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003 // Matt U'Brien (Part 2) - Empress Canyon Rescue
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In 2020 over 3.7 million people from Australia and overseas visited the Blue Mountains - The most visited National Park in New South Wales. They're drawn to the dramatic clifftop views, deep valleys and diverse habitats that stretch over the 1 million hectares of this world Heritage sandstone plateaux, a landscape that is constantly being carved by water and reveals itself through waterfalls and canyons.
Today, I have the honour of welcoming back to the podcast Matthew U’Brien, who in the last episode shared his powerful story of life within his 17 year policing career.
Most of that was in Police Rescue in the Blue Mountains, and now his challenging journey outside, where he's advocating for better mental health outcomes for emergency services, first responders. If you haven't listened to that episode, I strongly recommend you do that first. So pop out and then return back here.
In this episode, Matt's going to take us inside Empress Canyon, the most popular of the Blue Mountains canyons, when during a regular day at work, he found himself moving from rescuer to needing rescue.
Today, he’s on a different journey, one that comes as a consequence of his years spent serving the community, often being alongside people on the worst day of their lives. This year will see him travel 2,400 km from the Lambert centre of Australia (Heart of Country), to Parliament House in Canberra (Heart of Nation), with a critical message for our Country’s leaders.
He is host of the Heart to Heart Walk Podcast, where we hear stories from current and past emergency services workers and look at the critical issue of first responder mental health.
The podcast is part of the Heart to Heart Walk project that we hear about in our episode.
You can get in touch with Matt here.
Language Warning.
The content in this episode may be confronting and difficult for some listeners; it includes issues of PTSD, depression, anxiety, suicide and trauma. Remember, if you need help, reach out by Googling ‘Mental Health Helpline’ in your area.
In Australia, you can call Lifeline 24/7 on 13 11 14 or visit BeyondBlue.org.au.
Further urgent help and information for first responders can be found at Phoenix Australia.
Thanks to
- Sponsor // Paddy Pallin
- Rescued Podcast main photo // Ben Cirulis and fotografija.com.au
- Nature SFX // freesound.org [Kangaroo Vindaloo and Monkey Pants]
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Transcript
Introduction and Themes
00:00:00
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.
00:00:20
Speaker
The following episode touches on subjects such as trauma, mental health and suicide. So please take a sec and consider who's listening. And that includes you. And remember, if you need to chat things through, you can always call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit beyondblue.org.au.
Exploration of the Blue Mountains
00:00:41
Speaker
In 2022, over 3.7 million people from Australia and overseas visited the Blue Mountains, the most visited national park in New South Wales. They're drawn to the dramatic cliff top views, deep valleys and diverse habitats that stretch over the 1 million hectares of this World Heritage Sandstone Plateau, a landscape that is constantly being carved by water and reveals itself through waterfalls and canyons.
Matt UBrien's Mental Health Advocacy
00:01:11
Speaker
Today, I have the honour of welcoming back to the podcast, Matt UBrien, who in the last episode, shared his powerful story of life within his 17-year policing career. Most of that within police rescue in the Blue Mountains. And now, his challenging journey outside, where he's advocating for better mental health outcomes for emergency services first responders.
00:01:33
Speaker
If you haven't listened to that episode, I strongly recommend you do that first. So pop out and then return back here.
Empress Canyon Rescue Incident
00:01:41
Speaker
In this episode, Matt's going to take us inside Empress Canyon, the most popular of the Blue Mountains canyons during a regular day at work when he found himself moving from rescuer to needing rescue. Matt, welcome back to Rescued Podcast.
00:01:57
Speaker
Thanks very much for having me back on. It's so good to have you here. Thank you again. In the first episode, you talked about your early days as a kid, growing up and finding the bush and falling in love with wild places like that. Why don't you jump forward a little bit and talk to us about how you discovered canyoning and how you first got into that.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty hard to avoid it, I guess, living in the Blue Mountains. But it started to grow as an extension from bushwalking, natural progression to the vertical world. And that's how I really started looking into it. And obviously, there's a lot of that sort of activity going on around us. And as I think I mentioned last time, watching some of the other police rescue operators at work going out and doing these sort of activities. And it just sort of naturally caught my attention.
00:02:42
Speaker
Because you were General Judy's police officer at the time, weren't you, when you first came to the Blue Mountains?
