by Bill Marsh
With the young girl being in such a critical condition, it was imperative that she reach specialist medical help as soon as humanly possible, so I asked Tony, ‘Would you be able to fly the girl back into Cairns?’
Tony had never done anything like this before but his immediate reply was, ‘Yes’ and he was only too happy to declare it a mercy flight in the hopes of saving the daughter’s life. So then we were able to transfer Ray’s daughter and her mother on to Tony’s aircraft, and I think the Nursing Sister as well, and they flew off to Cairns.
It then took us a couple of hours to dig the much heavier Queen Air out of the bog. Well, we ended up virtually lifting and pulling it out with a tractor, then Ray drove the tractor down the strip so that I could follow him and not get bogged again. Remember, of course, all this was going on in the dark. But then once all that was done we flew the young boy to Cairns.
Unfortunately, the next day we were advised that the daughter had died of her injuries in Cairns Base Hospital. But during an emergency situation like that, of course, you’re always so busy that there’s little time to stop and think. However, afterwards, I spent quite some time contemplating the terrible impact the accident had on that family, especially for Ray, being the father and pilot of the aircraft that hit the children, and also, of course, the poor mother who had lost a child in such tragic circumstances.
Another event that had a profound effect on me was the death of the Cape York grazier Fred Shepherd. I knew both Fred and his wife, Ruth, very well. They were good people and had been great mates all their lives. They worked hard together and they worked well together. Then late one afternoon we had a call to go to Marina Plains Station, north of Cairns, near Princess Charlotte Bay.
Again, it was the wet season. Fred and Ruth had been out contract mustering for the manager of the property, Louis Komsich. Fred was thrown from the horse and the horse had rolled on him. Things didn’t look too good at all and we got there as quickly as we could. From memory, I think it was about an hour and a half flying time from Cairns to Marina Plains, maybe not even quite that.
Anyway, it was after sunset when we arrived for the evacuation. There were no hills and I knew the area very well. I also knew the airstrip well so I felt that, with it being such a delicate emotional situation for those on the ground, I could land safely enough without giving them the extra burden of having to put out flares to light the airstrip.
We landed safely and the only people present were Fred’s wife, Ruth, and Louis Komsich was also there. Louis was very upset at what had happened and Ruth, though she exhibited a practical side, was extremely distraught. With darkness closing in, the doctor immediately attended to Fred and suggested that, even though there was little hope of Fred surviving, we should get him away from there as soon as possible.
At that point I felt it hardly appropriate of me to ask a woman — especially someone’s wife, who’d just witnessed such a terrible accident — to go and put out flares so that I could take off. It’d only be more upsetting for both Ruth and Louis, plus it’d waste precious time. So knowing the area as well as I did, I decided I’d take off by using just my landing lights.
Having made that decision, we next had to solve the issue of a mob of cattle and some horses roaming on the airstrip, and I did ask Louis to drive a car down to clear the area. When that was done my landing lights proved sufficient light to guide me down the strip and I took off without any problems, leaving Ruth and Louis behind. Unfortunately, on our way to Cairns the doctor confirmed that Fred had died of his horrific injuries. This was extremely upsetting to me because, as I said, I knew the Shepherds very well. But at least I knew I’d done everything in my power to give them the best possible help.
Then about a week or so later the DCA (Department of Civil Aviation) called me in. Apparently, the doctor who was on board with me — and I won’t mention names — had written a report to them saying that he was frightened about my taking off without the extra guidance of flares. This was deemed to be a dangerous manoeuvre by the DCA and I hadn’t met department requirements.
I strongly disagreed because I never did anything that I didn’t know I was capable of doing. I didn’t take any risks. It might’ve seemed that way in a written report to someone like the DCA, but because of my extensive experience in charter work and many years of flying in the bush, what I’d done was a perfectly safe manoeuvre for someone like me. In the worst case, if I’d had an engine failure or anything like that after take-off, it wouldn’t have been any problem in turning around on one engine and get on to final approach again and land with the landing lights. So basically, it didn’t worry me one scrap.
Anyhow, I was called to Brisbane. I walked into the room. There were two people there from the DCA and they started to question my ‘irresponsible behaviour’. So I explained that the reason I hadn’t asked for flares to be put out was that for me to have had those people to go running around and organising flares would’ve been even more upsetting in the situation, especially for Ruth. Plus, of course, it would’ve been wasting more precious time. Then to finish off I simply stated to them, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘taking all that into consideration, what decisions would you have made under those same circumstances? You’ve got an extremely upset man. Plus, you’ve got a distraught wife with a dying husband. So what do you expect me to do; just sit there and do nothing?’
Well, they didn’t have an answer to that. They were silent for some time then they sort of, almost, congratulated me and said, ‘Well, Mr Darby, we won’t be going any further with this so you won’t hear from us again.’
And I think from then on they had a much deeper understanding and a much more tolerant attitude towards that which was reported to them as having been ‘irresponsible behaviour’.
Two in One
Now, I’ve had a couple of story ideas about my time as a pilot with the RFDS and one incident occurred with my Flight Nurse, Penny, who was by then my wife — still is, of course.
