The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories

by Bill Marsh

  Now considering his condition I ask you, with all those injuries, first of all, how did he get out from under the tree? Then how did he manage to crawl the couple of hundred yards across the ground to his ute? Following that, how did he manage to get into the ute and then drive the vehicle to the homestead, keeping in mind that it was a manual drive?

  In my time as a doctor, it’s one of the greatest survival stories that I have known. And the people at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, they put him back together and he could walk again after all that. In fact, I last saw him walking down the street in Injune.

  Heroes of the Outback

  What you’ve got to take into consideration is that it’s not just the vast distances we in the Royal Flying Doctor Service have to cover, but also the many, many miles that some of our constituents have to travel to get anywhere. Now this notion of distance may seem inconceivable for someone who is living in a city, where all the amenities are so close. But that’s not the way it is out there, in the more isolated areas. For example, take the time we had to cancel a medical clinic — at short notice — from out of our operations at Port Augusta. This was a few years ago now so I can’t quite remember where the clinic was originally going to be held and nor can I remember what the exact reason was as to why we had to cancel it. It could’ve been due to bad weather, which is the most likely reason, or it may have even been aircraft or crew unavailability. Those things happen sometimes. But anyway, the issue was that we were forced to cancel the clinic, and as soon as that decision had been made we let everyone know.

  Then shortly after we notified everyone of the cancellation I got a call from a woman who used to attend this particular clinic, whenever the need arose. ‘I’ve just arrived at our front gate and my husband’s called to say that you’ve cancelled the medical clinic,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s right.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not exactly sure but I can find out and radio you back, if you like.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘there’s no need for that but I would’ve liked to have known a little bit earlier.’

  Now, if you lived in the city your normal reaction would be to say, ‘Well, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem; just turn around and go back inside your house.’ Because if you do live in the city and you’ve walked out the door and you’ve just arrived at your front gate and your husband’s called out to tell you that the doctor’s now unavailable, then you’d just turn around and go back inside, wouldn’t you? It’s that easy.

  Anyhow, this woman, she said to me, ‘Yeah well, I guess that I’ll just have to turn around and go back home now, but it seems to be an enormous waste of time.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I sincerely apologise but it’s still only nine o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it may still only be nine o’clock in the morning but I’ve already travelled well over 60 kilometres, along a dirt track, and that’s just from my back door to the front gate of our property.’

  And that put it into some sort of perspective. You know, because of the distances that some of these people have to travel — just to reach their own front gate — a cancellation like that is not a simple thing.

  So you have to admire people like that, particularly the women. Take our Consumer Network Group. It’s a wonderful way of engaging with the actual people we serve. It’s made up of predominantly females and we get together every now and then for face-to-face meetings to discuss how the RFDS can better serve its constituents. We’re actually reinvigorating it now, which is very exciting, because you get everyone talking about things like the services they’re receiving, and the frequency they get them, and the freedom of access and, you know, things like: are we meeting their requirements? Can we do it better? Is there something else we should be looking at?

  Now, I’m not saying that we can always rectify all these matters because, as you may be able to imagine, there are huge logistical problems in servicing such vast areas of this continent. Like I said about that woman before — it’s not like she could simply just turn around and go back home and get on with her day as if nothing had happened.

  And so, when I get to talk to the many people that go to these Consumer Network Group meetings, I’m always reminded of that John Williamson song, ‘Woman on the Land’. I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard it or not. It goes something like, ‘So I propose a toast to the mothers that we know. Proud to be the better half who really run the show… To our hero — the woman on the land.’ It’s a magnificent song. Anyhow, I learned the words for one particular Consumer Network Group meeting because, you know, the last thing we want is for our constituents to reach a point where they’re just a recorded number. They’re more than that. They’re people. They’re human beings. And those women, and in actual fact everyone we serve, they are the real heroes of the outback.

  Of course, it’s not just the Royal Flying Doctor Service who supports them. There are many other organisations involved. And also, of course, the people themselves are also extremely supportive of each other, perhaps sometimes a little too over zealously. There’s one occasion that always tickles me: I remember when I was with one of the doctors during a phone-in medical session. They used to happen over the air, twice daily. The first session was at eight o’clock in the morning, before the School of the Air program started, and the second was at four o’clock in the afternoon, after School of the Air had finished. They were timed that way because the mums were often fairly busy, not just supervising their children during their classes but also helping run the property, as well as attending to the normal ‘womanly’ chores of washing, cooking, cleaning, plus the multitude of other tasks they take on. Like I said, real heroes of the outback.