00:02:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Started off in general duties and progressed through to becoming a rescue operator, which was a really good fit for where I wanted to go. But yeah, the canyoning side of things actually really was, I guess, what drew me in really intensely into that line of work. And I still look back at those days fondly because they're parts of the world that not many people get to see and they take a bit of effort and a bit of know-how, but you can certainly go and enjoy something that not a lot of people get to see.
00:03:14
Speaker
How would you describe what a canyon is? A lot of people might think of the Grand Canyon in the States. It's this big, vast valley. But ours are really different. What does it look like? What do they sound like? What do you see inside a canyon?
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, I've actually had to do this officially in reports, you know, investigation reports and that as well for coronal matters where you've actually got to try and explain the environment that you're in or that that person was in to a court or to a coroner who would have zero exposure to that physically, but you've actually got to try and explain
Canyon Beauty and Risks
00:03:51
Speaker
it. So it's not easy. I usually end up talking about it being a slot through a rock and it's a waterfall that goes over the edge of a cliff typically.
00:04:00
Speaker
Then you talk about the large catchment areas that actually make that over many years and that natural water flow, and then it just carves that slot deeper and deeper and deeper through that cliff line. Then you end up with these sort of majestic little waterways that work their way down through a deep slot in the rock. Yeah, they're quite hard to explain. When you say slot, how wide are we talking here?
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, so some of them are quite constricted and quite narrow and quite deep. Others certainly are more broad. You're quite well aware of how deep you are in Mother Earth when you look up from some of them because there is a long way of a very narrow slot of rock above you. And they're not places to underestimate either, I think, because of that place that you're in is actually not really easy to get in and out of. And when things go wrong, that's a challenge for everybody, not just you.
00:04:47
Speaker
There's certainly a place that you can go and enjoy and the picturesque nature of them and just being in somewhere like that. It's just so foreign to what's, you know, maybe even two or three kilometres away from you. There's a whole bunch of coffee shops and you can be in this whole other world. I guess that's what, you know, people love about them. Yeah. So what do they look like inside? Like what colours and what do they sound like?
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, well, they can be quiet and then they can be really loud, depends where you are. So the water flow is usually the determining factor of that other than a few birds that you might hear on the outside or a bit of wind. But the colours that I remember actually are those beautiful greens and that bit of sun bursting through. It's etched into my mind. I think some of those greens are particularly up in cholesterol and places like that.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a green filter that's put over, you know, when you get a bit of light coming through, because you mentioned that when you look up and you realize how far down you are. It's amazing how the water can just carve it so deep. Yeah, but some days you get that beautiful sunlight bursting through, just that little bit of mist that's often in there. And yeah, they look gorgeous. Can you remember your first canyon in the Blue Mountains? Oh, I do. Actually, I do. And it was Empress.
00:06:01
Speaker
I started canyoning with another general duties guy. Actually, it wasn't a rescue operator that took me out. Yeah, he was an avid rock climber that he did canyoning on the side sort of thing. And he wanted to take me out and we actually did Empress in, not in wetsuits.
Canyoning Challenges and Preparation
00:06:17
Speaker
That's what I do remember. It was old school. It was, yeah, we'll jump us under a bit of a Gore-Tex and off we went. And he promised me it would only be short. We wouldn't be cold for too long and away we went. Yeah. Those were the days.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, I wouldn't do it that way anymore. But that was the place that started for me, actually, Empress in a woolen jumper. So I guess that's another thing to help us all understand what this environment's like. So, you know, they're dark and they're also cold, aren't they?
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, we haven't talked about temperature. Yeah. That's the big factor, isn't it? Yeah, they're so cold up in the Blue Mountains anyway. And it's usually dark, so it doesn't warm up. And yeah, they're really cold. You need to have the right gear for that, like wetsuits. You can get into trouble pretty quickly if your temperature gets too low. So yeah, they're a challenging environment to work in. In plain, you just got to know what you're doing.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah. So what are some of the things that, you know, some of the risks that apart from all the usual things you think about in bushwalking, what are some of the things that we have to think about with canyoning? Yeah. Well, because you're introducing usually a vertical element. So, you know, essentially they're a canyon because the water's flowing down through something. So you've either got fairly decent scramble downs, water jump ins or abseiling. So there's usually that element to it. So whenever you introduce heights, you introduce that.
