Transcript
Speaker: Rescued is a podcast of conversations with rescuers and those who've been rescued. It's about the lessons we learn about ourselves, the places we go and why, without judgment, to help us have better adventures, manage risk and deal with the unexpected.
Speaker: One of the things about whitewater adventures like kayaking, rafting or canoeing is that element of the unknown, the power of nature being carried along while using all your skills and expertise to read what's happening under the water or maybe change since the last time you ran a particular rapid.
Speaker: But all that's only part of the story in this episode, which is a bit longer than usual. As my generous guest, Brendan, takes us deep into gorge country along the Mitchell River and dives into what it took for him to get back out on the water and the importance of surrounding yourself with good people, not only when we're out doing things we love and something goes wrong, but when we need help to get back on the bike again and might not know how to ask.
Speaker: Brendan, it is so lovely to have you here in the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming along to share your story. And it's an angle that I haven't covered yet, which is a watery story.
Speaker: But before we get into all of that, let's talk a little bit about you and what led you to to this life you have outdoors and the love of nature. How did that all start for you? And let's give some context. Where are you based at the moment? Which state of Australia are you in?
Speaker: I'm based in Victoria. I'm about 45 kilometers out of Melbourne in the hills towards King Lake. We've got to about three-quarters of an acre just in a very small little village.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess my background, I guess from the point of view of an outdoors background, always grew up, particularly because of my father, I grew up always doing stuff in the outdoors.
Speaker: We were the family that went camping every year. Yeah, so the the typical going camping at the caravan park at the beach type thing did that most of my childhood. But really, I guess my grandmother lived up in the mountains. We talk about Mount Donabue Wang, or she lived at the base of Mount Donabue Wang.
Speaker: right on the river so school holidays we would often all just get sent up to to nana's house so all the grandkids would arrive at nana's house and get left there for a couple of weeks while mom and dad went back to work and we were just free-range kids then shared of those old-fashioned triangles to you that you'd bang to to call for meals Yeah, was it on the front veranda kind of thing? Yeah, it exactly. was on the back veranda and behind, because behind Nan's house, she had about an acre, but then from there it was forest straight up into the mountains.
Speaker: So we'd just disappear up into the mountains for hours and hours. And then every now and again you'd hear the bell clanging, which meant it was time to come for meals. It was an amazing place to to spend time.
Speaker: And then across the road was the Yarra. We had lilos and inflatable things that would run the rapids on the lilos as kids. Looking back now at the age that we were and that we're allowed to play in the river like that,
Speaker: yes Yeah, very free-range kids. but and Then I went through Cubs, Scouts, and then Venturers. And then as soon as I got a driver's license, I did an apprenticeship in Melbourne.
Speaker: And the day after I finished my apprenticeship, I got on a plane and flew to New Zealand. I'd enrolled to learn mountaineering. So i went over there and spent the summer training. So I did a one-month mountaineering course and then spent the summer in New Zealand mountaineering.
Speaker: Came home. I was only home a matter of weeks. As soon as I could, took off again. Jumped on a boat and sailed to Townsville, then hitchhiked to Darwin, and then did the the whole sort of overland Asia thing.
Speaker: So, yeah, I guess always doing that sort of stuff. Yeah, so that travel and that adventure and that being outdoors in a physical way has always been part of who you are really. Having kids ah in some ways slowed me down but in some ways inspired me to find new things to do.
Speaker: I read somewhere that you were into ski patrol, is that right? how did Yeah. How did the skiing lead to a volunteering side of your life? Yeah, so look, ski patrol, I'd been skiing at a ah place called Mount Sterling, which is near Mount Bulla.
Speaker: So Mount Bulla is one of probably the busiest resorts. Mount Sterling is only a couple of kilometers from Mount Bulla, but it's it's a back country resort.
Speaker: So it's still quite, it has steep bowls and gullies and all that sort of stuff, but yeah, no lifts. So yeah yeah, I was going up there, snow camping and that sort of stuff when I was young.
Speaker: And yeah, it got to the stage oh probably five, six years ago. ah got to the stage where I found myself in a job where I yeah i wasn't working full time anymore and had and available time, not only to commit to being up there, but there's a lot of commitment with ski patrol from a training point of view. You have to do a lot of them lot of medical training and all that sort of stuff to actually be part of ski patrol. So, yeah, the biggest thing was I got to a point in life where I had the time that I could do that.
Speaker: So I joined ski patrol as a volunteer and day one they said, oh, chuck your helmet on and jump on the skidoo behind Bob here. He's going to run you up the mountain and you're going to race over here and do this and we want you to check this and that.
Speaker: take your skis with you because once you're up the top, he'll just dump you and you can ski back down yourself. And it literally it was within 10 minutes of me being there. I'm yeah tearing up the mountain on the back of the skidoo.
Speaker: And then they just dumped me in the middle of nowhere. was like, wow. Wow. It's really good fun but also really rewarding. and I don't tend to go up there as much on the weekends. I'm often up there during the week, which means that there's a lot of school groups come up and snow camp and that sort of stuff.
Speaker: So you end up having more first aid things during the week because there could be 100 school kids camping on the mountains at different spots and, yeah, inevitably they'll fall over, they'll feel sick, they'll have something that you'll have to try and get them out.
Speaker: And the training you get and the opportunities to do things with members of the public to help people out and ah you mentioned that the medical training, is just it's an amazing thing to be involved in as a volunteer. But we're not going to talk about skiing today.
Speaker: We're talking about what happens when snow melts, we end up with water. Now, you mentioned that you grew up on the Yarra. your Your grandmother was beside the Yarra there. Take us to your love of kayaking and your love of spending time on water. Where did that come from and how did that develop to what we're going to talk about today?
Speaker: So always had that that love and appreciation of the river. Where we live is only about 10 minutes from the Yarra, down to the lower section, and there's still plenty of rapids and stuff down there.
Speaker: I would have bought my first kayak shortly after my first car. Exactly. So started off just canoeing with one or two mates, just on the arrow, and then overnight trips.
Speaker: First big overnight trip, I'd been married 32 years. So this was before we were married. So yeah, and it would have been about 34, 35 years ago we did our first overnight trip, and that was on the Thompson in Gippsland. What do you love about kayaking and or canoeing and being on the water for day trip, multi-day trips?
Speaker: There's an amazing sense of calm. It's that funny thing of if you're on a ah flat section of the river, there's an incredible sense of calm.
Speaker: If you're on a whitewater section of the river, it needs absolute focus. You can't think about anything else. You must have thought. 100% absolute concentration on what you're doing.
Speaker: Part of that then means there's a sense of calm that comes with that because you can't, it's like a complete cleansing. You can't be thinking of anything else.
Speaker: It's an absolute focus and because of that absolute focus, there's a clarity that comes with it. It's incredibly physical, yet we a day trip can be anywhere from a couple of hours to the whole day.
Speaker: When we go on the multi-day trips, the highlight of the multi-day trips, we do the snowy river each year. So we start up near the New South Wales border and paddle out over four days. And we do it with a big group of people. So there's that lovely sense of camping on the riverbank. So after paddling all day, you'll pull up on a big bank and then Put out your tent, sit around the fire, tell stories, talk rubbish. But then during the day, the rapids on the snowy, on the section we do, are big.
