The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories

by Bill Marsh

  Then we came across a huge stretch of water. It must’ve been at least a kilometre wide. So we tackled that and I can remember, at one stage, the headlights and the driving lights of the Nissan were completely under the water and we had just this dull brown glow in front of us. Anyway, when we finally came out the other side, we decided we’d call it quits for a while and have a bit of a spell. All this time, of course, Lionel had been trying to lie down in the back and, believe me, he was really crook. Anyhow he agreed and he said, ‘Yeah, have a spell and try and get some sleep.’

  So we did try to get some sleep, but we were under strict instructions that if Lionel got, you know, really, really bad, he’d better just wake us up and we’d get going again. And that’s exactly what happened because we were in our swags for not less than an hour when he said, ‘Look, I really don’t like to do this, but we’ve gotta get a move on.’

  Anyway, we got going again and the track was still difficult to locate because there were sheets of water everywhere. But we pushed on under very, very adverse conditions and the only way we could really navigate was to use a bit of a line with Rex’s GPS.

  So I can tell you, it was a pretty welcoming sight when we first saw the lights of Rawlinna, from about 25 kilometres out, because, until then, basically, we didn’t know exactly where we were.

  Lionel: I suppose the rain had finished by the time we got near Rawlinna, but there was still a fair amount of surface water about. We arrived in town about an hour before daylight and it was in the middle of winter, so it was a bit chilly. I remember there being a lot of light at Rawlinna. There was quite a large building, like a cafeteria or something, and that was still lit up. Then there was another building near the railway line that looked like people might be in, and another house further down. But there wasn’t a soul in sight. Really, at that time of the morning it looked to be more or less like a ghost town.

  Bill: We got into Rawlinna in the wee hours of the morning. It was just sort of that twilight time before sunrise and, at a rough guess, I’d say the temperature was about minus 3° or 4°, at least. It hadn’t rained for about two or three hours and all the puddles were frozen over.

  Anyhow, because I’d been to Rawlinna before, I knew where the telephone box was. So I got on the phone and that’s where I made the biggest mistake ever. I didn’t actually have the RFDS phone number so I thought, ‘Well, the logical thing to do is to ring 000.’

  Now, I don’t know exactly where 000 rang, but I imagine it was Perth. And to use a very common expression, that’s where the shit hit the fan — absolutely — because I just couldn’t get on to anybody with any sense. The first bloke thought it was a hoax call. Well I took that as an insult and I gave him a serve over that one. Boy-o-boy, did I see red. Next I got on to somebody who told me that he didn’t know where Rawlinna was because he couldn’t find it on his computer screen. So I tried to tell him where it was. I mean, I could’ve easily lost my cool but I realised the urgency of the situation. Then eventually, that person put me onto the ambulance people at Kalgoorlie. God knows why he put me onto the ambulance people, but he did, and the bloke that was on duty there, in Kalgoorlie, was an English feller who’d only been in Australia for a fortnight, so the whole procedure started again.

  ‘Where the hell’s this Rawlinna?’ he asked.

  So I tried to explain to him where Rawlinna was then I said, ‘Look, we’re here, there’s an airstrip here and we really need the Flying Doctor urgently.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘I’ll send out an ambulance. How far from Kalgoorlie is this place called Rawlinna?’

  I said, ‘It’s probably 500 or 600 kilometres.’

  ‘Oh, we could be there in a couple of hours.’

  ‘More like half a day, mate,’ I said. ‘It’s at least five hours and possibly more.’

  ‘That’ll be okay,’ he said, ‘we can get an ambulance straight out to him.’

  Anyhow, I finally convinced him that it was a waste of time coming out in an ambulance. So then he put me onto the police station and the police realised that, yeah, well, this was quite an urgent problem and they’d better do something about it. So they told me to hold the line and the next thing I was talking to the RFDS and, boy-o-boy, what a relief that was because, by this stage, I’d say it would’ve taken at least an hour, or possibly more, just to get on to them. And I can assure you, by then, my feet were frozen up to the knees because you know how much protection you’ve got from the weather in one of those telephone boxes. To use another common expression, bugger-all!