00:07:40
Speaker
that risk of falling and there's a primary issue. But the other factor that always plagues canyons is they're dark and wet and rocks when they're dark and wet are slippery. So everything's slippery. You know, you're not just walking on slippery wet rocks, you're actually in water and sometimes it's that deep, you're actually swimming. And doing that with all the gear that you actually need to get through the canyon is a challenge as well from a weight point of view. And obviously some of it needs to stay dry. You've got to factor that in
Rescue Operations and Complexities
00:08:07
Speaker
as well. It takes you into a different world, a magical place.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And some of them are so different, you know, some some of the more open waterfall type canyons out in Kananga are very different to the the deep slot rock canyons. They've still got beautiful views. It's just a different view.
00:08:26
Speaker
Massive thanks for the support from the team at Patti Pallon, who since 1930 have been leaders in travel and outdoor adventure. In fact, did you know that Patti 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? Hmm, nice one Patti.
00:08:46
Speaker
Can you remember the day that we're going to look at how the morning started or how the shift started for you? I do remember there was some really isolated but quite severe storm cells come through. For me, it would have just been another any old day. If I remember rightly, I think I was actually heading home after finishing up in the late afternoon. The reason I remember the storm activity is because when the job came in, I thought to myself,
00:09:13
Speaker
oh wow, like there has been some hectic rainfall up here in patches and knowing what that can do in those canyon environments and straight away that settle arm bells off because you know you get jobs in canyons from time to time and they're usually more challenging than routine remote area jobs just because of the environment but this particular day I do remember straight away thinking wow this is going to be a big job because of the the rain that we'd had and sure enough it was
00:09:42
Speaker
And was that unplanned, like unforecast rain? Was it one of those sort of random storm cells that came through unforecast? Yeah, look, I think it was a possibility, but you know, like the mountains where there can be, like it's an afternoon of possible storms can mean sunny or it can mean what we got. It was definitely pretty full on rainfall, like storm, like isolated storm activity with some heavy downpour sections. And that's, that's usually something that canyons are pretty switched on to, isn't it?
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of those things that you've really got to be aware of in that environment is that risk of changing water conditions. So that's because the way that they've formed and the catchments that they're usually part of, that water fluctuation can happen pretty quickly and pretty drastically in those environments. That's exactly why Canyon is usually quite well attuned to what the weather forecast is going to be for their activity.
00:10:34
Speaker
When the job came in, were you thinking back to past jobs you've done in Empress? Because had you done other other rescues and other jobs within Empress before? The sort of more minor injury jobs that happen in a lot of places, no doubt done a few of those down the bottom end there with either ill prepared people, but certainly nothing of this nature. But the thing with Empress, I guess, for me was I used to use it as a training run. Like it was one of those canyons that I'd do with friends as a time trial, even just to see how quick we could get through and back to where we started from.
00:11:04
Speaker
from as a bit of a hoot and knowing the volume of traffic that gets through there. And, you know, that was certainly on my mind as well, thinking, wow, you know, if there's a job going on in there, how many people are actually in there? Because some of those groups can be pretty big and they're not all commercial groups with the sort of structure that comes with that. Some of the private groups that decide to go in there too were pretty big at times. And that was certainly on my mind that day.
00:11:29
Speaker
Because Empress Kitty is like most visited canyon in the Blue Mountains. It's, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people go through all the time and there's never a problem. Yeah, and that's right. Back in those days weren't a lot of incidents, I guess, for the amount of people that go through there. Yeah, nonetheless, it's still a canyon and, you know, to get a job like that after that weather pattern that I knew had passed over the area was a pretty big concern.
00:11:53
Speaker
So, you're driving to the access point. Did you access it as per normal or what were some of the things going through you and you were there with colleagues at the time? What was going on? For those sort of jobs, typically a lot of rescue jobs are just done with two rescue operators. But for those type of jobs, they're never just two people because
00:12:15
Speaker
you know, vertical works usually a minimum of three plus people required as a first sort of wave turnout. And those sort of canyon type jobs are usually more than that as well because of the logistics of equipment and whatever the task at hand is on top of that. And then you add the medical element with the ambulance officers on top of that again. So they're not a sort of standard call out, I guess, and it's very often driven by the nature of the job. But that one, I think we ended up having
00:12:40
Speaker
three operators turn up there with the first arriving ambulance. Myself and two other operators and I think there was one SCAT paramedic and normally a road ambulance crew as well. To give you an idea of what first turned up, the time criticality of that job as well
00:12:59
Speaker
was evident right from the very start. So it's not one of those jobs where you can sort of lob up and take your time planning and doing all of that sort of thing. It's pretty much game on from when you get there. Not saying you don't take your precautions, plan your actions and get your gear ready and take what you need, but it's
00:13:17
Speaker
Not a job you can take in slow order and wait for all of the cavalry to arrive before you initiate it just because of that risk of it could be getting worse every second and we need to do what we need to do straight away so that's that's how those type of jobs are approached.