Speaker: There's a couple of, like the second day in particular, there's some very large rapids. With the intense rapids, now I'm not a paddler, but there is that grading system with with rapids. So if we're talking with people who understand those, when you say big rapids, how does that equate to this system of grading? Yeah.
Speaker: So most of the stuff, like where I paddle just from day to day, I was going to race out this afternoon, the section we do is mainly just grade two. So, yeah, it's fairly simple, fairly straightforward, but it's 10 minutes from my house. So, yeah, I can race out back in time for dinner.
Speaker: Back in time for that triangle to be rung from the veranda. Yes, it but whereas ah like the Snowy is grade four, grade five is considered the maximum of what most people will run. There's a debate about ah a grade six, but grade five is effectively the high end.
Speaker: Yeah, there's some big drops and complicated big rapids and that sort of stuff. So the Snowy has sections either grade four, The Mitchell, that's grade three.
Speaker: It all depends too about the river changes. a I do a little bit of moonlighting as an instructor and last week I took two school groups out two days in a row and the difference overnight, this is just a our local section of the Yarra here, the river had dropped a good 15 centimetres overnight.
Speaker: and it was quite different from one day to the next. and it's In the same way, if you're out skiing, yeah you can have beautiful powder snow one day and then blue ice the next day requires very different things. Yeah, running the river at low level compared with running the river at flood level can have a massive difference.
Speaker: You've got to keep an eye on that sort of thing and check those sort of things and I guess change the way you you would approach it depending on what the river's doing. And so this kind of skill and this understanding to be able to read the conditions and plan appropriately, this just this stuff doesn't just come to beginners. This is stuff you learn over a period of time, isn't it?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. ah I'm part of a club. Yeah, there are yeah people that start off in the club who haven't had much experience about reading the water, reading the conditions and that sort of thing, through to we recently had one of the guys in the club retire.
Speaker: and yeah, it's quite a loss to the club because he'd been doing this sort of stuff. but We worked out for over 40 years.
Speaker: 45 years or something like that he'd been doing this sort of stuff and with this club. And he had an incredible knowledge, absolutely amazing knowledge of you could say anything about a particular river and he'd remember, oh, geez, around that bend there's a particular rapid there that you've got to be careful because it does this and it does that. And he could just rattle that sort of stuff off.
Speaker: about any river in Victoria. And I don't for a minute consider myself the the expert. There's plenty of people both within our club and our paddling community who are real experts in this.
Speaker: I've learned plenty over 30 years of paddling. I've learned lots. Yeah, there's still – there's always lots to learn. And I guess it's the same as anything in the outdoors.
Speaker: You can never assume – like even I do the snowy with a group of people, some of which have done it 20 years in a row. We still get to a couple of rapids – that we will all stop, get out, and reassess that particular rapid.
Speaker: Like I say, some people may have ran that rapid more than 20 times, but they still stop and get out and have a good solid look at it and think, oh, no, it's a bit different today. And as a result of being different, we need to take a different approach line and we need to be aware of this. or Yeah, you can never, ever assume that it was just because it was like that the last time and it'll be exactly the same this time.
Speaker: this This is one of the things that I find fascinating with pursuits like the whitewater stuff and with with canoeing is that there is this element that you can plan, plan, train, get the local knowledge, but there's still that element that is always going to be out of your control. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: So can you take us to this day we're going to talk about and place geographically where we are? So if you drive east east of Melbourne, you end up in a place called East Gippsland.
Speaker: Drive a couple of hours east to Bairnsdale, and then you come out of Bairnsdale a bit, and then you start heading up into the mountains. And it's on the the Mitchell River. And we don't go up as far as Dargo, but some people have heard of a place called Dargo.
Speaker: So it's quite remote, probably 100 kilometres into the mountains from Bansdale. So, yeah, it is quite a remote place. People might have heard of mountains like Mount Hotham at Falls Creek and that sort of stuff. so It picks up a lot of the watershed from mountains around that area. So it relies heavily on snow melt in the spring, but it's a big enough catchment that you can run it in summer.
Speaker: because there is enough water there still coming down. And you you said gorge country, so steep gorge country. What's sort of the elevation height when we're thinking if you're down in the guts of this thing and you've got these two walls going up on either side, have you got an idea or a sense of the the height on those? Oh, so the gorge we talk about where the rapid is, the so the rapid I guess we'll talk a lot about today is called the amphitheatre and it's It actually swings around and it's in particular the gorge, it curves around. So as it's curving around, there's one side which is a vertical straight up.
Speaker: Got it. oh, be 500 meters, I'm guessing. A lot of it is actual sort of vertical rock face into the gorge. So, yeah, it's very steep.
Speaker: Yeah, very remote. There is some there was a bushwalking track. It's very hard to find when you're on the river. I've never tried, but some other people did try and they found it very difficult to get to the track from the river.
Speaker: Yeah, it took them hours and hours to get to the track. So take us to this day we're going to talk about. What time of year was it and who were you with? was And was it a club trip?
Speaker: Interestingly, this particular one wasn't a sanctioned club event. Being with the club, we have some sanctioned events and then we just have a lot of sort of spontaneous things that happen as well, of course, with the people in the club.
Speaker: So worked out that there was a couple of us that didn't actually have any great big New Year's Eve plans. and someone suggested that oh maybe we should run the Mitchell and camp up there over New Year's Eve, which was a great idea, a really nice way to see in the new year and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, so we headed up with glorious weather, not too hot, 26, 27-degree type day. Yeah, just one of those perfect blue skies, glorious, absolutely glorious.
Speaker: So we headed up and camped at the top, a place called Angus Vale. One of the guys, his he came up with his camp trailer and his wife, she does a lot of painting and drawing and that sort of stuff, and she's not a paddler.
Speaker: So she came up as well. She was going to spend the day just wandering around. She'd seen some kangaroos and that sort stuff, and she was going to be just doing some scenery shots with kangaroos, painting during the day.
Speaker: So that was Des and his wife. and And Des's son came as well. he's He was about 18, I think, at that age, Jack. And then Debbie. Deb's from Gippsland originally, so I think she might have been down there. And then she met us up at the campsite.
Speaker: Yeah, so that first night we all just caught up at the campsite. By the time I'd got there, I think they'd got there the day before, so they'd already got a nice spot, sort of dinner around the fire.
Speaker: Next morning, so the plan was, like often when we do this trip, we pack all our gear and camp on the way down. This time we were going to paddle down to a spot where you can actually walk out.
Speaker: so the plan was we'd paddle down to that spot walk out and des's wife was going to meet us there bring us back to the campsite we're going to leave the boats there and then the next morning walk back in grab the boats and paddle out to the end so we're up early on the water by i think about half past eight or something like that in the morning We'd pack lunch and all that sort of stuff because we're still very conscious.
Speaker: Des's wife was planning to pick us up at three or four in the afternoon, and that's the only spot that you can really get into. Yeah, so we'd packed accordingly to be out for the entire day in ah and and a serious sort of wilderness environment.
Speaker: So we had a lot of our stuff. I guess this is something that – This was a big part of it. It's something I've thought a lot about afterwards. We had a good first aid kit.
Speaker: Because we'd planned on being out there, I hadn't actually made my lunch, so i just grabbed all the ingredients I needed. had wraps and tomatoes and cucumbers and lettuce, like all this sort of food, and just shoved the whole lot in a bag. i actually had more food than I needed so my lunch, which proved to be quite handy.
