The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories
Page 61
Anyway, when old Arthur looked at this account, he couldn’t make head nor tail of it. But he did see this number seventy-six. And you know how all the drugs in the RFDS medical chest are labelled by numbers, well, when old Arthur saw this number seventy-six he thought, ‘Well, that specialist feller must want me to take number seventy-six out of the RFDS medical kit.’
Then when I was out there, the next month, I saw old Arthur and he said to me, ‘Gees,’ doctor,’ he said, ‘that number seventy-six didn’t do me a scrap of good.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘look here: on my account it’s got number seventy-six.’
And that’s when I discovered that old Arthur had, in actual fact, mixed up the Medicare number with the item number in the RFDS medical kit and had been taking some sort of anti-fungal medication.
The next story also comes from out west of the Cooper.
I got a call one evening — it was after last light — to go out to South Galway Station. One of the ringers there was in some sort of strife. So, you know, we asked them to put out their flares and one thing and another and I told them that we’d be in touch with an ETA (estimated time of arrival) as soon as we got in the air. There was the pilot, a nurse and myself.
Then, when we called through to South Galway Station with the ETA, they told us that there were severe thunderstorms in the area. Now, thunderstorms are a real hazard to flying. First, they can create incredible turbulence. Second, with these being dirt airstrips, they can turn to mud in an instant.
Anyway, the pilot said, ‘Oh well, we’ll just continue on and see what happens.’
So we continued on. But then just as we arrived over South Galway Station so did the thunderstorm. Oh, it was blowing a beauty and it was raining like crazy. This, in turn, caused most of the flares, which they’d lit for us along the runway, to be either blown out or doused in the rain — one or the other. But fortunately the pilot knew the strip quite well and he reckoned that by using the flashes of lightning as a guide, he could see just enough of the airstrip to land the aeroplane. And that’s what he did: he put the plane down on the strip by using the flashes of lightning, along with the few flares that still remained alight. Some of these pilots do amazing things, and that was just one of them.
Anyhow, luckily for us they’d already brought the injured ringer out to the strip, which saved precious time. But even still, with it now raining cats and dogs and the dirt strip rapidly turning greasy, I quickly assessed the situation and decided that if I didn’t open the door, put the injured ringer on board, quickly tie him down, shut the door again and get out of there, we’d end up being stuck on the strip — bogged. All patients in stretchers have to be tied down. It’s procedure.
So we did that. We loaded this ringer as quickly as we could. Then we tied him down in the stretcher, shut the door, and I told the pilot to get going, which he did, and we took off safely.
But, of course, with this thunderstorm going on all around us, the turbulence was something incredible. As I assessed the patient, we were being tossed around like anything. So I thought, Well, the first thing I need to get into him is an intravenous cannula and a drip.
So I put a tourniquet on him and I literally threw the cannula into his arm like a dart, sort of thing, and it happened to hit a vein. Then I looked over at my nurse, fully expecting her to pass me the drip set, only to find that she had her head stuck in a sick bag. Well, it was all too much for me and I then also had to grab a bag. So there I was, being tossed around in the turbulence, while trying to keep a bag over my face, with one hand holding the drip into the ringer’s arm and the other hand trying to put the giving-set into the drip.
And that’s when the ringer looked up at us and he said, ‘I think I’m probably the best of all of yer.’
What If
We used the Flying Doctor Service in 1980 when my daughter, Megan, got bitten by a redback spider. At the time we were caretaking out at Mount Barnett Station, in the Kimberley area of Western Australia, while the owners went away for holidays over the wet season. Megan was about six years old, in Year One. Her dad, Colin, was playing guitar and she was sitting on a cyclone bed. You know those old cyclone beds, the pipe ones with the hollow legs with the wire mesh on top. Well, Megan was sitting on one of those and she said, ‘Daddy, something just bit me.’
Then, when Colin looked down the hollow pipe, he saw a redback spider sitting in there. So we called the Flying Doctor. That was at about one o’clock and they said they’d attempt to get there by three o’clock. In the meantime, of course, we had to try and keep Megan calm and also try and keep ourselves calm.
Anyhow, with it being the wet season, the river was in full flood and the airstrip was on the other side of the river from where the homestead was. So then Colin and I, we had to row Megan across the flooded river in a little dinghy. The distance was probably, oh, a couple of hundred yards or so; you know, from about here, where I’m sitting, right over there to the corner of the road. Yes, that’d make it about 200 yards or so, and when we finally got to the airstrip there was a new doctor on the plane. The funny part about that was — and, mind you, it wasn’t too funny at the time — when we got on the plane, there he was, this doctor, busily looking up some book or other trying to find out what you’re supposed to do with someone who’d been bitten by a redback spider.
And I thought, ‘Oh, this looks real good, this does.’