00:13:32
Speaker
What did you know of the job as you approached? Yeah, that was very, very little. All we knew at the time at the top was that there were people reported as being trapped in the canyon and there wasn't a lot more information that I remember coming in from that and that caused us some problems because
00:13:50
Speaker
As many of your canyoning listeners would know, to go towards the exit or to the entrance is not usually the same route and that's the decision we had to make straight away was we don't actually know what's going on here or we know as people are unaccounted for or there's an alarm being raised and it certainly wasn't. They're all out of the canyon type of a message so we had to presume that there were people still
00:14:14
Speaker
Stuck in the canyon. So that's exactly how we approached it. Myself and one other operator, Fitzy, geared up to go straight in that entry point there near Lillian's bridge for the people that know it. And then we sent the ambulance officer and one of our other rescue operators down the bottom to the exit point, the bottom waterfall there.
00:14:31
Speaker
If there was something they could do down there, then they'd be in a position to assist. Certainly, in a flooded canyon environment, you're not going to be really doing too much advanced medical work in that environment. We were figuring that was all going to happen down the bottom. Hence, the Air Balance Officer was probably going to be most useful down there. When you say the bottom, for people who aren't familiar with Empress, that's a significant 30-meter drop, isn't it?
00:14:55
Speaker
I guess some canyons finish at the very bottom of the overall cliff line, whereas Empress sort of finishes partway through the overall cliff line, but it's, yeah, it does finish up with about a 30 meter odd drop of a waterfall going into a pool where it intersects the walking track out. So yeah, the end of the canyon essentially is a 30 meter waterfall.
00:15:14
Speaker
That means that your colleagues are a long way from wherever you are still inside the canyon. It's probably something that I've had to point out to some people before is that you can't do canyons backward generally. I've had people ask me why didn't you just start and work your way backwards like you would with a bush walk. I guess if you knew they were heading a particular direction then well that's impossible up a 30 meter waterfall because
00:15:37
Speaker
I don't even think the spiders can do that one. So the tricky part of that job was yeah, that's right. It's a one-way trip. So we sent people to the end and then we started working our way in from that one-way start point. And what did you say when you first got in at the bridge?
00:15:52
Speaker
We committed to it wondering, I guess, whether the people were already going to be out. That was the thing that was always in our mind was we just did not know any information other than they could have still been in there. When we got the Lillians Bridge, looking down over that edge there, the water level in there was just evidently way higher than I'd ever seen it. Usually, you can look down into
00:16:16
Speaker
bit above ankle-height water that's reasonably wide, you know, good handful of meters wide down there. So, and a nice, I think it's sort of like a sandy sort of base. It's quite easy going in that little section.
00:16:28
Speaker
And, uh, but looking down there this time around, it was not that at all. It was not clear water. It was, it was deep. It was fast. And you could hear the thundering water that you normally probably couldn't even really hear at that point. You could hear it roaring from further down in the canyon. So we knew it was going to be a wild ride. That's for sure.
00:16:47
Speaker
And yeah, so committing from that point, I think we did go in off an 11 mil fixed rope at that point, just in case we had to get straight back out of there as a bit of a backup plan to get ourselves out.
Critical Decision-Making in Rescues
00:16:59
Speaker
But, you know, the hard part was not knowing any information, all we could really keep doing at that time was just keep going forward. And radio communications and things like that are problematic in those environments. There was a big team effort overall, and there were a lot of people arriving that we wouldn't have had any idea about.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, going forward, I remember having done that canyon. I don't know how many times I would have done it. I might have done it 20, 30 times overall in the years that I was up there and quite familiar with it, but it was really different on this day.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think I'd spoken to some of the more avid rock climbers and people in the community that I know are quite extreme people. I know some of them would go and test their boundaries in those type of environments in water levels that would not otherwise be advised. But I certainly hadn't done that canyon in elevated water other than maybe just slightly higher than normal, but certainly not in flood. And I would have called this definitely in flood.
00:17:58
Speaker
I'm curious as to what is going through your mind at that time when you're about to make that decision of commitment. When you're hearing the water, you know it doesn't look like it normally does. You know it has a dark colour, but you think there's a job to do. There's people who could be in here. Yeah.