  Lionel: The telephone box was right beside the railway line, at the railway station, and Bill seemed to be taking forever in the telephone box, so it was well and truly daylight by then. He seemed to be having some sort of trouble or other but then, apparently, once he got in touch with the Flying Doctor Service, things really started to happen then. After the call we didn’t spend much more time in the town because we went straight out to check the airstrip, to make sure it was safe for the plane to land.

  Bill: Anyway, we had to do a check on the airstrip and that got a little bit confused as well because the RFDS told me that if I could drive up and down the airstrip at 85 kilometres an hour, in complete safety, that it’d be okay for them to land.

  So I said, ‘Righto, I’ll do that and, if I can’t do the safety drive, I’ll give you a ring back and let you know.’

  Well, we drove up and down the strip and there was no problem so I didn’t bother to ring them back. But, what they should’ve said, or what I should’ve said was that I’d ring them back and advise them one way or the other as to the safety of the airstrip. But anyway that didn’t happen so then there was another hold-up because they were waiting for me to ring back.

  Then eventually, the RFDS must’ve rang a woman in at Rawlinna because she came out and she did the same as we did and she drove up and down the strip to check it. Then she disappeared and she must’ve rang them again because, the next thing, she came back out and she said, ‘The Flying Doctor’s on its way.’

  Anyway, we lit a fire at the end of the airstrip so that they could get an idea as to which way the wind was blowing and then we sat there and waited in the cold around the fire until we heard an aircraft. By then, I’d say it was probably about half-past eight or nine o’clock and, oh, you should’ve seen the look of relief on Lionel’s face when he heard that sound in the sky.

  Lionel: It was a gravelly sort of an airstrip but quite good, apparently. You know, the plane came down and it sailed along fairly well. Then I had to wait until it had slowed down enough to turn around to come back and stop near where we were. It was quite a big plane; a two-engine job. I’ve forgotten what type it was but it was quite an impressive sort of aircraft and it was all decked out like a hospital. There was a couch there to lay on and every nook and cranny had something in it, so I guess that they had everything they needed. Of course, they’d get some pretty awful cases to deal with at times so they’ve got to have enough room to airlift, at least, a couple of passengers back to hospital.

  But when they saw me, they realised that I would’ve been in a lot of pain and, really, to be honest, I was feeling absolutely, terribly sick. So when I got inside the plane they put a catheter straight in, right up my penis. I don’t remember the pain being that bad. Perhaps I was already in so much pain that I didn’t really care any more. Anyhow, after they put the catheter in I started to get relief almost immediately. But the catheter was quite an ingenious affair; it was just a long tube that went from up in my penis, out into a bag, which had a tap on the end of it, and you just kept emptying the bag.

  Actually, I thought I might’ve been sick for quite some time afterwards because they told Bill that, by then, the urine would’ve been starting to bank back from my kidneys and so forth. But I was fine, really. In fact, I was feeling pretty good by then.

  Bill: Anyway, the RFDS aircraft landed and I could see Lionel struggling up the steps into the plane. The doctor was an English doctor w
ho hadn’t been out here all that long. I think he was sort of getting experience through the Flying Doctor Service. But anyway, he must’ve done a good job because within ten minutes Lionel came back out of the plane with a huge smile on his face. Oh, in fact, he just about ran down the steps. It was just absolutely unreal. So as soon as they, you know, put the catheter in and drained his bladder he was feeling 100 per cent.

  Another thing — and this hasn’t anything to do with Lionel and his problem — in the meantime, while all this was going on, Rex and I had been talking to the pilot, whose name was one you’d never forget: Robert E Lee. And, I tell you, he reckoned he’d had plenty of comments about that. But it turned out that he knew my next-door neighbour, back home in Nhill. She’d been a Nursing Sister with the RFDS in Kalgoorlie. So it’s a small world, isn’t it?

