Kinglake-350 (22 page)

SAVING PEOPLE

Samuel Oliner is an American sociologist. He is also a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who, as a child, narrowly escaped the massacre that killed his entire family. He was rescued by a peasant woman who took him in, gave him a Catholic identity and sheltered him throughout the war. That woman’s heroism moved and intrigued him so deeply that he has made the study of heroes his life’s work. He has interviewed more than four hundred individuals who rescued Jews during the war in an attempt to understand what it was that made these people do what they did.

What it was
not
, he discovered, was a matter of religion, politics, wealth or whether they had known about what was happening to the Jews in general.

‘There is no single explanation for why people act heroically,’ he comments. ‘It’s not absolutely genetic or personality or cultural.’

Among the qualities he could discern were these: rescuers tend to have a strong relationship with their parents, a wide range of friends and a sense of empathy; they feel an inescapable duty to help others. They also tend to have a belief that they can shape their own destiny; they have what psychologists call an ‘internal locus of control’. Those whose reactions to disaster are less positive—who stand and watch, or go into their shells—tend to think of existence as something that just rolls over them.

Oliner has found a useful source of information in the records of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, which rewards individuals who voluntarily carry out heroic deeds to save others. He found that 91 percent of the rescuers were male—a statistic that may, of course, simply reflect the fact that men held occupations in which they were more likely to be placed in perilous situations. Sixty-one percent of the rescued were male as well.

He also found that the rescuers tended to have trade or working-class backgrounds; of the 283 rescuers interviewed, only two were from high-status occupations. These people are already equipped for the physical demands of the rescue; they are familiar with steel and wood, with equipment. They are used to finding practical solutions quickly. They also tend to know their own strengths and limitations. Another interesting statistic: 80 percent of the heroic acts occurred in rural or small-town America. They happened in places where people knew each other.

In an attempt to go beyond the raw statistics, to find out what inner logic drove these individuals to perform heroic deeds, Oliner interviewed a random selection of them. He found a range of explanations, but the common thread was a sense of empathy derived from their families and their community. The question was not so much why they did what they did, but how they could have lived with themselves if they hadn’t.

Male. Rural. Practical. Accustomed to taking control of their own destinies. The picture painted by Samuel Oliner could almost be a portrait of Roger Wood and Cameron Caine. Wood was a fitter before he joined the force, Caine a plumber. Both have strong, supportive families. Both are accustomed to controlling situations.

And both are men with a powerful sense of empathy: active members of their community, engaged and engaging.

They would have had ample opportunity to bow out, to wait for help to arrive. Nobody would have blamed them. Nobody was telling them what to do, nobody was coming up the mountain to assist them. The ambulances, fire trucks, their own commanding officers were all down in Whittlesea. Officially, the road was impassable: trees were burning, still falling. They’d already seen more trauma than most people encounter in a lifetime.

They didn’t consider it for an instant.

When Wood was asked, months after the fires, what made him do what he did that day, he seemed momentarily puzzled. He paused, blinked. ‘How couldn’t I?’ he asked. ‘They’re my community.’

One thing Roger Wood knows how to do is drive. Five years of working in this mountain town—of leading search and rescue missions in the ranges, of chasing hoons, of navigating those tortuous tracks and backroads—have honed his ability to handle a four-wheel-drive in tough conditions.

His senior, Jon Ellks, attests to that. He tells the story of a night he and Wood were dealing with a frantic shift in the middle of a ferocious wind storm, racing from one crisis to another. They were miles out of town when they received a report of a violent assault taking place at the medical centre. Wood floored it back to town, lights flashing, careering round the debris that was scattered all over the road, going bush when that was the only option. Ellks hung on to the jesus grip for dear life. They were heading down the final hill when he suddenly spotted a fallen mountain ash hidden in the dip ahead of them.

‘Tree!’ he shouted.

Wood had already hit the brakes, but it was obvious they were going to collide. To Ellks’ horror, Wood instinctively steered into the heavy base of the tree rather than the leafy head. They duly crunched into it at forty kilometres per hour and heard the unmistakable sound of substantial damage being inflicted on the vehicle. Undeterred, Wood backed up, made a quick check of the front end, spotted a local with a heavy winch on his truck. He persuaded the fellow to drag the tree off the road and carried on with their wild ride.

‘Why the hell did you do that?’ demanded Ellks.

‘What?’

‘Hit the thickest part of the tree? This vehicle is brand new.’

‘Rather kill the car than us,’ Wood replied calmly. If they’d driven into the head of the tree, he explained, any of the branches could have smashed through the windscreen, converting a minor bingle into a fatality. Ellks decided that the fellow beside him was coolheaded and quick-thinking—and knew how to handle a vehicle.

In the CFA shed, Wood is discussing the situation with the firies. They decide to organise a convoy. Wood’s Pajero will take the lead; following them will be the CFA four-wheel-drive, the police Traffic Management Unit vehicle with senior constables Barron and Liddell, and at least one private car. They allocate the casualties among the vehicles; Wood and Caine take Wendy Duncan in theirs. She’s the biggest worry.