00:18:18
Speaker
The problem at that point is all of that stuff's going through your head is, are there people just out of my sight that are in desperate need of help? Looking at the height of the water, that could have been, like it was really evidently could have been the case. You have no real option other than to plow forward if it's at all possible in that sort of scenario.
00:18:40
Speaker
This is where I guess you end up pushing some of the boundaries that you would always advise someone else that you wouldn't do. When you've got a potentially savable life, it always extends the parameters of how far you'll push those boundaries.
00:18:56
Speaker
And this one was really much in that basket where we had to presume that there were people just around the corner that needed help and that's why we were there. So it does certainly make you assess your situation a little differently to what you would do if you were there socially, if I would call it that sort of comparison.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, it was very much in our minds. We talked a bit on the way in and a little bit in the early part of the canyon, but what became really problematic towards the little constriction point was the noise. It actually made communicating almost impossible just between us because it was so loud. We were literally sort of yelling at each other just to communicate anything. So to have a detailed conversation about anything at that point was virtually impossible. It was just too loud.
00:19:50
Speaker
Were you moving through normally the way you approach each obstacle? We were down to that point and we were able to scramble around the edges of things and move forward fairly safely up until where the water goes through a fairly tight constriction into the final few pools. I remembered thinking there was a
00:20:12
Speaker
There was a point there where we got to and I thought once we commit to this, there's no coming backwards to our emergency exit point. Once we've committed around this corner, there is no way we can come back and that was in my mind. Certainly not knowing what was actually around the corner and was it even
00:20:31
Speaker
Passable or was it it could we even go down that way we didn't really know but the thing was that we didn't have any magic message come to us to say everyone's fine you can backtrack and get out of there so we just had to keep plowing forward thinking.
00:20:46
Speaker
this job is still on until it's off. So that's really how we had to approach it. And with a crew of two, we were a little limited with what gear we could take. And back in those days too, talking about the advancements in swift water rescue techniques that are in play these days,
00:21:05
Speaker
You know, this was very much in the infancy of those advancements. So some of the techniques and things that I learnt later, I guess, might have changed some of the approaches of how things were done on that day. But we just we weren't there yet. And and actually this job, and I know we'll get to it later on, but this job actually did initiate my involvement in some of those discussions to where things have ended up today. And it's probably it's a hard path to
00:21:35
Speaker
to have had to have trod to get that progression. You know, it's expensive training, it's dangerous training and it needs a whole bunch of new gear and techniques that aren't necessarily in the existing rescue manual. So it's one of those things that was fairly hard to grapple with as a point to go forward and better the capabilities of the unit with. It was definitely problematic.
00:22:00
Speaker
I do remember there was a log jammed down in the water that we could still access fairly safely just before the final constriction point there. The plan that we came up with wasn't much of a plan. It was about as good as we could do with what gear that we had.
00:22:17
Speaker
still going forward was literally for me to get hard tied into a blade point at that position. And that was not normal. So normally you would just go forward to this little rock cutting where you sort of straddle a bit of water flowing, you know, maybe 10, 20 centimetres deep between your legs and not much wider than the width of your shoulders. It's nice and easy little scramble down and then you jump into a nice pool.
00:22:39
Speaker
Well, the water going down there was really deep, really loud and really fast. And it certainly didn't let you tread where you'd normally trod to pass through that section. And knowing that, it was always a risk of getting washed, knocked over by the water. That was any type of slip or fall in there. You were just going to go straight into that powerful water. There's no stopping you getting washed away then.
00:22:59
Speaker
So we only had nine mill ropes, thinking that we weren't really configured for any heavy sort of rescue implementation, because it was only the two of us, so we were a bit limited with what we had. But the idea that we came up with on the day was I would tie into one end of that 60 metre line that we had to do the final waterfall for those that aren't familiar with it. So nine mill ropes usually use doubled up, so you can pull them back down from whatever top belay you've used, and so you abseil on two strands of rope.
00:23:26
Speaker
So yeah, so we literally used a single strand of 9mm onto me and the idea of that was, and as I tried to explain, we were trying to communicate this by screaming at each other's ears so we could explain it and both understand it.