But that was the thing in those days with the RFDS because back in 1980 they didn’t have their own doctors. Back then, the Flying Doctor Service was using the local hospital doctors. And you get a lot of turnover up in the Kimberley and the frustration with that was that, when a new doctor arrived, quite often they wouldn’t be familiar with RFDS procedure and, for that matter, a lot of them weren’t even familiar with the contents of the RFDS medical chest. You know, what number equates to what medicine you’re supposed to take for whatever the ailment or problem you have. Worse still, if these doctors had just graduated from Perth or wherever they probably didn’t even know that the RFDS medical chest existed, if you know what I mean.
Anyhow, I must say that it was a great relief to have the plane arrive and take us back to Derby. But Megan wasn’t given anything until we got into hospital. Even then she had to wait because it wasn’t until six o’clock that another doctor came in and said, ‘Has she been given the anti-venom yet?’
‘What’re you talking about?’ I asked.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘if it was my kid, she’d be given the anti-venom straight away.’
‘Okay then,’ I thought, ‘if it’s a doctor saying that, surely they’ll do it soon.’
But still nothing, and Megan was just left to lie there in the hospital bed. And though she wasn’t all that sick, you could see the bite mark and her leg had become quite swollen. But I didn’t know anything about spider bites. I didn’t know how sick she was supposed to be.
Anyway, this all happened just before the people we were caretaking for at Mount Barnett Station — John and Bronwyn Tiddy — were going to go back out there. So they were in Derby and John Tiddy came into the hospital and I remember the nurse suddenly appearing with the first injection. And Megan, all her life she just hated injections. Oh, she just hated injections.
Then the nurse held up the needle and said, as easy going as anything, ‘We’re just going to give you this for pain.’
And John Tiddy knew all about Megan’s hatred of needles and you could see that he was just about to have a go at the nurse, because, you know, Megan hadn’t been given any warnings that she was even going to have a needle. Anyhow, the nurse went ahead and gave Megan the needle for the pain. Then, just when Megan was starting to get over the trauma of that, they came back in and said they had to give her a few more test shots for the anti-venom. In the end, I think they gave her three needles all up. And each time the nurse came back brandishing a needle, Megan was getting more and more upset and John Tiddy’s getti
ng madder and madder.
And, well, the reason why John was the only male there with me was because Colin was still out at Mount Barnett. They couldn’t take Colin on the plane because they didn’t have enough room for him. They only took me and Megan. And that was quite funny too, actually, because I found out later that after we’d flown out, when Colin had started rowing back to the homestead the dinghy got caught in a whirlpool or something and he ended up being taken a fair way down the river before he could get himself onto land again. And when he finally managed to do that, he had to walk all the way back to the homestead. So there was another drama going on.
Anyway, they gave Megan the anti-venom and everything and then of course from that day on she had to wear a Medic-Alert bracelet. See, back in those days the anti-venom was given in a horse serum base and she had to wear the bracelet to alert everyone that if she was bitten again and had to have a second dose of the anti-venom, they had to watch her very carefully because the second dose could well bring on an anaphylactic reaction. An anaphylactic reaction is a full-on, life-threatening allergic reaction where, you know, you start swelling up and you can’t breathe and all that sort of stuff. It’s like having a heart attack. Of course, these days all the anti-venom’s given in synthetic bases so Megan doesn’t have to worry about that any more.
So, you know, for all the fuss and worry that it caused later, I really think that Megan would have probably been better off not having the anti-venom. We discovered afterwards that she was most probably bitten by the less venomous male redback because she didn’t end up getting the full-blown symptoms of a spider bite, you know, with the vomiting and the heavy sweating and all that sort of stuff. Megan only had a swollen leg and a tiny red area around the bite. So in fact she didn’t really need the injections or the antivenom or anything like that.
Then, of course, after she was injected with the anti-venom in a horse serum base it caused us a lot of anxiety because we were always worried about what would happen if she got bitten by something again and she had to have another anti-venom injection. You know, whether she’d have an anaphylactic reaction and all that. So it was all very scary because living in that country you always think, ‘God, what if she’s bitten by an extremely venomous snake like a king brown and she has to go through it all again?’ So that’s the end of that story.