Frank Allan helps carry her out. He knows her as a fellow CFA volunteer, but she’s so badly burnt, blackened and doubled over with pain that he doesn’t recognise her. By this stage there are a lot of things he isn’t recognising: he’s spent so long on the front line, either fighting the fire or wielding a chainsaw, that he can barely see. His eyes are giving him hell; he’s suffering from both smoke inhalation and flash burns. When he eventually makes it down the mountain, he’ll be put straight into hospital.

Linda Craske sits with Wendy in the back seat. She’s been watching her injured colleague carefully, her concerns escalating by the minute. Wendy has severe internal burns and scarring on the lungs; her breathing is becoming more and more laboured. The fear is that her lungs will soon become so swollen she won’t be able to breathe at all.

Wood has been in some tricky situations, but never one like this: leading a convoy in a midnight ride though treacherous, burnt-out terrain with a group of critically injured victims on board.

‘Seat belts on!’ he orders. It’s going to be a rough ride.

CFA volunteer Jim MacLeod, who’s been working hard all night keeping the pumps and generators going, is taking a quick breather when he sees the convoy go roaring out into the night.

Speaking months later, he is a man with many criticisms to make of the overall response to the Black Saturday disaster. A forthright Glaswegian—he worked on the docks with Billy Connolly—he isn’t afraid to speak his mind. And like a lot of other residents, he’s angry at the lack of warnings, the slowness of the official response, the bureaucratic contortions of the recovery process, the arbitrary dictates of many of the outside police who later descended upon the town.

But of his own locals? The Kinglake coppers?

‘That drive down the mountain, in the middle of the night,’ he comments in his thick Glaswegian accent. ‘Everything still on fire? Trees falling?

‘Balls of steel, those fellers. Balls of steel.’

DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

Wood takes it slowly at the start. It’s not long since they came through, carving a path through the blockages and debris, but the fires are still raging and more trees are coming down. There’s thick smoke still over the road, visibility down to ten or twenty metres. They leave the internal lights on so that Linda Craske can keep a closer watch on Wendy.

The patient is conscious and amazingly calm, given her circumstances, but worried. Her breathing is becoming more and more laboured. Linda examines her, desperately hoping to see some signs of improvement; not finding any.

Roger has eyes only for the road. So does Cameron, for the most part: a look-out is crucial on a journey like this. But from time to time he peers into the back and tries to say something reassuring: ‘You’ll be right, Wendy. Not long to go now.’

But it is long, and they’re far from convinced that she will be right. They can see she’s struggling for air. Craske is thinking emergency tracheotomies: ‘I’d seen them done, but I was thinking, Oh christ, I can’t do that.’

Wendy’s mouth is burnt dry and she’s severely dehydrated. Craske gives her sips of water, but has to restrain her from drinking too much. She’s worried Wendy could breathe water into her lungs and drown.

From time to time Linda looks up through the car windows, and she comes to understand the shock she saw on the policemen’s faces when they entered the CFA. Huge fires continue to burn on either side of the road. As they climb to the top of the mountain she can peer down into the gullies of the escarpment: it’s all ablaze. Images whizz by: burnt-out cars, crazy leaning power poles, a horse with a broken leg struggling through a charred paddock. The odd little untouched miracle: washing on a line behind a ravaged house, a blue plastic pool, a wheelie bin.

They’re moving quicker than they did on the way into Kinglake, but they have to balance the need for speed against the disastrous implications of an accident. As obstacles loom out of the smoke, Cameron calls out directions: ‘Left! Right! Too far! Watch it!’ They duck, dodge and swerve their way down the mountain. They weave their way round dozens of trees, over fallen power lines, off the road and back on again.

They reach the Whittlesea–Yea Road intersection and see something they can hardly believe. This was where Wood set up the roadblock earlier in the day, where he’d had the conversation with Meg, the elderly woman with the shack near the intersection. He’d pleaded with her to leave and she flatly refused.

They’re driving past the shack now, and like just about everything else in the vicinity it’s burnt to the ground. Then suddenly she’s there: Meg, in the middle of the road. Still in her bare feet, bottle in hand, staring at the blazing forest.

Roger has to shake his head. He wonders if he’s seeing a ghost. After what he’s seen, he didn’t think anybody could have survived around here, especially somebody as poorly prepared as Meg. They drive past her, a pale, bewildered figure illuminated by the glowing bush.

‘You see her?’ he asks Cam.

‘Yep.’

‘Good. Thought I was losing it.’

They don’t have time to dwell on the apparition. Wendy is sounding worse. At one stage, she begins vomiting blood. Then it sounds like she’s stopped breathing. There’s a long moment of shared anxiety, but the breathing kicks in again and they all sigh, exhaling in sympathy.

Finally they reach the bottom of the mountain. The road is straight, the landscape unburnt.

‘Hang on,’ says Wood, and puts his foot down.

