is of the essence’ drift of Paul’s message when he was asked to accompany him as crew. While Paul prepared the helicopter, Bryn tried to locate the aircraft stretcher; being unable to, he called the ambulance communications centre via the 000 service, requesting a stretcher and any other necessary equipment and, if possible, a paramedic, to be brought to the hangar urgently. The operator didn’t know anything about the incident or that the only full-time local paramedic, Sarel De Koker, was almost at the incident site by then. This was at 4.21 pm.

By 4.30 the stretcher and paramedic had not arrived at the base and Paul was seriously concerned about fading light – the six-seater Bell 206L was not a special search-and-rescue helicopter and was not equipped for night flying. But Bryn was a Queensland-trained advanced care paramedic and so Paul made the decision to leave immediately.

En route, Bryn phoned the Kununurra District Hospital and spoke to the emergency department, advising staff they were on their way to evacuate people with burns; details were unknown at that stage but they should expect patients at about 5.30 pm.

Once in the air Paul then told Bryn that the location of the patients was on a ridge with room for only one skid. Nothing was said but each knew what the other was thinking and they flew over the magnificent landscape that would soon be enveloped in darkness. At that stage Paul declared it a ‘mercy flight’ as the casualties’ location was not a standard helicopter landing site (HLS). In the past Paul had carried out several medivacs, some in fairly confined spaces, but never from the side of a cliff with no room to land a helicopter; he knew this was going to be a tough and dangerous job and he was thinking how he could minimise risks to everyone involved.

Dr Brahm assessed the situation and knew it was imperative that the women receive immediate intravenous hydration; believing Turia to be the most critical, she attempted to get an IV drip into her first. But by then Turia’s burns had caused her body to swell up with fluid making it impossible to find a vein. She turned her attention to Kate and successfully got a drip into her.

Hydrating Turia was problematical. Dr Brahm could only give her small quantities of water to sip (which the others had done while waiting for help); the doctor was concerned about giving Turia too much water orally because of the risk of aspiration if she needed intubation in hospital. She gave some general pain medication orally; she did not carry stronger drugs, such as morphine or ketamine, because their availability is restricted in Australia and not normally carried by doctors for sporting events.

However, by then the pain issue was moot as the burns were deep enough to have burnt off both women’s nerve endings anyway; what was of more concern was the possible irreparable damage to internal organs without urgent specialist medical attention.

It was also too late for any effective cooling: on both Turia and Kate the burns areas were too large and too deep; in fact to have had any effect, cooling would need to have been started at least two hours earlier. While everyone had attempted to keep Turia’s and Kate’s burns cool, the small amount of water available had had limited effect. Dr Brahm tried to cover Turia with a space blanket but Turia could not stand anything against her skin.

Dr Brahm, as a medical professional, was also aware that Turia and Kate needed life-saving escharotomies – surgical incisions to release the rigid and inelastic burnt skin to help circulation to limbs. This procedure would have to be done in a sterile environment. If it hadn’t been obvious before this, urgent evacuation was imperative otherwise these young women would die.

Soon after, two volunteers arrived at the bottom of the cliff in a large four-wheel drive vehicle; they had come from checkpoint three and had driven through the burnt-out territory carrying containers of water and a camp mattress, which they started to haul up the cliff. Shaun made one trip down to help bring up some water and collapsed exhausted when he returned. By then there was an increasing number of people on the ridge. Sometime earlier, Ron Rutherford, seeing the activity there, had also made his way up the cliff with some water, leaving Mary to wait for the rescue he felt sure must be coming.

With the arrival of the mattress, additional thought was given to getting Turia and Kate down the cliff if the helicopter couldn’t lift them off. Rod good-naturedly offered to be the test dummy when the men tried to make a stretcher-cum-lifting device out of the mattress and odd bits from their backpacks. Because Shaun, Trent, Wade and Brad had all been trained in underground mine rescue, they figured they could carry the injured young women down on a makeshift stretcher if they had to. But with the risk of further injury if they fell off, the idea was discarded as being too dangerous.

By now everyone on the ridge knew ambulance medics were on the way and the second helicopter was coming from Kununurra.