We were living up at Derby, in the north-east of Western Australia, and, well, we started our clinic circuit at 6.30 on the morning of 31 December, when we took off in the Queen Air aeroplane from the Derby RFDS base and went to Fitzroy Crossing. That’s about a fifty-minute flight. We did a few hours clinic work there at Fitzroy, then we went on to do the clinic at Halls Creek.
It was late afternoon by the time we’d finished at Halls Creek. Then on our way back home to Derby we were asked to divert back to Fitzroy Crossing to pick up a patient. So we did that, we returned to Fitzroy, picked up the patient and then flew back home to Derby. This was now New Year’s Eve.
Anyhow, we were invited over to our next-door neighbour’s place for a champagne and chicken dinner, to celebrate the coming New Year. It’d been a bit of a day for Penny and I and so we were both really looking forward to that. So we got home, had a shower and we were just about to get dressed when the phone rang. It was the Derby base and they said, ‘Look, Jan, sorry, but the patient you picked up from Fitzroy Crossing has deteriorated and we really need to get them to Perth.’
So it was goodbye to the chicken and champagne. Instead, we threw on some gear, rushed back out to the airport, loaded the patient, strapped ourselves in the Queen Air again and we took off at about 8.30 that night. Things were going pretty well until around Mount Newman, where we hit line after line of thunderstorms. At the time I remember using the descriptive expression that the lightning was ‘hitting the ground like a picket fence’.
But the outside action was almost overshadowed by the turmoil going on in the back of the aeroplane. Being subjected to such severe turbulence the rear end of the plane was virtually fish-tailing as we were flying along. Of course, that didn’t help things much at all because before long the doctor who we had on board with us soon became all but unconscious through airsickness, which left Penny as the only person still ‘standing’. So there she was, being tossed around, desperately trying to keep the patient’s neck immobilised by placing sandbags arou
nd the head to support the foam neck brace.
It was just after midnight when we landed in Meekatharra en route to Perth and it already felt like we’d been to hell and back, so to speak. But much to our relief, the Flying Doctor crew at the Meekatharra base very kindly came out to greet us with a cup of coffee and best wishes for the New Year. No, it wasn’t chicken and champagne, but still it was greatly appreciated. In fact, that particular cup of coffee was absolutely bloody marvellous.
We then refuelled at Meekatharra before we took off and we headed on and arrived in Perth, to deliver our patient, just before dawn on New Year’s Day. But by the time we landed, I estimated that Penny and I had been on duty for something like nineteen continuous hours, which is something that you’d never be allowed to do these days of far more strict regulations. And to the best of my knowledge, the patient survived and — you could say for effect that — the doctor who’d been so airsick on the journey took a little longer to get over the experience.
And that story — and it’s a true one at that — could well be called, something along the lines of, ‘Talk About Tour of Duty’ or ‘Happy New Year.’
So that was one story. Now, the other one you could possibly title something like, ‘Did you feel the pain?’
That came about after we’d been out to Balgo Hills Mission for a routine medical clinic. Balgo’s away out into the Tanami Desert area of Western Australia, over near the Northern Territory border. Again, I was flying the Queen Air and we were returning to Derby. Anyhow, we’d climbed to cruising altitude and we were about halfway home when Derby Flight Service Unit called and asked me to call the Flying Doctor on their discreet frequency, at the RFDS base in Derby. I did that and on came our base director who said, ‘Jan, we’ve got a bad one back at Lake Gregory. It’s an injured stockman. Have you got enough fuel to go back?’
‘Yes, Jim,’ I said, ‘I’ve enough fuel for that.’
‘Goodo,’ he said, ‘can you give us an ETA [estimated time of arrival]?’
So I gave Jim an ETA and I turned the Queen Air around and headed to Lake Gregory to pick up this seriously injured stockie.
For those that don’t know, Lake Gregory’s right out in that rotten bulldust country. You know the stuff I mean? It’s very soft and dirty, sandy soil. Terrible stuff. Anyhow, we duly landed and we got the stretcher poles and the canvas and we set off in a flat-bed truck, across country to where this injured stockie was. On the way out we were told that a horse had thrown him, then it’d rolled on him, then it’d got up and tap-danced all over him, before galloping off into the bush. In the process the horse had pushed the poor old bugger half underground into this bulldust and, from their description, it seemed that the horse had broken practically every bone in his body.
By the time we arrived, the stockie was still lying there, sunken into this bulldust, and he was not looking too well, at all. In fact, the only sign of life was that he had a tiny, wee, thin roll-your-own weed drooping from his lips, from which rose the occasional wisp of smoke. So, no, things didn’t seem too good.
But I must say, he looked like a tough old bugger. If I had to give a description of him, I’d liken him to a piece of old mulga. You know those old wizened mulga trees that’ve been stripped bare of leaves, where the wood’s gone all grey and it’s as hard as an old railway line? He was like that; the classic old stockman, as tough as you can make them.
Anyhow, as they were trying to gently slip the canvas under him, to lift him up out of the bulldust, I could see that the old feller was obviously in very great pain. And so, I guess, to give the poor old bastard a little bit of moral encouragement, I leaned across and gently said to him, ‘How’re you goin’ mate?’