00:23:43
Speaker
The idea of it was that I probably needed my hands to scramble down through the slot so I couldn't really abseil myself. So therefore it was configured that he would belay me down so I could have my hands free. But the only plan that we really had was if I slipped over and got knocked into the fast flowing water, that was just pretty much just going to wash me downstream. And we didn't really know what was around the corners at that point. And
00:24:07
Speaker
As I said to him at the time was, you know, if I get knocked over and get washed downstream and we were both very well aware of the fact that that 30 metre waterfall was only around the corner and we couldn't really predict what we were going to face when we went around that corner in the in the canyon.
00:24:24
Speaker
And if I get washed over, you're probably going to feel a really big jolt, which will be me going over the waterfall. You're going to have to belay me down as fast as you can because now I've seen that waterfall in high water not being in it. I've seen it from down the bottom and it's pumping like there's a lot of water going over that waterfall and
00:24:43
Speaker
You know, abseiling down in normal conditions is a beautiful experience, but you wouldn't want to you wouldn't want to be in there in that thundering state. But we weren't too sure whether 60 metres of rope from that position was actually going to be enough to account for that 30 metre drop plus the rope that we were using back to his belay anchor point. So we did also have the contingency of me having to cut it off.
00:25:03
Speaker
I guess the benefit of the situation we're in, we didn't have time really to think about things too much other than knowing what we were there for and having to keep going
Survival and Emotional Reflection
00:25:16
Speaker
forward. So I think if you had time to sit there and think about that as a plan, I don't know that too many people would go through with it. I don't think I would in retrospect either, but yeah.
00:25:31
Speaker
Just so we have a better understanding, what time would it normally take just to say an intermediate group of, say, six people to move through the canyon on a good day in normal flow? Yeah, to move through it. I guess you'd probably be looking at a couple of hours. It's not a long canyon.
00:25:48
Speaker
You know, you're stretching my memory now. We used to time it from car park to car park and I think it was about an hour and 45 or something like that we could knock it over in. The thing with it was, it took us a long time to move safely. A lot more consideration going into what we were doing.
00:26:07
Speaker
The other thing that pushed us quickly was the notion that there were potentially people in a lot of trouble just ahead of us. We were also concerned that the water might have still been coming up. That was the other consideration we had in there was, is this water still rising? Because we were moving pretty quickly, we really didn't have time to have a reference point and look at something and then re-look at it in 10, 20 minutes.
00:26:29
Speaker
You know, again, it wasn't much of a plan. And I do remember saying that he after that arrangement of if you feel a big jump, you're going to have to let me go because I'll be probably hanging in the waterfall was don't let it too tight on me because I knew I had a couple of jump ins coming up.
00:26:45
Speaker
And I didn't want to go jumping off something and then have this tight rope just jam me. And that could have really given me some grief as well. And so it was a really complex sort of thing that he was trying to, that we were trying to come up with for him to do team to manage out of side of me.
00:27:00
Speaker
And you had no verbal comms either. You weren't able to say, hey, let me go or... No, it was so loud. It just made everything so difficult. And I remember moving forward and I'm not too sure whether my mind's blanked a little bits and pieces of this out. But I remember going forward to a point where there's normally a little pad where you would jump off into the second last pool.
00:27:27
Speaker
but it was covered in water, but I knew it would be there somewhere. So I was able to sort of stand on this thing where you would normally jump into the pool from to give you the right angle so you wouldn't hit anything.
00:27:39
Speaker
I've done it that many times, but when I got up there, I looked down and went, oh my God. Normally, you're looking at a pool of water with a nice rock shelf to its right side. I remembered looking down there, just looking at all this white churning water and not being able to see the rock shelf where you'd normally get out on. It was just covered in water. You couldn't see what was normally down there.
00:28:01
Speaker
I'm not too sure whether it was just that muscle memory of repeating what I'd done so many times that I really didn't stop and think about the conditions of the water in the pool, the water dynamics and how aerated the water would be, the flow of the water and all that sort of stuff.
00:28:16
Speaker
I don't know whether it was just because I'd done it so many times. I didn't really see too many other options at that point and I certainly dragged down enough rope to jump down and did exactly that. Like I'd done stacks and stacks of times before, but as soon as I landed in the water, I knew it wasn't right. From that point too, that was about when I finally had a little bit of comfort in knowing that we weren't there for nothing because I'd seen the people at the abseil point on the exit.
00:28:45
Speaker
That was the first time I'd actually thought, thank God we're not in here for nothing because I could see people that were still stuck there.