  Now, what you’ve got to appreciate is that these medical sessions were open sessions. Anyone could listen in, and they quite often did. It was an easy way for everyone to find out how everyone else was going. So this time the doctor opened the radio and initially he registered who was out there. Then once everyone was registered, he went back to the first person. He gave her call sign and the lady replied with, ‘I’m just a bit concerned about little Johnny.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied the doctor, ‘can you tell me his symptoms?’

  ‘Well, Doctor, he’s got such and such.’ And she described little Johnny’s symptoms.

  Then before the doctor could even answer, one of the lady’s neighbours cut in, over the radio, and said, ‘Oh, I can tell you exactly what’s wrong with him.’

  And I thought that that showed the real essence of the bush: you know, how even if these people are hundreds of miles apart, they’re not only comfortable talking about their own personal issues to a doctor, while everyone else was listening in, but they were also willing to put in their sixpence worth if they thought they could help each other out.

  I Was the Pilot

  I’ve just been reading your second book of Flying Doctor stories — More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories — and in that book there’s one particular story called ‘Blown Away’. Now you’re not going to believe this but I was the pilot that was mentioned in that story and in actual fact, over my time in the Royal Flying Doctor Service, it’s one of my all-time favourite stories as well. So, would you like to hear the story from the pilot’s side of the event?

  If you don’t mind, I’ve sort of written bits and pieces of it down and I’d like to read it to you more or less as I’ve written it. So, okay, here goes.

  One of my favourite stories happened not long after I started with the Flying Doctor Service. So that must’ve been about 1990 or thereabouts. Anyway, I was working at Port Hedland at the time and we received a call from a family who were driving along the Canning Stock Route.

  Now, I’m presuming here that everyone knows where the Canning Stock Route is. If not, I’d just like to relate a brief overview because it will give the readers a clearer picture of the desolation of the situat
ion. The Canning is an old stock route that runs a distance of 1820 kilometres along a series of wells through the central deserts of Western Australia, from Halls Creek, in the north, right down to near Wiluna, which is just west of Meekatharra. I’m not sure what it’s like today, but originally there were supposed to be something like fifty-one wells, or watering points, along the length of the stock route. Then over the stock route’s historic period, from when the track was being surveyed and then during the following years when droving was taking place, the records tell us that there were something like ten murders, a number of inflicted woundings and several deaths from internal complications of — and I quote — ‘unknown origin’. These murders, woundings and deaths from unknown origins involved both white and indigenous people.

  Also there were and still are countless sand ridges. And I’ll quote again here — ‘According to Dr J. S. Bard, over one particular section of 470 miles, some 730 sand ridges lay along the stock route, containing enough material to cover the country evenly with sand to a depth of three feet. The biggest sand ridges are between Wells 41 and 42. When formed they are approximately a mile apart, averaging sixty feet in height, with a base of about 320 feet.’

  So, if you can calculate that back to the figures we use these days, that might just give you some idea as to what the country out there is like. And while droving no longer takes place along the Canning these days, it’s a favourite journey-cum-adventure for many four-wheel drivers.

  Anyhow, these people were camped near Well 33, which was right out, oh, it’s probably only about 200 kilometres from the Northern Territory border. So it’s fairly well east. And they were travelling in convoy with another couple, who were also in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Anyhow, their young daughter, who was about nine or ten years old, climbed about the only tree that was out in that part of the desert and the branch broke and she fell down and broke what I believe was her arm. In your story, the storyteller thought that she’d fractured one of her thighs. So I stand corrected on that point. Mind you, it was a long time ago.

  Now, as luck would have it, they were reasonably close to an old airstrip. The only trouble was that the strip hadn’t been used for a very long time. Now, I’m trying to remember just what the name of that particular strip was. No, sorry, I can’t remember just offhand. Anyway, it was overgrown with short, low bushes, maybe up to something like a metre high. So, as I said, it hadn’t been used for a fair while.

  We got the call the night before we went out there and, of course, naturally there were no landing lights on the strip out there or anything so we had to wait until first light to head off. At that point of time, with the airstrip being so overgrown, it was impossible for us to land anyway. But all through the night these people and their other companions worked by their car headlights, clearing the bushes with shovels and spades and what-not.

  Then I flew out of our Port Hedland base just before first light in an attempt to arrive at the remote airstrip just on first light. When I arrived, the strip still looked pretty rough but it looked landable so I was willing to give it a try. These people, they’d set up a fire with the smoke to show me the wind direction. Anyhow, I landed the plane on this makeshift strip and we successfully picked up the little girl and her mother and took them back to Port Hedland, where the little girl received further necessary treatment. So that was a very satisfying retrieval.

  I think that the people were from Victoria somewhere, and later on we got a lovely letter back from the little girl thanking us for what we did. Then along with her letter the girl’s parents sent some lovely photos of, you know, the girl lying in the back of the car and the airstrip before they cleared it and then after they’d cleared it and also of the aeroplane coming in to land. But it must’ve been a hell of a job to clear the airstrip, which had to be about 1000 metres long. I mean, that’s quite a lot of work they did, and, as I said, they worked all night.