  Lionel: The Flying Doctor hung around until it was obvious I was getting relief and then they took off and Bill, Rex and I, we just continued on our trip. Actually, I think we might’ve even gained a bit of time because Bill and Rex had been, virtually, driving both day and night, though you wouldn’t want to do that if you didn’t really have to. So we didn’t alter our plans much other than we went south to the Cocklebiddy Caves and camped there that night and I was well enough to go down into the caves by the following day. So it’s pretty amazing what they can do. Then we just carried on home.

  Bill: So yeah, the whole show sort of finished there. Anyway, after they put the catheter in, the RFDS people shot through, then. And so Lionel had the catheter and away we went, heading for home. But we popped in to do a bit of caving on the way at a place called Cocklebiddy. And I can tell you, that’s another nightmare trip from Rawlinna across to Cocklebiddy.

  Anyway, we met a bloke just north of Cocklebiddy. He was the owner or manager or something of a station there called Arubiddy and, because it was getting late in the day and we couldn’t find anywhere to camp, we sort of hoped that he might say, ‘Oh, come up and camp at the homestead.’

  But he didn’t. All he said was, ‘There’s a reserve down by the caves where you can camp. You might be lucky because there’s a South Australian caving expedition down there; a cave group, diving.’

  So we went down there and camped in the scrub with the caving expedition and the next morning they invited us to use their ladder and their line, down to the water level in the caves. And so we went down there for about an hour and a half, and Lionel was real impressed with that. In fact, he reckoned it was the highlight of the trip, really.

  But that was just typical of Lionel’s sense of humour. And believe me, he has got a sense of humour. Because on the way home, across the Nullarbor — needless to say we had our swags so we’d just camp in them alongside the road — but Lionel reckoned that he had one over Rex and I because when we’d had too much to drink, Rex and I would be up and down out of our swags all night going for a leak. But, with the catheter in, Lionel didn’t have to worry about that because he could just roll over and have a leak while he was still in his swag. And he thought that was great. He reckoned he was going to get one of those catheters put in as a permanent fixture.

  Well Prepared

  Both my husband, Peter, and I are members of the Q3 District of Lions, up here in Queensland. Lions is a service club that raises money for various charities and helps out wherever it can. It’s a great organisation. You’ll find them all throughout Australia.

  Anyway, several years ago it was the habit of the District Governor of Q3 to get us all together and we’d do what we called A Lion’s Safari. See, any of us who wanted to take some time, we’d all pile into a bus and off we’d go and visit the Western Region of Lions Clubs. And it was on one of these — an eight-day trip — that this particular incident happened.

  They’re a real social event these Lion’s Safaris, they are. It’s a very friendly atmosphere. We go around to many of the western towns and meet some really lovely people and, of course, we’re always shown the various sites of all the places we visit. So we set off from Brisbane, on this eight-day trip, and we hit Charleville and, of course, we were taken out and shown the sights of the district. I remember we visited the Distance Education facilities there, and that was fascinating.

  Then, of course, we went off to the Royal Flying Doctor base and we were shown around there, which was also extremely interesting. Oh, they showed us everything. We were even taken out to the aircraft hangar. Anyhow, there we were, strolling around the Flying Doctor hangar, when we noticed the plane they used. And one particular member of our Lions Club — we’ll call him Charlie — well, he was particularly interested in aeroplanes and things.

  He’s really a lovely man, that’s why I didn’t want to mention his real name. But this Charlie, as I’ve called him, he wanted to know everything about the Flying Doctor’s aeroplane and its operations, so he started asking lots and lots of questions. You know, you get those sorts of people on these tours, don’t you?