Speaker: So there was lots of things like that we did have. had some spare clothes just in case it did get cold. Yeah, the first aid kit had had dry matches and all that sort of stuff. In hindsight, I'd never owned a PLB.
Speaker: I'd been out on trips where people had them, but I'd never never got round to buying one myself. I reckon that was probably the single biggest thing that we didn't have was any sort of yeah any sort of emergency beacon device.
Speaker: That was the big ticket item that we didn't have. But anyway, so we headed off and it was interesting that morning, was fairly early in the paddle, I hit a rapid...
Speaker: And I got flipped out and there's a technique called an Eskimo roll. You can do a particular paddle stroke and you'll flip back up. My roll is okay. it's I wouldn't say it's a great, it's really rock solid roll. It's okay.
Speaker: But on that first rapid where I got caught, I got caught underwater and so I couldn't roll. So I had to bail out. And I actually tore, we wear a neoprene skirt to keep the water out of the boat.
Speaker: And I actually tore the skirt. Mm-hmm. It was only afterwards i when I went to put the skirt back on, was like, oh, you've torn the skirt. Because it when I was underwater, I got caught on something, which was obviously part of the reason why I couldn't roll. That in itself is not unusual. That happens.
Speaker: We continued down the... stream and we got to the gorge that we were talking about and the rapid that's called the amphitheater. In high water, the amphitheater has lots of big waves and has grade three plus type rapid.
Speaker: it's Some of the times it's actually easier to run rapids in bigger water than it is in lower water. In big water, you point the boat downstream and hang on and there's going to be lots of yeah getting thrown around, but the rocks are all submerged.
Speaker: Once the river level comes down a bit, you've got a lot more rocks exposed, so you're more likely to hit a rock or you've got to negotiate around them. so Within our group and the paddling community, the amphitheatre has a bit of a reputation.
Speaker: Lots of people have come unstuck on the amphitheatre. Okay. And these days people will contact me and say, oh, mate, I joined the club its the and the club is swimming the amphitheatre. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, it can be quite nasty in that there's lots of – there's not a straight line. You've got a zigzag down through. And if you miss one the one of the turns, it'll very quickly flip you upside down and it's quite difficult to right yourself because of what's going on.
Speaker: So can I ask you, had you been there before? Yeah, yeah. So I'd run the amphitheater, oh, maybe four or five times before that. wasn't a first-time experience.
Speaker: ah We knew the line to take, and the lower section, there's a huge rock that's that's often covered, On this particular day, it was exposed and we knew which side of the big rock we had to aim for.
Speaker: And some spots on rapids, as the water flows over something, it'll sometimes circulate backwards. And as it circulates backwards, it forms what they call a stopper or a hole and it'll actually suck you back into that spot.
Speaker: And there's a at certain times, there's a nasty hole up the top of that rapid. The rapid's several hundred metres long. So that first one that I went into, the back of my boat caught that hole and pulled me backwards.
Speaker: And as soon as it caught me, it flipped me upside down straight away. Do you have memories of actually how you actually got out of that position? So some stoppers, once you're upside down, the water at the bottom of the river will then try and push you downstream.
Speaker: So if you imagine it's circulating round and round, the water at the bottom will actually be pushing you down. So once you go upside down, what's at the bottom will then push you along. So I wasn't in the stopper for long. at then It pushed me out. It was...
Speaker: While I was upside down, before I managed to get out of the boat, I think that's when, and I say I think, I don't actually have a memory of my shoulder colliding with a rock.
Speaker: It's more of an assumption that's what must have happened. But i was up I was upside down and knowing the exact moment where I was in the rapid when it happened and that sort of stuff, I remember being upside down, but I don't actually remember the getting hit by a rock.
Speaker: So, yeah, it must have happened, but I don't know where. And do you remember that moment when you surfaced and you were able to take that bit off of air? Yeah, yeah. There's so much going on at that time. i don't have strong memories of which bit was where and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Certainly had plenty of memory once I was out of the water, but what was going on at the time Yeah, I think there was just, yeah. there's So much going on. All the senses, noise, sound, vision, shock. And I guess also too that the the brain goes to extraordinary lengths to try and clip out bits that aren't pleasant.
Speaker: Yeah, I do struggle to to remember those how that exact sequence happened because, yeah, it's and my brain probably works hard to try and forget it. so Let's go with that. Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, that side of it, I don't have strong memories there. Everything else, yeah, ah everything else I remember, yeah, being on the rock and yeah and, yeah, what was going on afterwards, I can remember all of that.
Speaker: Massive thanks for the support from the team at Paddy Pallon, who since 1930 have been leaders in travel and outdoor adventure. In fact, did you know that Paddy himself, a member of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club, was a volunteer in the original search and rescue arm of the Federation of Bushwalking Clubs in New South Wales?
Speaker: Hmm, nice one, Paddy.
Speaker: Brendan, you're right at the start. Something's gone a bit pear-shaped to start with. What's going through your head? At that stage, like I was very conscious about I want to keep my equipment.
Speaker: So I've come out of the boat. I don't want to lose the boat. So I've got my paddle in one hand and i as soon as I come up, the first thing I want to do is try and see if I can keep the boat with me.
Speaker: That's the ideal. it It doesn't always work like that and sometimes you've just got to abandon in the boat and yeah and try and swim for it. but So I was conscious of trying to get the boat. I was underwater for a while before I came up.
Speaker: It feels like a while. It probably wasn't a huge amount of time. I guess when you're underwater and you feel trapped, yeah, time probably feels like a lot more than what it is. In reality, it was probably only 10 or 20 seconds, but it felt like a lot longer.
Speaker: That feels like a long time, especially with the the washing machine all happening around you. Yeah, and that's it, and that's it Look, it like I say, that amount of time in a swimming pool, yeah, wouldn't feel uncomfortable at all. Yeah, getting tossed around in a washing machine, yeah, it does feel uncomfortable.
Speaker: And at that stage, by the time I came up, I was so focused about where I was and trying to get the boat, and because you're in the middle of the river, you have to try and get yourself to the bank.
Speaker: And by the time worked out where I was and that sort of stuff, I then – went to the stage where I poured over the the large part. It's like a, not a waterfall, but it pours over a big rock. By the time I realized where I was, yep, then next thing I'm pouring over the top of the that section of the rapid and managed to get over to the bank where there was already a couple of couple of others had already ran that section of the river.
Speaker: they were standing there. They were quite happy that they'd done it. And for two of them, Debbie and Jack, it was the first time that they'd they'd ran it successfully so they were very excited about the fact that they'd run it and had done a good job and yeah they were ready to you know take photos and that sort of stuff of me coming down and unfortunately i got one photo of the very top and then as i flipped over debbie threw the camera down and got ready to we had bags that you can throw like a a bag with a rope in it you can throw
Speaker: as a rescue bag so she yeah quickly put down the camera grabbed the rescue bag to get ready yeah to try and pull me out of river and i'll always remember i got over to the edge and i was trying to i'd managed to keep my boat i lost my paddle the paddle went to the river gods but i got my boat over to the edge and i was trying to lift my boat up to try and get the water out and i liken it to a scene in harry potter where Harry breaks his arm, but he they try and mend it and he's got no bones left inside his arm. So my hand still worked, but my arm didn't work. And it took me a while to work out, why isn't my arm working?