  But in her letter the little girl also told us how her broken limb had healed and how that everything was now fine, thanks to us. And that really warms your heart. So, there’s just another side of that story — ‘Blown Away’ — that you related in your book More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories, and really, as I said, it is one of my very favourites.

  If Only

  I can honestly say that the three years I spent in Alice Springs, while I was flying for the Flying Doctor Service, was the most enjoyable and rewarding experience in my life. I had an absolute ball. Though, in saying that, of course everything didn’t always go as well as I would have wanted it to go. And unfortunately this was the one particular case that still gets to me because, you know, if only the weather conditions had been different, this patient is one that we could’ve very possibly saved.

  Anyhow, it was three o’clock in the afternoon when I got the call to fly out to Tennant Creek and pick up this little kid. She was a young eleven-year-old girl. The only trouble was that there were storms about everywhere. And, mind you, in Alice Springs you do get some very big storms, especially when it’s the wet season up north. Anyway, these storms were a bit too big for my liking. Still and all, the situation sounded very serious so I told them that I’d have another think about it before I made a final call. As you may well know, anything to do with the flying part of the RFDS is up to the pilot, and the pilot not only has to think of the safety aspects of every trip he makes, he’s also got to keep in mind that he’s responsible for a couple of million dollars worth of aeroplane plus the lives of the doctor and nurse who may be accompanying him on such a trip.

  So I did have a good think about it, balancing the safety aspects of such a flight against the desperate need of the child and, based on the fact that it would be in the dead of night when we returned and we had no weather radar, I made my final decision. So I got back in touch with Tennant Creek and said, ‘No, I won’t go. It’s too risky. But I’ll definitely be in the air as soon as the storms dissipate.’

  Then, the first chance we got, we went. I think we left about one o’clock in the morning — this is up in Tennant Creek — to pick up this young girl.

  When we got to Tennant Creek the doctor took one look at the poor little kid and he pulled me aside and said, ‘Gee, she’s as good as gone. What’s more, we can’t do anything more for her in Alice Springs than what I can do for her here, in Tennant Creek.’ He said, ‘There’s only two options: one is to take her straight down to Adelaide and the other is to get her to Darwin as soon as humanly possible.’

  Darwin was closest, of course, but, as I said, it was the wet season, which was why the storms were so bad in Alice Springs. Anyhow, just in case, I rang up and got the weather report for Darwin and they told me that it was okay for the present.

  ‘Righto,’ I said to the doctor. ‘Darwin it is.’

  So we went helter-skelter to Darwin and because of the restrictive weather conditions and the emergency of the case, I was the only light aircraft to be given permission to land in Darwin that day. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe it but the poor little child died just when we got there. We were still on the tarmac. A girl it was — a dear little eleven-year-old girl, just a kid.

  And that case still gets to me because if only I’d been able to fly up to Tennant Creek the night before, who knows what might’ve happened. But the weather was against us. Everything was against us. And the thing is, as I said, as a pilot you’re not only responsible for yourself and the aeroplane but there’s also the nurses and the doctors that you’ve got to think about. And each and every one of us has to ensure that we’re there to fight another day.

  But in the three years I was in Alice Springs that was the only one, you know, that I had any doubt on. Yes, of course, others have died, which was unfortunate, though there was more than a good chance that they would’ve died anyway. But that little girl was the only one I have any doubt about. And it still gets to me, even to this day.

  In Double Quick Time

  I’ve got a story here that has quite an amusing aspec
t to it. See, from time to time, the Flying Doctor Service used to get the occasional complaint about how long it took us to get out to some of these remote places to pick people up. You know, along the lines of, ‘Gees, youse took yer bloody time’, sort of thing.

  But of course we couldn’t be everywhere at the same time and, mind you, we did have vast distances to cover. And then of course we’re all human beings so, naturally, when someone’s seriously ill or injured or something, well, we all get a bit upset and stressed when help doesn’t arrive immediately.

  Anyway, this is when I was flying the King Air aeroplanes, so it’d be back in the early 1990s, and on this particular occasion we’d been up to one of the Aboriginal communities — it was either Kowanyama or Pormpuraaw — to pick up someone. So we were on the way back home with this patient. At that stage of the game our base in at Cairns received an emergency call from a certain property — Bolwarra — to say that they had a stockman who’d fallen off his horse and he had a very badly broken ankle. The people from the property had spoken to the doctor in at our Cairns base and the doctor had said, ‘Well, we’d better do an “evac” and get the feller out of there as quick as possible.’