  Anyway, Charlie was asking about this and that, and that and this and, really, by that stage, as I said to my husband, Peter, ‘Peter,’ I said, ‘I’m getting quite hungry.’ And it looked like the others were getting quite peckish as well. But that didn’t seem to register on Charlie because he kept on firing questions like, ‘What altitude does it fly at?’ and ‘How fast does it go?’, ‘What’s it’s flying range?’ and all those technical sorts of things.

  So after he asked a lot of questions about the aircraft he then walked around it, for a closer inspection. ‘Heavens it’s small,’ Charlie remarked, which it was. Then, at Charlie’s request, they let us look inside the plane, and that really got his interest going. He asked about all the nobs and dials, and he examined this and that. ‘Dear me,’ he remarked, ‘there’s not much room inside, is there?’

  ‘No, not really,’ said the person who was showing us around. ‘There’s only enough room for the pilot, the doctor, the nurse and the stretcher for the patient.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ answered Charlie before he fired off another volley of questions.

  Anyway, the visit to the Flying Doctor base finally ended, which, as I said, was very interesting, and we went to lunch. From memory, lunch was at the Lions Den. Of course, as with wherever we went, we were well catered for, so it was a beautiful meal, actually, and greatly anticipated by this stage, I can tell you.

  So, there we were, enjoying our lunch, when Charlie got up for some reason or other and he suddenly collapsed over the table and, well, he couldn’t move. Now, you always expect the worst in a situation like that, don’t you? And in actual fact, it did look quite serious because nobody knew what the problem was.

  ‘No, no, I’m alright,’ Charlie kept saying. ‘It’s just the hip.’

  But the thing was, he couldn’t move. So we called the ambulance and the next thing we know an ambulance is screaming down and they come into the Lions Den to see to Charlie.

  ‘Yes,’ the ambulance people said, ‘it’s certainly his hip.’

  Apparently, he’d previously had a hip operation, but it had a habit of popping out of its socket without any warning. And, well, if you’re on a bus trip and you can’t walk, well, you just can’t carry on, can you? But of course, Charlie had to get home somehow, and we’re 1000-odd kilometres, or whatever it is, from Charleville back to Brisbane, aren’t we?

  So, the ambulance loaded Charlie up and took him to hospital. And it was only a matter of getting the hip back in but the particular surgery, or whatever it was, to get the hip back into the socket could only be done in a Brisbane hospital. So the next day — and here’s the irony of this story — the next day the Flying Doctor Service flew him back to Brisbane in the very same aeroplane that he’d taken so much interest in the day before.

  As my husband, Peter, said, ‘After asking all those questions about the plane and so forth, he was certainly well prepared to experience just what the Flying Doctor does, wasn’t he?’

  And, oh yes, they fixed him up in Brisbane. In actual fact, a nice en
d to the story is that a couple of days later we got the message that he was being sent home from hospital.

  Where are You?

  No matter how experienced you are as a pilot, sometimes you can get a bit caught out. The first time happened, back a few years ago, when I was flying for Aero-medical. That’s before it was absorbed into the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Anyhow, Air Ambulance used to fly into a place called Kadina, which is a little town over on the Yorke Peninsula, in South Australia. But, with Kadina being located where it was and having a dirt strip, it was always very difficult to distinguish the actual airstrip from the land around it; you know, with the colour of the earth and everything.

  This wasn’t an emergency or anything, but, anyhow, the volunteer ambulance crew were on the ground at the Kadina airstrip with the patient, waiting for me to arrive. We were in radio contact so they could hear the aircraft coming in, but I was having difficulty finding the strip and I just needed a little time to get my bearings. What happens in a case like that is, us pilots would tell the ground crew that we were doing ‘one zero minute’s air work’ in the area. Of course, all the other pilots had been in the same situation, so when they’d hear that someone was doing air work they’d have a great laugh. But the ambulance crew, nor the general public, weren’t to know that air work was just an excuse to stall for time while you located the strip, because the last thing you want to admit to, as a pilot, is that you’re lost.