Speaker: I was trying to lift things and it just... didn't actually function. it And then I looked down and I could see in between my shoulder and my arm, I could see a divot.
Speaker: Even through my shirt, I could see a divot. And I was like, why is there a divot? And ive touched it and there was a big hole where that my arm should be because my it had come out that badly.
Speaker: It was hanging down low enough that I could put my fist down In the hole. Oh, gosh. Yeah, then I stood up and proceeded to fall down because I hadn't realized I'd also smashed my knee. Yeah, and torn some ligaments in my knee.
Speaker: was like, oh, okay. And then it was amazing how slow my brain worked physically through Hang on, why isn't my arm working and why have I got this big hole there?
Speaker: and And then, oh, hang on, and why can't I stand up? Took a ah bit of time for it all registered to all register. Piecing together the logic of what's going on here, something's not normal. aren't right. things aren't right Was there pain for you at that point? Yeah.
Speaker: Not at that initial point. There was plenty of pain in the time afterwards, but at that initial point, I don't think I'd actually realized. I think it took a couple of minutes, and then when I tried to actually move my arm to see what was going to happen with it, yeah, hindu was yeah then there was intense pain.
Speaker: But it yeah, once I started to try and do something with it, because what I'd found and what I found out much later, as well as yeah a dislocation, it had been dislocated that violently that it broke both the ball, the sock the shoulders of ball and socket joint,
Speaker: If you imagine ripping it out that violently that it breaks both the ball and the socket. Wow. yeah So that part, yeah, that was proving that was going to be problem because it actually became, then the problem became getting it back in.
Speaker: But at that stage, yeah, it took a couple of minutes to work out what was going on yeah, Then I guess the next part, so Des was on the other side of the river because ironically Des had come out, had a swim as well. He was fine, but as as a result, when he'd had a swim, he'd got swept over the other side of the river.
Speaker: So he'd got out, drained his boat and was all fine. And we had to yell to him because he's looking at me saying, what's going on? And I'm like, yeah on yeah I'm not going anywhere. And where's Debbie at this point?
Speaker: So she was standing next to me and Des and son Jack were on my side of the river. Des was over on the other side of the river. And dezs the side that Des was on was the side of the the gorge face.
Speaker: yeah Got it. And we knew that side is also the side, there is a road up there. It's quite a hike out, but there is a road and it's on that side. On the side that we were on, there was nothing for, don't know,
Speaker: a lot long, yeah, 20, 30, 40 kilometres, a long way away. But on that side, we did know that there was a road. So Des paddled across to our side and ironically, the first thing we did, by the time I'd got out of the water, it was about 12.30.
Speaker: So we thought, yeah, well, before we do anything, Let's stop and have something to eat because we had plenty of food. i was okay. By that stage, I was starting to realize, oh, yeah, this is actually going to really hurt.
Speaker: But we thought, you know what, probably a good thing before we assess what we're going to do, let's do that with some food in us first. And it was actually a really good thing.
Speaker: calmed everyone down a bit and let us all think a bit more logically about how we're going to do this. Yeah, so we all had a bite to eat and then we realised, okay, one thing, we're on the wrong side of the river because to get out we need to be over on that side of the river.
Speaker: Even getting me across the river, just even trying to remember, some of the things are a bit vague as to how, funny, I haven't actually thought about how. it I think I laid on my boat and they roped my boat across the river with me laying on it, I think.
Speaker: not exactly sure. yeah it It's funny. I hadn't actually thought about that. But I do remember they got me across the river, and from that point we worked out that Des and his son Jack could try and climb out of the gorge Because i further upstream of where we were, there was a spot there that had a creek that comes in.
Speaker: And we thought if they follow that creek up, it's going to be steep, but it's probably their best chance of getting up through the gorge. So Des and Jack headed off. and Debbie and I were left on, in this gorge, there's enormous rocks, and we found this rock that was actually shaped like a couch.
Speaker: Oh. It was incredibly, it just had this beautiful divot in the rock that it was just literally shaped like a couch and has forever now been known as couch rock because Debbie got me up to this point where I could actually sit on this rock and it supported my back and was,
Speaker: in glorious sunshine, which it was only the next day I realised how much glorious sunshine it was because i got burnt to a crisp. But we were quite safe there and there was so many things that if it had been different, we thought, oh geez, if this had happened and this had happened this had happened, it would have been so different. you You said the first thing you all did was have lunch and give yourself that time to nourish yourself, think calmly through. Did you do first aid at that point?
Speaker: Not a lot of first at that point because really there wasn't a lot. So dealing with the break, there was nothing that we were going to be able to physically do. once Once they got me across the river, I had a triangular bandage that just literally put my arm in a sling and wrapped my arm and actually did the the collar and cuff type and i actually had it wrapped to my body.
Speaker: at that stage it was still dislocated so we just literally strapped it to me just to stop it from moving because it was getting to the stage where i was now whenever i would move just like literally someone has just had a big hammer and just to hit you on the shoulder with a hammer because it was that really intense stab it was awful but Yeah, so the really first aid wise, that's about all we could do. Yeah. And then I probably had a little bit of shock, but luckily, like I say, had glorious summer afternoon.
Speaker: i had plenty of food, plenty of water. I was in a spot where I was very comfortable. Debbie was quite extraordinary. She... Deb, at that stage, Deb was quite new to paddling.
Speaker: She's quite a good paddler, I must say, but it was still quite new to that sort of environment. But Debbie's someone who, because of other things in her life, I'm sure she won't mind me saying that,
Speaker: she has a son who's severely autistic and throws up a lot of challenges so debbie is the type of person that copes very well with a those sort of challenges she didn't have extensive first aid training or that sort of stuff but just copes very well if you throw her into something that's ah It's quite an extreme situation and she coped fine with it. she She knew that I had a lot of first aid training and she just kept bouncing off
Speaker: What are we going to do? What do you need me to do next? So Des and Jack headed off, started climbing the mountain up through the gorge. Deb got me into a position where I was comfortable and then went and did a stock take of everything we had.
Speaker: Obviously, had plenty of water, no shortage of water. We had plenty of food. We had some dry clothes, not a lot. We had matches. There's always plenty of wood on the riverbank.
Speaker: You always get a lot of a lot of driftwood coming down the river, so there's always dry firewood around. So she sussed out a spot just near our rock. There was a little spot down in between some rocks.
Speaker: So we'd worked out if we were staying the night, We could huddle down in there and that would keep us warm and we could have just a tiny little fire. So she'd got all the firewood, she'd had all the fire ready and raring to go.
Speaker: Once it got dark, we could light the fire, we could huddle down in there and we could stay warm for the night. So she was really organised with all that sort of stuff. Time went by so fast. i Accident happened at 12.30 lunchtime and next thing I turned around and I noticed the shadows creeping through the gorge and it's like,
Speaker: Oh, it's starting to get dark. a And the time between them is, hang on, yeah, it seemed to be yeah and no more than half an hour between lunchtime and twilight. But when it got to about that stage, it got to a point where the pain in my came got to We didn't know whether people were coming or not, but it got to the stage where it's like, we can't I can't deal with this anymore.