The night air streams past their windows as they race across the flatlands, reaching speeds of up to 150 kilometres per hour. Roger Wood has already seen too much death today, knows there’ll be more to come over the next few days. Doesn’t want any more on his conscience.

The flashing lights of a police roadblock appear in the distance. They swing around it, power on into Whittlesea. The world here is as magnesium-bright as the mountain was crimson. A massive bank of lights guides them to the showgrounds, where a staging area has been established. Here are the medical facilities they’ve been thirsting for on the mountain: rows of ambulances, Red Cross caravans and tents, medical specialists of every description.

Wood slams to a halt outside the biggest tent. A team of emergency medical personnel appear, fifteen, twenty of them: doctors, nurses, orderlies. They swarm round the car, whisk the patient away. Linda follows, rattling out the medical history.

The two policemen settle back into their seats for a moment, close their eyes, breathe deeply. Allow themselves a moment’s respite.

Wood takes out his phone again. The reception might be better in Whittlesea. He punches the number, another attempt to call home.

For the first time all night, it’s answered.

‘Oh Rodge…’ Jo’s voice is drawn, weary. Enormously relieved. ‘I’ve been so worried about you. Been trying to call you all night.’

‘Same here. Worried you were dead.’ He blinks back tears. ‘Kids okay?’

‘They’re fine.’

He slumps forward in the seat: the long-held tension slackens like a cut rope, and he’s suddenly aware of the terror he’s been struggling with for so many hours.

‘It was that wind change that saved us.’ Jo is still talking. ‘It was only seconds away when it turned around.’ He is struck by the irony of that. The southerly buster that diverted the fire from St Andrews and saved his own family had driven it up the escarpment to wipe out Kinglake.

‘When you coming home, Rodge? Everything’s still on fire down here.’

‘Soon, honey,’ he says. A wrenching need to be there. ‘Not just yet.’

‘How’s Kinglake?’

‘Pretty much wiped out.’

A brief silence. ‘You do what you have to, Roger.’

‘Love you.’

‘Yes.’

Roger Wood’s family had a close shave. They’d spent an anxious day watching the smoke build up in the north, grow stronger as it approached St Andrews. Jo called her father, Ray, who came up from the city to add an extra pair of hands to the defence.

First they were showered with embers and ran around frantically putting them out. The first fires appeared, reached the property across the road; they saw the neighbours out there, attacking it with beaters. It was heading straight for them. Jo went through a rehearsal with the younger kids: they would shelter under a blanket in the bath while she, Ray and eighteen-year-old Dylan fought.

The wind became so wild Jo could barely stand up. The fire accelerated. The horses wheeled in a mob around the paddock, panicking. One broke its neck, another would die the next day from smoke and stress.

She felt a wave of fear, a trembling, teary moment. But that passed. She was a country woman, familiar with pumps and hoses. And she had the kids under her care. She went into action. Tried hosing down the house, but saw the water disappear into steam almost before it hit the wood.

She heard the terrifying roar and looked up reflexively, commenting that somebody was flying pretty low.

‘That’s not a jet,’ said Ray.

‘Oh my god,’ she whispered.

She called Roger, the unbearable truncated phone call that sent him into such a spin at Kinglake West.

As the connection went down, it seemed the fire would be upon them in a matter of seconds. There was a moment of stillness. The fire died down, a lull. Then a cool wind came streaming across her shoulders and the flames flared up again, but in a different direction, sweeping up towards the escarpment. The change had arrived.

She watched in disbelief. ‘Thank you, Mavis,’ she whispered. A prayer of gratitude to Roger’s mother, who had died six months earlier and who, Jo knew, was looking after them.

She went inside, got a glass of water from the tap. Almost dropped it as she stared out the kitchen window. Another fire there, to the south, in the bush behind the house. Heading in their direction, driven this time by the southerly change.

‘Not again,’ she pleaded, as people all over the ranges were doing at that moment. She heard that roaring again, the sound like an aircraft overhead.

But this time it was. The helicrane, the monstrous chopper they called Elvis, came roaring in from the west, hit the fire with a load of water. Refilled at the dam and hit it again. Kept hitting it until the fire was beaten into submission.

The kids came outside, stood watching as the fire rampaged up the slopes to where their father was on duty.

Back at Whittlesea, Roger slumps forward in the seat, rests his head on the wheel. Drained. A nurse comes out and glares, insists on giving him and Cameron a check-up. Both men’s eyes are stinging from the constant exposure to smoke and fire, their throats are raw. She takes them in and flushes out their eyes. Senior police officers appear, suggest it’s time they call it a day, they’ve done enough. The medical staff concur.

Roger and Cam look at each other, the same response plain on their faces.

Bullshit.

Now that the first proper strike teams and ambulances are ready to tackle the mountain, they know their local knowledge will be needed more than ever. They’ve been in Whittlesea maybe fifteen minutes. It’s time to get back up to Kinglake.

They jump back in the Pajero.

They don’t see Wendy Duncan until a few weeks later, when she comes back to thank them for saving her life.