And I’ll never forget it; he looked up at me with his watery, fading eyes, the excruciating pain etched into every crease of his weather-beaten face, and he took another tiny breath on his weed and he wheezed, ‘Not too good, mate.’
Oh shit, the poor bastard. I just about wept at the situation. But he did survive. We put him on the back of the truck and drove him back to the Queen Air and we flew him to Derby Hospital and, eventually, he walked out of town and most probably went back to doing the only thing he knew how to do, stock work and riding horses.
Two Lumps
After I’d finished my Midwifery I went over to Western Australia with a girlfriend. We worked at Derby and we went out to Fitzroy Crossing and also to Halls Creek, sometimes. So that’s when I really started to admire the work that the girls were doing in the Australian Inland Mission. The AIM, as it was known, was part of John Flynn’s vision of a Mantle of Safety, which not only included the Royal Flying Doctor Service but also linked into the on-ground health and spiritual services.
Then, when I came home from Western Australia, I contacted the AIM and I finished up working at Cape York, up on the tip of the Cape York Peninsula, for two years. I was a bit wet behind the ears when I first went up there, but it was an amazing adventure for a young woman, and a very educational one as well. And when you’re stuck out there, in such an isolated place like that, and you strike a real tough problem well, I can tell you, the sound of that Flying Doctor Service King Air aeroplane coming in to land, you know, it was music for the soul.
So that’s where this story takes place: up at Cape York, on a big Aboriginal reserve.
I was the nursing sister at the little hospital there that was run by the Australian Inland Mission. That also included a hostel for school children. Basically, a lot of the work I was doing was what the average mother would do at home: you know, cleaning up cuts and scratches and things like that. Still, you had to keep a pretty close eye on things because you couldn’t, say, give the Aborigines the whole course of antibiotics at once because they’d either take them all at once or share them around with everyone else. So you had to have them come back a couple of times a day to take their antibiotics.
And I must say, most of it wasn’t too stressful. But, of course, you had to be able to cope with whatever came in and having that doctor on the end of the radio, when you really needed help, was a godsend. At the Mission, we had a scheduled chat with the Flying Doctor from the Cairns RFDS base, once or twice a day, on the radio. How it worked was that the doctor conducted a medical session and, if you had a problem, you discussed it over the radio with him and he worked out what he thought was wrong, then advised you as to what medication to take out of the RFDS medical chest. Of course, something that was very important was that, when you were talking to the doctor, you had to be anatomically correct or else it could well lead to a wrong diagnosis.
At that time, David Cook was the main doctor for the RFDS at Cairns. I’m not exactly sure just how many other doctors there were, but whenever one of them went on holidays or whatever, Drr Tim O’Leary used to take over. I think by then, Tim had been elevated to being an administrative person. But he still much preferred getting out and about rather than sitting in an office.
Tim was an excellent doctor and had my utmost admiration as a diagnostician. He was also a real character, so, when he was on the radio, everybody used to listen in because of his great entertainment value. Mind you, those very same people secretly dreaded being the person on the receiving end of some of Tim’s wit.
And that leads into this story.
It was around Christmas time — the wet season — so there was a lot of humidity around and a bit of thunder activity. All this was playing havoc with radio communications and, when that happened, you had to have somebody relay the messages on, because the radio signals weren’t strong enough to get through to Cairns. So I was actually relaying messages and a call came through from the CSIRO research station at Somerset, which was just a little south of Cape York. It was from this young feller who was working up there for a few months. He’d been out in the field and he’d developed a problem so he’d radioed in for a diagnosis from, as it just so happened, Dr Tim O’Leary.
As usual, when you first got on the radio, you gave the doctor your personal
details like your name, age, sex and so forth. Of course, I’m relaying messages backwards and forwards over the radio and, of course, all those who could were glued to their radios as well, because they knew that when Tim was on the line, there’d be some good entertainment.
So this young feller gave Tim all his personal details, then Tim asked, ‘And what seems to be the problem, son?’
‘I felt a pain between my legs, Doctor, so I put my hand down the front of my trousers and I discovered two large lumps, Doctor.’
‘So, you’ve got two lumps between your legs, son.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Are you sure that there’s two of them, son?’
There was a brief silence followed by the young feller saying, ‘Yes, Doctor, I’m sure that there’s two lumps between my legs.’
And Tim, being the wily old Irishman that he was, replied, ‘And how old did you say you were, son?’
‘Twenty-three, Doctor.’
And Tim’s voice comes back over the radio with a poorly disguised laugh, ‘Well, son,’ he said, ‘all I can say is that if you’ve got to be twenty-three years old and you’ve only just found out that you’ve got two lumps between your legs then you have my very deepest sympathy.’
And you know, there was dead silence — a pregnant pause, you could say — much to the embarrassment of this young feller. Then after everybody had settled down, questions and answers flew backwards and forwards and, in fact, as it turned out, this young chap had an infected wound on his foot, which, in turn, had caused the swelling of the glands in his groin. So that’s what I mean about having to be anatomically correct when you were talking to the Flying Doctor, Tim O’Leary in particular.