Speaker: And I got Debbie to give me a hand and we put my shoulder back in because it had out. So it had been out for about five hours. It was part of Ski Patrol. We're not allowed to put shoulders in where, yeah, we pack them up and send them to hospital. But I did know, in theory, what you're supposed to do.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So I gave Deb a crash course in what we're going to do. and And she put my shoulder in and did a sensational job. She almost vomited afterwards.
Speaker: She said, it's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my entire life, but managed to get it back in. And then once it was back in, then we re-strapped it tight so it wouldn't fall out again.
Speaker: Because that was the problem because the bits were broken. They couldn't actually hold it in properly. Yeah. So we strapped it all up. What time is this? so just to get a bit of a timeline, you said the the accident happened at 12.30.
Speaker: You had a break, just made a plan, and Des and Jack went for the the scramble out. What time did they leave you? Maybe, don't know, maybe 2 o'clock, 1.30, 2 o'clock or something.
Speaker: Did they have maps with them? We did have a map. We had a laminated copy of a map. Not sure whether you get them up New South Wales, but there's a particular map of a lot of the areas down here that there was this guy who did a lot of these maps. and Oh, was it the rooftop ones? yeah Yes, really.
Speaker: So we had a rooftop map, which is with really great detail of that gorge. So that's where we knew that there was a track there and they'd have to climb up, find that track, come around to the lookout.
Speaker: We knew there was some people on the lookout because we we could see the lookout from where we were. my gosh. So we were waving to them and that sort of stuff. and then So we knew people knew that we were down there.
Speaker: And is there phone coverage in this area? like i see not down in the gorge. Up top, there was limited coverage in spots. By the time Dears got up the top, his phone didn't have any coverage, but he found someone.
Speaker: There was people who obviously knew that they'd seen us down there, and he managed to find someone that did have enough phone coverage that he could ring 000. He said it was a terrible line. He said it kept dropping in. it I think he maybe tried triple zero four or five times to actually get to the stage where he gave them enough information they could find us.
Speaker: Can I take you back to the couch rock? You're in on the couch rock realising you're in dark clothes or dark apparel on a dark rock. Debbie's almost vomited by just putting your shoulder back in place. It's re-strapped to your body. Was there an an immediate relief to you for pain at that point? No.
Speaker: Yeah, the stabbing, like it was an absolute stabbing, and then it suddenly stops. it Yeah. It was just, it yeah, it was a the wave of relief that came when we got it back in.
Speaker: i had to then lay down because Debbie said I went as white as a ghost, felt really lightheaded, yeah, because that sudden release, yeah, it meant that was like, oh, my God, yeah it was yeah, it was intense. Yeah. And like, so that was a good five hours in or five and a half hours in or something like that at that point.
Speaker: As those shadows are coming across the gorge. Yeah. And it was starting to get cooler. Like had been glorious warm and yeah, we actually did notice like, oh yeah, and it is actually starting to cool down. You're still in your wetsuits No, no, so it was summer, so I didn't have a dry suit on. No, literally, yeah.
Speaker: No, I think I had a – I might have just had like a spray jacket on, but that's by that stage, yeah. I can't of remember how we got that off because I didn't go to hospital in it.
Speaker: yeah No, I just had a thermal top on. I had a thermal top and a pair of shorts by the time I got to hospital. And muddy paddling shoes, which is felt very weird walking into hospital.
Speaker: I didn't walk in. I was wheeled in. But, yeah, being in hospital with muddy shoes just didn't feel right. So shortly after we put it in was when we heard the helicopter.
Speaker: Did you think as soon as you heard that? Oh, just the, like, as soon as I heard the chopper, yeah, Debbie and I probably almost started to get a bit teary. Like, it by that stage, it we'd been out there about seven hours and it was getting dark and...
Speaker: Yeah, the pain that I'd been through for the last seven hours, i was completely just exhausted. It was quite emotional to hear the helicopter. And I said something to Debbie at the time because it was starting to get dark.
Speaker: I said yeah said, we're going to be saved, Deb. We're going to be saved. it's like And she says, don't leave me behind, will you? And i said, I looked in the eye and said, I promise I will not leave you behind. I will not let them leave you behind.
Speaker: So the chopper did a big lap because it's quite difficult. It was a difficult spot for the chopper to come. It couldn't land, and it's a difficult spot to lower down.
Speaker: So it had to fly in and then lower itself vertically into the gorge because the winch is only, don't know, 100 metres or whatever. don't how they've got on the winch, but it had to be down a fair way into the gorge to to then lower the winch down to reach me.
Speaker: And the walls of the gorge are close enough to the chopper that meant the chopper couldn't come down easily because the wind is buffeting off the walls, which is tossing the chopper around as it's trying to come down.
Speaker: So he went around, did a lap first, then came back and we saw the Ambo get out of the chopper, come down the wire, came down, landed next to us, and the chopper doesn't stay.
Speaker: So as soon as he came down, he was on a carabiner, unclipped the carabiner, waved the chopper goodbye. Chopper went off and kept circling while he sorted out what we're doing. And by the time he unclipped and the chopper flew away, ah the the sense of relief when that happened, Debbie and I were both quite emotional because it was finally the the reality is yes, we're going to be saved.
Speaker: And yes, I know I was a bit teary. Yeah, the whole combination of everything over the last seven hours, I think it left me yeah emotionally just wrecked. And as soon as I started to get a bit of teary, Debbie got teary.
Speaker: And I always remember the ambulance officers are a unique breed of people and they have a unique sense of humour. And as he landed and he saw us both quite emotional, his comment was, have you two been sitting here watching Mrs Doubtfire or something?
Speaker: tough yeah just that Just to break the sort of, yeah, yeah su we're just happy to see this. Yeah, we're fine.
Speaker: Yeah, it was completely just, and do this every day. yeah there's nothing exciting about this. So he had a giant, effectively a giant nappy that he laid out and slung me So it had a three-point sort of thing that he could lift me up with. So he got me into that, clipped me all up, and then I turned around and he said, I'm going to give you this, go on this and that. I said, yep, no worries. And then you're coming back for Deb, yeah?
Speaker: And he looked at me and said, mate, we are only doing this once. And I go, you can't leave her here. And he said, don't worry, the SES is, he said, we just saw them. They're abseiling down into the gorge at the moment and they're going to get her out.
Speaker: So, oh, he said, they're literally 15, 20 minutes away no Okay. So he waves it in, wire comes down, picks up the both of us, and, yeah, next thing I've left Debbie behind.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, which ah she's forgiven me. But at the time, I just think, oh, my God. Yeah, so hard. Yeah. As it was, and there's some some video footage of her seeing me fly off into the distance, and it's you can see sun's coming down in the background, that sort of stuff. And she said from there it started to get dark fairly quickly, and just as it got to the stage where it was getting dark enough that she's like, I can't really see much,
Speaker: Next thing she heard all these voices and torches, yeah, half a dozen people turned up, including Des. They found her and then got her out. They roped her back out through the gorge. So did she exit the same way that Des and Jack went up that creek to the lookout? I think so. Yeah, I think so. But the difference is that Jack and Des had to scramble up.
Speaker: By the time she went up with the SES, they brought brought ropes down and that sort of stuff and they were able to help rope her out. one Yeah, wonderful. yeah, it was much easier getting out that way. So yeah what about all the gear? So you've got three boats, four boats. Four boats. Four boats, three paddles.