Glory, Glory —
The Flying Doctor Song
Verse 1
A ringer lay dying out in a stock camp
Thrown from his horse and trampled about
In a feverish haze and in sickening pain
He raises his head and then he says
Chorus
Glory, Glory what can it be
There’s a sound up on high that only angels can see
Glory, Glory what can it be
The Flying Doctor is coming for me
Verse 2
A child is lost a long way from home
Out in the distance water forms
So she walks and she walks till she stumbles and falls
Then she raises her head…and she calls
Chorus
Glory, Glory what can it be
There’s a sound up on high that only angels can see
Glory, Glory what can it be
The Flying Doctor is coming for me
Bridge
In the footsteps of Flynn these women and men
Give of themselves our faith in their hands
Come every day they’re working to spread
A Mantle of Safety across this wide land
Chorus
Glory, Glory what can it be
There’s a sound up on high that only angels can see
Glory, Glory what can it be
The Flying Doctor is coming for me
Verse 3
Out from the Alice a lady moans
Heavy with child and on her own
No chance could there be that the baby be saved
So she raises her head and she prays
Chorus
Glory, Glory what can it be
There’s a sound up on high that only angels can see
Glory, Glory what can it be
The Flying Doctor is coming for me
The RFDS Today
The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (RFDS) is a not-for-profit charitable organisation that provides free aero-medical emergency and comprehensive healthcare services to people who live, work and travel in regional and remote Australia.
RFDS statistics for the year ended 30 June 2009:
• Service area — 7 150 000 km.
• Patients attended — 274 237 (daily average — 751). That figure includes patients at clinics, patients transported, immunisations and telehealth.
• Aero-medical evacuations — 36 832 (daily average 101). That figure includes inter-hospital transfers.
• Healthcare clinics — 14 004 (daily average 38).
• Distance flown — 23 923 440 kilometres (daily average 65 544 kilometres).
• Number of landings — 71 770 (daily average 197).
• Telehealth — 85 290 (daily average 234).
• Number of aircraft — 53.
• RFDS bases — 21. A RFDS base is a health facility that houses an aircraft and provides health services.
• RFDS Health Facilities — 5. A RFDS Health Facility is a health facility that does not have an aircraft but provides health services.
• Other facilities — 10.* Other facilities include marketing, fundraising and public relations as well as the National Office.
• Staff — 964. That figure includes 297 part-time and casual staff.
How You Can Help
The RFDS relies on generous contributions from individuals, community groups, business and the corporate sector as well as funding provided by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to help meet the costs associated with running a twenty-four-hour emergency and comprehensive healthcare service.
The RFDS relies on your help to:
• Buy vital medical equipment
• Purchase and outfit aircraft (at a cost of more than $8 million each)
• Develop a range of outback and rural health initiatives.
There are many ways in which you, your workplace, community group or school can help the Flying Doctor. By raising money and awareness about the work of the RFDS, you are helping to save lives.
To help our service and save lives in the outback you can:
• Donate online at www.flyingdoctor.net
• Become an RFDS supporter
• Leave a bequest
• Fundraise for the RFDS
• Join an RFDS Workplace Giving initiative
• Volunteer your time or expertise
• Organise an RFDS speaker
• Offer corporate support
• Make a purchase through our online shop
• Send a cheque (made payable to the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia) to:
Australian Council of the RFDS
Level 8, 15–17 Young Street
Sydney NSW 2000
• Phone the RFDS on 1300 669 569 or 1800 467 435
All donations of $2 and above are tax deductible.
About the Author
Bill ‘Swampy’ Marsh is an award-winning writer/performer of stories, songs and plays. He spent most of his youth in rural south-western New South Wales. Bill was forced to give up any idea he had of a ‘career’ as a cricketer when a stint at agricultural college was curtailed because of illness, and so began his hobby of writing. After backpacking through three continents and working in the wine industry, his writing hobby blossomed into a career.
His first collection of short stories, Beckom (Pop. 64), was published in 1988; his second, Old Yanconian Daze, in 1995; and his third, Looking for Dad, in 1998. During 1999, Bill released Australia, a CD of his songs and stories. That was followed in 2002 by A Drover’s Wife and Glory, Glory — A Tribute to the Royal Flying D
octor Service in 2008. He has written soundtrack songs and music for the television documentaries, The Last Mail from Birdsville — The Story of Tom Kruse, Source to Sea — The Story of the Murray Riverboats and the German travel documentaries Traumzeit auf dem Stuart Highway, RFDS Clinic Flights (Tilpa & Marble Bar) plus RFDS Clinic Flights (Einsatz von Port Hedland nach Marble Bar).
Bill runs writing workshops in schools and communities and is a teacher of short story writing within the Adelaide Institute of TAFE’s Professional Writing Unit. He has won and judged many nationwide short story writing and songwriting competitions and short film awards.
Bill is the author of the very successful series of ‘Great Australian’ stories including: Great Australian CWA Stories (2011), New Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (2010), The ABC Book of Great Aussie Stories for Young People (2010), Great Australian Stories - Outback Towns and Pubs (2009), More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (2007), Great Australian Railway Stories (2005), Great Australian Droving Stories (2003), Great Australian Shearing Stories (2001) and Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (1999). Bill’s story of Goldie was published in 2008. Swampy, a revised edition of Bill’s first three books, Beckom (Pop. 64), Old Yanconian Daze and Looking for Dad, was published in 2012.
The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories is a compilation of three of Bill’s previous books: Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (1999), More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (2007) and New Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (2010).