The Complete Book of Australian Flying Doctor Stories (39 page)

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 around 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.

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.

Just because you live in a state like Victoria, with its small land area and very little outback, it’s no reason to assume that you don’t have the need for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and I’ll tell you why.

It was New Year’s Eve 1994, very early, at about two o’clock in the morning when we got the telephone call from my youngest son, Ian, who lived in Western Australia, to say that my other son, Neil, had had this accident on Rottnest Island.

It’s quite a long story really, but Neil was on Rottnest holidaying with his family. In fact, I’d spoken with him just the day before, on his mobile, and he was saying just what a great time they were all having. But Neil’s wife had gone back to the mainland to keep an appointment that day and Neil had stayed there, on Rottnest, with their children. Neil, his wife and their children had a cabin, and some, practically, life-long friends were also there, staying in another cabin, with their children. Neil had spent that day with his close friends and all the children had been playing games and what-not. Then by night, all the children were tired so they went to bed in Neil’s friend’s cabin and, as Neil rode off on a bicycle to go back to his own cabin, they said, ‘We’ll meet you on the beach tomorrow.’

On Rottnest Island they only have push-bikes. There’s no motor traffic on the island apart from the official stuff like a few buses and what-have-you. So that’s what Neil was riding, a push-bike.

It was a downhill ride from Neil’s friend’s cabin and we simply don’t know what happened. Neil could’ve hit a quokka (small wallaby), because they move around at night, or maybe the front wheel could’ve gone into a hole, because the place wasn’t lit. Well, it is lit now, but it wasn’t then. The police also ruled out foul play because his wallet and everything was still in his pocket when he was found.

So, we don’t actually know what caused Neil to have the accident, but he went straight over the handlebars and fell on his head. The bike wasn’t even damaged. This was before helmets were compulsory. After that they did make helmets compulsory. But he fell on his head, which rendered him unconscious, and the strange thing was, there wasn’t even a mark on him, so he wasn’t injured in any other way.

Luckily, a nursing sister and her husband were walking back from the town and that’s when they found Neil, lying unconscious. Of course, they didn’t know at that time if it could’ve been the result of foul play. But if they hadn’t found Neil he might well have laid there until daylight and he could’ve died. The nursing sister could tell that there was a real problem, so she got her husband to ride back into town, on Neil’s bike, to get help from the police and a doctor, which he did, and also an ambulance drove out to as near as they could, to pick up Neil.

Rather than wait until morning, the Flying Doctor was called and they took Neil straight to Jandakot Airport. Then, I suppose, he was transported by ambulance from there to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, where he was put on life support. And that’s when we got the call.

Anyhow, my eldest son, who was with me at the time, he and I flew from Victoria to Western Australia on the first plane we could get, and my two daughters followed on a later flight.

But the brain injury was too great. Neil was kept alive until we all arrived, but he never regained consciousness. Then two days later, after all the various tests were done, he was pronounced brain dead. By that time the whole family was there. But one thing that I am thankful for is that, if it wasn’t for the Flying Doctor Service, Neil would never have reached the hospital alive and we would have never have reached his side in time.

Neil had just turned forty, the previous October, and I’d been over for his birthday party and he was as fit as a fiddle; a fine physical specimen. But people were not all that conscious of organ donation back then. It wasn’t publicised as it is now, so I asked, ‘Did Neil sign his licence as an organ donor?’

And the answer was, ‘No.’

I said, ‘Well, I feel that he should be an organ donor.’

And there were a couple of ums and ahs.

I said, ‘He’s going to be cremated, isn’t he? What good is his body going to be? You’re not going to preserve it, if it’s cremated.’

Of course, the organ donor people were there at the hospital, as were Neil’s doctors, and Neil’s doctors said, ‘We want you to understand that we’re always here for the patient and we don’t have any connection with the organ donor people, so it must be your decision.’

Then we found out that Neil also had an unusual blood group and I said to the doctor, ‘How’s that possible? My husband and I had perfectly ordinary
blood groups and I know that Neil’s my son and I know my husband was his father.’

‘Well,’ the doctor said, ‘that’s quite possible. It’s not unusual.’

So finally the family came around to my way of thinking as regards to organ donation. And there was, in fact, a heart patient — a family man — with that same blood group, who was waiting and then there were two kidney people, and Neil’s bone tissue was also used. But they don’t take any organs that aren’t being waited for. His liver wasn’t taken. The only organs that were required at the time were the ones they took.

And that was all made possible because of the speed with which Neil had been transferred to Perth by the Flying Doctor Service — that his organs were then available to be donated to people awaiting transplants. That, at least, gives us some comfort. And, oddly enough, Neil’s organs were flown back to the eastern states; back to where he was born. So that was a strange one. But it was quite a remarkable thing and I do believe it helps the healing process — it really does — to know that the body is being used, and is made possible, to save someone else’s life.

In actual fact, I had a wonderful letter sent through the organ donor people. You don’t have any direct contact with the people who have received organs, but this lovely letter arrived and it said that this particular person — I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman — was looking at two legs, of the same length, for the first time in their life. And after a little more rehabilitation they were hoping to walk perfectly normally, for the first time in their life. And that was such a wonderful letter to receive. What’s more, Neil’s
two children have grown up into the most delightful people, extremely well adjusted, and we all keep in close touch.

So that was one story. Now, there’s a second part to our close Victorian connection with the RFDS and it was that our granddaughter, Melissa — the daughter of my oldest son — was living on the central coast of Western Australia, at Carnarvon. Her husband was actually teaching there and, in 2001, six years after Neil’s accident, Melissa was riding a friend’s horse and the horse slipped. It came down with her on it, and her leg was crushed under the horse. The only way Melissa could get back for help was to get back up on the horse, which she managed to do with great difficulty.

As it turned out, Melissa’s leg was very badly broken and it needed a lot of work on it, as did her ankle. A rod was put in and all sorts of things, so she was literally screwed up. But the thing was, she kept on being terribly sick. I mean really, really sick and the doctors said, ‘Well, you don’t get sick with a broken leg.’

An ultrasound proved that Melissa, unbeknown to herself, was six weeks pregnant, which was why she was being so sick. So then they stopped all her treatment immediately because, being pregnant, she couldn’t have any more X-rays.

But it’s 900 kilometres from where she was at Carnarvon to the Royal Perth Hospital and the Royal Flying Doctor Service flew her up and down on numerous occasions and, as you’ll know, they never charge. They were quite wonderful, and she flew up and down with her leg in plaster for a lot of the time she was pregnant.

Actually, she spent a lot of time on those crutches because her leg was so crooked she couldn’t walk properly. She had a terrible time. But now, I’ve got a beautiful great-grandson. I go to Western Australia as often as possible, especially for birthdays, Christmas and weddings. And that’s just one of my great-grandchildren. I’ve got another three in Melbourne.

And so that’s why I, for one, Lady Ena Macpherson, am such a staunch supporter of the RFDS.