Speaker: Three paddles, yeah. And all those cucumbers and lunch. Like I say, the the million things that just happened to happen, one of the guys in the s SES was also a very keen paddler.
Speaker: And by the time he got everyone else up to the top, he'd said, what are you going to do about all your gear? And they said, we're going to have to try and get back down there tomorrow, get the gear. Yeah.
Speaker: And Brennan just loses his boat, which it wasn't very old and it's worth a couple of thousand dollars. And he turned around and says, he said, I'll paddle it out for you. He said, paddled this river heaps of times. I'll paddle it out.
Speaker: So he bought his own paddle with him and next day he paddled it out and they threw it on Des's car and bought it home. And it just, so many things. ah It worked out because Des's wife had come along.
Speaker: but So my car was there. in a remote campsite the middle of nowhere. Just it happened that Des's wife was there and she could drive a manual. Not everyone can drive a manual these days, but, yeah, she can drive a manual. Great. So she drove my car back the next day with my kayak on it. The paddle went missing.
Speaker: The paddle actually turned up weeks later. Someone messaged me and said, oh, because I had my phone number on the paddle, and said, oh, I found your paddle. Oh, great. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I've left it there.
Speaker: ah So yeah, so I never saw it again, the paddle. But in in the reality, I listened to people's stories and I listened to people's stories like people overseas who have an accident. And I was so incredibly lucky.
Speaker: When I got on the chopper, I remembered to take my phone and my wallet on the chopper. And once we're all up and inside the chopper and heading back, we flew back to Tarelgan, which is quite a long way.
Speaker: The guy who'd rescued me then turns around and picks up an ah iPad and says, you haven't got your Medicare card on you, have you? but said, oh, yeah. He said, right, great. I'm handing him my Medicare card, and the next thing he starts tapping on the iPad, he says, you're good.
Speaker: I'm like, what? So he'd admitted me to hospital. and we In Victoria, we have an ambulance subscription. Yeah. So I did a massive panic thinking, oh, my God, I hope my ambulance subscription is up to date.
Speaker: Luckily it was. And then gave him my Medicare card on the helicopter, got to hospital, admitted to hospital, tests, yeah, spent the night in Tarelgan Hospital, That was interesting. why At the same time as I'd gone here, my wife had gone the other direction from Melbourne, down the surf coast to a place called Torquay, which has been an hour and a half the other way from Melbourne.
Speaker: So I rang her. By the time I got... to hospital, it must have been 9 o'clock, I think, New Year's Eve. ah Casual departments in of hospitals at 9 o'clock New Year's Eve were always interesting places. and I rang my wife.
Speaker: she was She'd gone down the beach with one of her friends and she said, oh, we're just finishing up dinner. I'll bring you back. And I said, don't, don't hang up. yelled at don't hang up.
Speaker: She goes, why? And then she twigged. It's like, hang on, you've got phone reception. Where are you? I'm in Tarelgan Hospital. And it's like, oh, okay.
Speaker: So it worked out for her. It was a massive drive. By that stage, so there's no point in me driving now. It was 9 o'clock at night. I'm in hospital. I'm perfectly safe. So she got up early the next morning and drove from Torquay to Tarelgan, which was a four- or five-hour drive or something to pick me up.
Speaker: I've never felt so glad of living where we do. that I got discharged from hospital the next day and the nurse said, yep, you're right to go. I said, do I need to sign anything? or She goes, no, we've got that on the way in, so you're good.
Speaker: So i didn't even I didn't even have to sign a piece of paper when I left. When you consider, yeah, that chopper was in the air for over two hours, yeah, hospitals, all that sort of stuff, phenomenal and didn't cost me a cent.
Speaker: Do you have a personal story about an incident or rescue during an outdoor trip when something didn't quite go to plan? Maybe you got lost, injured, let down by some gear, preparation or something else. Look, honestly, it can happen to any of us at any time, regardless of how experienced we are.
Speaker: And it's by sharing these stories and tales that we can all learn and help to avoid them in the future. So if that's you, i'd love to hear from you. So please drop me an email to rescued at lotsoffreshair.com.
Speaker: That's rescued with a D.
Speaker: Brendan, with your injury, in terms of the pain relief, were you given pain relief on the way to hospital or? He wanted to give me morphine in the chopper and I said, look, I don't want to have morphine. By that stage, it was back in and it was all strapped up. So as long as I didn't move...
Speaker: It wasn't too bad. as soon as I moved, the man with the hammer came back. Because it's still broken. Like you mentioned that the socket and the ball were broken as well, which in terms of manipulating a ah so the dislocation seems a bit spicy.
Speaker: That was the long-term thing because it wasn't completely separated. had a large fracture in one and a large fracture in the other. And when you put the two together, every now and again there was a sharp edge on both of them and every now and again the sharp edges would catch.
Speaker: And the amount of months later I'd be on the floor because I remember ah it was probably two months, more maybe more afterwards, I reached to try and put my coffee cup in the dishwasher and it managed to catch that edge and I just, I ended up on the floor. It was just writhing in pain. Several times when those two edges caught, the pain was just, yeah, off the dial. So what was the the treatment then?
Speaker: You got discharged from hospital. That seems, oh, well, he's he's back 100% again, but what you're saying is not the case. No, no, look, at and it was interesting. I ended up going CAT scans, um MRIs, ultrasounds, all the different stuff, and that's where they found out where these fractures were.
Speaker: And then I went and saw a surgeon, and this was a ah fancy surgeon in Melbourne. You know, it's one of those surgeons you walk in, he's got all these photos of AFL footy players and Olympians and all that sort of stuff just lining the corridors of he's done all this work for all these famous sports people.
Speaker: And I walked in there at that stage, yeah, that that was probably almost a month afterwards and I still had no function in my arm whatsoever. Right. Yeah, I said to him, expecting him to say, oh, yeah, we'll just zip do this and do this. And he looked at the m MRI and he said, mate, nothing we can do. Wow. Wow.
Speaker: And I remember just being so completely gutted. He said, the only thing that's going to fix this is time. He said, i I can't do anything for it. He said, these bones need to grow back. They need to heal.
Speaker: yeah He said, you're a 55, 56-year-old guy. He said, just going to take 12 to 18 months. Wow. And there's nothing I can do. So, yeah, I was pretty pretty gutted at that stage. Leading up to that point, I'd been on a bit of a bender to get really fit and I was paddling all the time and, yeah, I was feeling feeling fit, feeling strong.
Speaker: And then it's like, no, you've just got 12 months of doing not much. And at that stage, I was still on not two crutches. I could only be on one crutch. Yeah, because we haven't talked about your knee injury either.
Speaker: the The knee was just a tear and then that did mend itself. that That wasn't – I was probably on on a crutch for ah maybe three or four weeks and then I could start to walk again. So, yeah, that wasn't too bad, but it's still – think the big thing is the shoulder took months and months.
Speaker: It gave me a real inkling about people – who have chronic illness, people who have long-term debilitating illness, got to the stage, it was so much easier to sit on the couch.
Speaker: Like I knew that I had to get up and start exercising. my I was going to physio regularly, developed a love-hate relationship with my physiotherapist. She's an amazing woman, but the amount of times that I think I swore at her while it she could inflict some serious pain in the sessions, but did amazing work.