The ridge had become crowded and it was decided to take Michael and Martin downhill and set up an evacuation point near Mary, where they could wait for transport out.

Nathan Summers, who was also on the ridge with Nathan Tomlinson, knew Paul was an experienced pilot and that if he thought it possible he might try to attempt the high-risk one-skid landing to lift the girls off. He explained to everyone on the ridge what Paul might do and the need to clear away any nearby trees. Those who were able to then set about removing small trees and loose rocks from the area.

Once Sarel’s ambulance team reached the burnt-out part of the course, there were no more pink ribbons to guide them to the incident site and they were not sure which way to go. As none of them knew the course, they bumped along blindly when out of the blue, John Storey appeared above them in his gyrocopter; he had heard about the injured competitors over his radio and flown across to see if he there was anything he could do, even though he couldn’t land. As he flew over the burnt-out valley John saw the two ambulance vehicles and realised they could do with some guidance: he then circled very low, indicating for them to follow him.

They drove through the rough and blackened landscape until they came across a big four-wheel drive at the bottom of the cliff and a group of people, one of whom was Mary Gadams; they pointed up the cliff of the gorge, where Sarel saw another group of people halfway up. Two ambulance volunteers stayed to give assistance to Mary. Sarel, Dr Waite and one volunteer medic set off to the ridge with medical supplies.

On their way up they encountered Trent, Wade and Shaun assisting Michael and Martin down. Sarel noted that Michael had bleeding legs and Martin was bleeding from the head; he introduced himself as a paramedic. Shaun, recognising the South African accent, spoke to him briefly in Afrikaans, expressing relief that at last someone was there to help. Sarel was then waved on up: ‘We’re alright – they need you up there.’

When Sarel arrived, Dr Brahm told him she had been unsuccessful in getting an IV line into Turia. Sarel, who had brought additional IV fluid, also tried but had no success either.
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He administered intra-nasal analgesia to both women, who remained calm but whom he knew must be in shock, if not in pain. His assessment was that even though both had extensive full thickness burns whereby pain was unlikely to be felt due to the destruction of their nerve endings, pain would be severe in any possible areas of second-degree burns where nerve endings would still be receptive to pain.

When ambulance volunteer Bonny arrived on the ridge, soon after Sarel, she surveyed the scene and went to assist him with Turia. She looked at Turia but didn’t recognise her friend.

‘Hi, Bonny. It’s me, Turia.’

Bonny looked more closely; horrified at what she saw, she started to cry. It was then Turia knew things must be serious. Although she was quite numb with shock, she’d looked at her hands and noted only that her fingers looked slightly swollen. The inner Turia was saying, ‘It’s just a little burn. I’ll be back at work on Monday.’

Paul and Bryn arrived at the location and flew over the vast burnt-out area at 4.50 pm. They spotted Summers’ helicopter in a small unburnt clearing, saw several other vehicles, and located the group on the ridge with their silver space blankets spread out. As they flew nearer they saw that a small area had been cleared and that Summers was positioned to help guide them in from the ground if they decided to attempt a one-skid landing.

‘Shall we give it a go?’ Paul asked.

‘Worth a try,’ Bryn answered.

As Paul set up the approach, he instructed Summers that only two people could be lifted off at a time; this was due to weight issues for the manoeuvre. Those two would then have to be off-loaded in the nearest clearing while Paul came back for two more, after which he would retrieve the first two.

Dr Brahm elected to go first with Kate, as she appeared to be the less injured and more able to cope with two moves in and out of the helicopter; Sarel would go second with Turia.

Bryn verbally guided Paul in on the first approach while Summers knelt on the edge of the cliff controlling things on the ground. Once Paul had the right skid of the helicopter fully on the edge of the cliff, he hovered while Summers held the door open and Dr Brahm and others helped Kate get on board.

Paul flew to the nearest available unburnt patch where he could land, about a kilometre away, and unloaded Dr Brahm and Kate. Bryn then climbed into the rear of the cabin, where he would be in a position to guide Paul in more effectively for the second approach.

Nathan Summers was no longer on the ridge to assist with the second pick-up as he was already making his way down into the valley to guide Michael, Martin, Mary Gadams – and those helping them – to his helicopter so he could fly them out to hospital.