Speaker: And she was the one saying, you need to start exercising again. need get off the couch, you need to start moving, you need to start doing these things. And I'd always been someone who was incredibly active and hated sitting down, and suddenly I found myself that it was just so much easier to sit on the couch. It was so much easier to stay in bed.
Speaker: and it It wasn't from a headspace point of view, no, it was not in a good headspace at all. Yeah, that was pretty crap. Yeah. So how did what did you do? How did you get a shift in that?
Speaker: A couple of things happened. One, I forced myself to start walking. We've got a lot of bike tracks not far from us, and one of them is a bike track that runs along the creek.
Speaker: So it's quite flat and it's all paved. So it's a great track to be walking on. if you're not 100% mobile. So I set myself a goal to get back on that track as soon as I could.
Speaker: And the first time, I think I i might have done 100 or 200 meters down the track. And every day, just it hurt. ah you used to really enjoy walking.
Speaker: And I didn't enjoy it. Yeah. I could sit on the couch and just scroll Facebook for the next three hours. That's going to be easier. So like say, I do fly in, fly out work.
Speaker: The guy I worked for, he'd known that I'd had the accident and probably about eight weeks, nine weeks afterwards, he rang me and said, how are you? And all that sort of thing.
Speaker: ah He said, I've got a job and it requires you to be able to hold an ah iPad. You've got to go around and just do some survey work. You're just tapping on an ah iPad. He said, can you do that?
Speaker: I said, yeah. yeah I'm not very fast. I'm not very mobile, but I'm sure I could. And that was a godsend because it actually got me. One, it started bringing some money back in. I it wasn't...
Speaker: earning any money at the time. it's nice to actually be earning some money. But also it forced me to get out of bed every day. I was doing a 14-day swing. And that first 14-day swing, I'd get up, start the day with some painkillers, and then hobble down, go to work.
Speaker: When I arrived, i um I made a mark with a texter on a pole. And the first mark I made was at waist height. And then, yeah, over the coming months, I just kept moving further and further up the pole as I could stretch my arm. It was part of my exercises every day.
Speaker: So explain that. So there's a pole and you're trying to raise your arm or your elbow or your shoulder? Yeah, so effectively hold the texter in my hand and see the highest point on the pole that I can make a mark with the texter.
Speaker: And when I started, it was barely above waist height that I could get a line but the pole. So I started with my other hand. I put a mark at the highest point I could get with my other hand, and it was about seven months to – further and further up the pole that I could actually get it to match my other arm. um Yeah, so like I said, it was a solid seven months until I could eat.
Speaker: And even then it still hurt, but I could actually get it that high. Yeah, so I was forever grateful to... to that guy for giving me the call and actually finding me work to do that I could do. that yeah it i was slow, but I got the work done, but it was great. you think he knew that he was actually asking you more than just, can you come and do this job? This is a guy I've known for about 10 or 12 years. And over the years, he yeah he's played a lot of football over the years and has had more injuries than anyone I know. so
Speaker: He probably has a very good inkling about that sort of road to recovery type stuff. Yeah, I suspect it was more than just needing another guy. i know. i He very much did me a very big favour by, yeah, getting me back on the horse, I think, it's that because otherwise I would have just sat on the couch.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm wondering what what other strategies or things exist outside of the physical healing that could help people who might be in a similar situation. Yeah.
Speaker: Like I'm a big advocate for mental health and doing things about mental health. So and I had a counsellor that I could speak to and we worked through a lot of those sort of things. Yeah, there was a couple of big moments. Oh, I'd have to check the timeline, but quite a few months later, Debbie dragged me back out on the Yarra.
Speaker: I like Debbie.
Speaker: Debbie. I always say when everything goes to shit, Debbie's the person you need by your side. She's, yeah, she's fantastic. She's, yeah, she helps me. It's part of the reason one why I'm here. Normally we go paddling. There could be 10 or 12 of us when we go paddling and,
Speaker: It's like, no, we're not doing that. We went paddling. I think it was a midweek paddle. And just her and I just, it was just a nice simple section of the river that we've paddled hundreds of times.
Speaker: And I was scared, absolutely scared to death. Not ah scared of the water, but scared of, you know, What happens me if my shoulder pops out again or what happens, know? I think after coming out of the other side of months of being in pain and just not really enjoying what life is, yeah, I was so scared that I didn't want anything like that to happen again.
Speaker: was very nervous about getting back on the river. And then I guess the other big psychological one, well, there's two. One The next November, so this was New Year's Eve and I'd made it through to November. We go away come Melbourne Cup weekend, first weekend November.
Speaker: So that's when the big snowy river trip is. So i wasn't in my little kayak. I was in a large raft. but it was my first time back on large rapids.
Speaker: We'd been paddling the Yarra, which was smaller stuff, ending up with the large rapids. The anxiety kicked in again. Yeah, and on that second day, there's a there's some big rapids in the gorge, and there's a lot of people in the the paddling community that are amazing people,
Speaker: It's not very ego-driven. And there's one guy in particular who's without question by far the best paddler and the most experienced, and he's been a river guide for many years.
Speaker: He knew, they most of the people knew where I was at, but he was very in tune with where I was at. And that morning, he just gives me the, you're going to be right today? And I sort of looked at him and he realized, you're not going to.
Speaker: I said, I might need to call in a favor today, Shawnee. We didn't have to have a big discussion about it. just gave me the thumbs up said, mate, whenever you're ready, I'm here. and i got to the There's ah quite a large complex rapid, probably the the biggest rapid on the trip, and I got to that point And the anxiety was at the stage where I could barely breathe. And I just turned around to him and said, I might need to call that favourite, Sean. And he said, yep, fair enough.
Speaker: And he said, but you're coming with me because we're on a large raft which holds a couple of people. So he was more than happy to take control and run the raft through, but he very much understood that I needed to be in that raft.
Speaker: Even if I was just ah just a passenger, i needed to to do it. and I pleased that he just took control and saw it saw that it needed to happen, but also saw that I needed to to be part. If I just stood out and watched it all go past, I'd still be thinking about it, whereas he's like, no, you need to move on.
Speaker: I have absolute faith in this guy that he would he's the safest person I know to get that boat down the river. And it was totally fine, totally fine, totally safe. He knew exactly what he's doing and made it a real fun thing.
Speaker: But later when we got into camp that night, I was in the large raft, so i had ah an esky with a couple of cold beers in it and I was able to go up and give him a cold beer, which, yeah, i was so grateful.
Speaker: that So, yeah, there was a... quite a lot of mental hurdles to get over, I guess, afterwards. Yeah, because I i don't want to be in that situation. the the Not so much the day was one thing, but it was the all the stuff that went on for months afterwards.
Speaker: I guess that's what I was more scared of than what actually happened on the day. Brendan, thank you so much for being willing to go there and to talk about that kind of stuff because I think it's a hidden area when it comes to injury, especially for people who value spending time in nature and to be physical in these places and these pursuits, these activities that we love.
Speaker: So for us to learn that if we ever find ourselves in this situation that, yeah, the bones will heal, but there's this other stuff we need to factor into what that journey back to adventure is going to look like, i just so valuable, so valuable.
Speaker: yeah So you're now about 18 months down the track. No, it must be over two years now. Yeah, it is. And where are you at today? yeah so I guess – So going back and redoing that trip with the same people, so we went back 12 months later, same New Year's Eve, 12 months later. I wasn't in my kayak. I was in a large raft, which the large rafts are much easier to yeah much easier to get through the river and much safer, and but I was with the same people.
Speaker: And we actually got a photo of the four of us on Couch Rock looking much happier this time around. Yeah, so that was really good. And I guess for all of us, it was a sense of closure to come back to that spot.
Speaker: Yeah, that was really quite a wonderful thing. I guess I still, before that particular thing, I probably was a bit overconfident sometimes. Whereas now I know I'm much more tentative yeah going into a rapid or something like that. I still paddle regularly, still paddle probably at the moment because there's a bit of water around. We're paddling probably at least once a week, but not as, i don't know whether gung-ho is the word, but I am more tentative. I don't tend to just rush off into things like I used to.
Speaker: it's I guess that is something I'm aware of. And what else has changed? with is it Is there different gear that you take? Is there other things that, you like you mentioned, you your mindset's a little different now?
Speaker: is there other things that's different as well? Yeah, look, there's a couple of things. We worked out that as paddlers, we'd all worn dark clothes and we were sitting on a big dark rock.
Speaker: There's a couple of things since then. We did a bit of an assessment afterwards and I went and bought an emergency bivvy bag, which is basically a two-person aluminium foil-lined garbage bag, a super tough bag.
Speaker: garbage bag that's big enough for two. It's tiny. It packs up about the size of a pair socks, but it's fluorescent orange. Not only there, but other places that I go now, I take things that are very brightly colored.
Speaker: yeah We did have a whistle. Actually, Debbie had a, I don't know about brands, speaking about brands, but there's a particular whistle that everyone in the canoeing fraternity loves this particular whistle.
Speaker: It's called a Fox 40 whistle and it has a reputation. It's the loudest whistle that you can buy on the market. And it just looks like a normal whistle, but it's in it's so loud that I was using it and I put my fingers in my ears before I blew it.
Speaker: because it was, yeah, we were blowing it in earnest and it was very loud. And I went and bought a PLB, actually bought ah a Garmin, little gar ah mini inReach that I've got a couple of text messages pre-programmed into it.
Speaker: So when I get into camp at night now, I just will send my wife. It's a preloaded text. It's arrived, all okay. And it actually sends my GPS coordinates to her.
Speaker: Yeah, so I take one of them. It actually just clips onto my life jacket. Even on simple trips, I just leave it on. I actually physically don't turn it on. I leave it fully charged but turned off.
Speaker: So then if I need it, I can just turn it on and away we go. Probably upgraded my first aid kit. Always make sure, yeah, all those things like food and all that sort of stuff make sure we've always got things like that when we go off down the river.
Speaker: Yeah, much more conscious of all that sort of stuff. Yeah, taking things that are brightly colored. Don't take everything that's black. Simple stuff like that. Letting people know. i was always...
Speaker: fairly diligent about the trip intentions and that sort of stuff. But these days, probably more so with trip intentions. Yeah, so I guess a lot of that sort of stuff. Hmm.
Speaker: making sure you yeah you are prepared and actually making sure I think the other thing, and I had this just the other day. so I was up on Mount, completely different sport. I was up on Mount Sterling doing some skiing and the weather was foul and I'd camped just down below the tree line and was going to head up over the summit down to a hut on the other side of the tree line.
Speaker: And On this mountain, there is a pole line so you can follow the poles across because it's a bald summit. And I got up there and I could follow the poles for three or four poles and then I lost – the weather was that bad, I lost the poles.
Speaker: And as it came to that point, I actually stopped and thought, you know what, today is not the day. yeah I was by myself and I had all the right gear and I know the mountain very well. This is the mountain I patrol at.
Speaker: But even still just skiing off into the – youre nothing i said yeah no today's not the day turned around came back down found another way there's another track you can take that's much more defined and that sort of stuff so yeah i do tend to be like that of having a look and actually thinking yeah yeah yeah being today's not the day Yeah, being a bit more cautious. it's Yeah, I think that sort of stuff.
Speaker: Maybe that's just getting old, I don't know, but certainly, yeah, being more careful, being more cautious, still still go out and have fun. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: but just make some more of those decisions of ah simple things. You think, yeah, maybe, yeah. Still getting out and giving it a nudge, no but thinking or more thinking more about it beforehand. Do you know the other thing that strikes me, and I touched on this when I said, oh, I like Debbie,
Speaker: is just also that importance of knowing the people that you're going with and being able to know a bit about their experience. Are they the kind of people you want to be with if something hits the fan? Yeah. Heading out with people you know, people you trust, people with, you know, their heads screwed on.
Speaker: And I think that's it. there's Yeah, that is very important, knowing who you're going out with because, like, I've had plenty of wilderness first aid experience, but that's worth anything if you're the person that's going to, you know, it's the you start relying on other people. So, yeah I think that's a big thing, knowing that you can trust other people That's what I love about the club system, whether it be paddling, kayak, water clubs or bushwalking, hiking clubs.
Speaker: and You've got this group of people who... learn together, train together, get to know each other's temperament. You might even get to know the people you don't want to be on a trip with.
Speaker: ah But, yeah, there's this sense of you know what you're in for with the people who you're with and you can go, yep, I bank on them. Yep.
Speaker: Yeah. These solid. Yeah. Absolutely. and and It becomes a real thing. It's funny, even people that you may not follow the same football team, they may not have the same views, politics or whatever, it's those people that in that particular situation They're the people that you want in those sort of extreme situations.
Speaker: Whatever gets thrown, so they're the people you want. And interestingly enough, it was that some of those people were the same people when I'm sitting on the couch feeling very sorry for myself.
Speaker: you'd just get the random text message, just checking in, sitting on the couch too much. and that Those same people that were the ones who, yeah, would check up on you, which was, yeah, which was a wonderful thing.
Speaker: So good, so good. So, Brendan, in wrapping up then, is there something that we haven't talked about that you think is is important that you'd like to cover or something else you want to add?
Speaker: thinking about, because we did a lot of thought and a lot of talking about what went right, what went wrong. We had some good debriefing and most of it, apart from me falling out of a boat and breaking my shoulder, what then transpired after that, most of it went fairly well.
Speaker: There were little things, yeah, having a PLB would have made life a lot easier. Yeah, some little bits and pieces, bivvy bag and a few other things like that.
Speaker: But yeah, I think that's that being prepared for those scenarios, yeah, I think it's something I'd probably focus on more and make sure when it does go wrong that you have those things. So I guess being a bit more thorough. Yeah, all those things that we're literally, that we're taught about in scouts and that sort of stuff, it will become a lot more important when it's actually real. Yeah.
Speaker: And the more of them you get right, the more chance you've got of getting out okay. Yeah. So many good things, so many like so many learnings for us and things for us to all take on board, no matter what our outdoor adventure flavour of ice cream is.
Speaker: If you've enjoyed this powerful story or one of the many others from my super generous guests, you can help more people connect and hear these valuable lessons simply by leaving a five-star review. And why not even click that little bitty share button on your podcast app and help your outdoorsy mates find it too.
Speaker: The Rescued podcast is produced on the unceded lands of the Gondungara people of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. I pay my respects to the elders past and present and acknowledge their enduring connection to and care for country.
Speaker: Special thanks to our sponsors, Paddy Pallon. This has been Lots of Fresh Air production.