00:28:52
Speaker
And I guess for me too that fueled that sense of urgency as well. So, you know, there's probably a stack of things going through my mind is what condition are they in? You know, they need help. You could see how high the water was. I could see them sort of trying to stay up out of that main water flow that was just pumping over the edge of the waterfall. It's normally quite subtle really and committed to it. And as I said, I couldn't see or communicate with Fitzy at that point in time. So all I could really do is
00:29:18
Speaker
drag through enough rope from his belay just nice and gently so he knew I was progressing forward and jumped into the water. When I jumped in, I just knew it wasn't right. A, I wasn't floating very well and I now know that's because the water was all sort of aerated.
00:29:37
Speaker
But the other thing that it was doing is it was really vortexed. It was going around in circles with me and just started to swim to the side like I'd done stacks and stacks of times to pull myself up on the little rock shelf to then go into the next pool. But as I said, you couldn't really see the rock shelf because it was all underwater, but I knew it was there because I've been in there so many times.
00:30:02
Speaker
As I tried to flap my way across to the side, it was just dragging me back in again. So I was going around in circles and it was hard going. And I was trying pretty hard. And I undoubtedly would have been pretty pumped up, I guess, after what the environment were in. Getting a bit of fatigue going on anyway, I think.
00:30:31
Speaker
You know, I gave it my best and it wasn't good enough. And as I made the edge, it would drag me back in and spin me around in the whirlpool again. And as that kept going on, there's a few different things that were happening. The first thing was the amount of rope that was coming down just kept coming because that's what I'd told Fitzy to do. I'd told him to keep paying out rope so I could keep moving forward.
00:30:55
Speaker
So without knowing where I was, because he couldn't see me, he was just doing exactly what he was told to do was just keep paying out rope. But that rope was then coming into the pool with me. Like I remember feeling it around me thinking that's the last thing I need is to get tangled up in rope.
00:31:10
Speaker
which I was hard tied into and as I was trying to get around the pool and then as it was getting deeper and deeper I remember the feeling of it pushing me underwater a little bit on the opposite side because of the rocks that are a bit overcut and that was making it challenging as well and going around and around and the sad part about it is I do remember bumping into things with my legs in the water and
00:31:38
Speaker
I've since come to know that was actually the body of the person that died in there was actually in the water underneath me and I was bumping into him. I didn't know that at the time obviously, but I could definitely feel something moving in there that I was bumping into and that's what it would have been.
00:31:56
Speaker
Yes, I made a few more desperate efforts to get myself onto the rock ledge to get myself out of that water and every time I got over there, I latched my hands into the rock and it just dragged me back in. I just couldn't hold onto it. I got to that point where I went, right, I'm in trouble because I was starting to really, I was having trouble.
00:32:20
Speaker
swimming literally. I knew I was getting out of breath and I think I came to the conclusion of I got to ditch this bag and yeah look the long and the short of it was I knew I was in desperate trouble and I was trying to latch myself onto the rocks and get out and I just couldn't and I tried after I got rid of my backpack.
00:32:43
Speaker
Just one last almighty effort to get to the side and get myself out. I remembered feeling got to the edge of the water and got my hands and elbows up on there and just thought I've got to hold myself here for a little while so I can just catch my breath. I've no doubt I would have been wondering how many more laps of that pool I had in me.
00:33:04
Speaker
I remember I was worried. There's no question about it. I knew I was in trouble. Having got back to that rock shelf and just got a little bit of purchase on it that I was able to hold myself for a little bit and
00:33:21
Speaker
You know I have no idea how long I was there for in that position but the next thing you know I remembered Fitzy's feet and I still don't know how he got down there the way he did and I don't even know that he does but you know I'd gone from
00:33:37
Speaker
literally shitting myself thinking, I don't know whether I'm going to get out of this thing to, you know, seeing the shoes of my mate, which couldn't have been a more welcome sight, to be honest with you. And, you know, Fitz is a pretty strong bugger, so he's just reached down and reefed me out of there and, yeah, wow. And I found out later on that's literally what
00:34:01
Speaker
what happened to the gentleman that died in there he was in the group he'd let everyone else go first because of the limited space the normal water height they would have been able to accommodate them all at the exit abseil points uh quite comfortably but you know the height of the water just didn't leave much rock perch there at all they lost a lot of gear i found out later on
00:34:22
Speaker
A lot of their gear got washed off. I think they had one harness left and some rope. So they had got a couple of members of their group that weren't injured down and they were tying the harness on the rope and they were pulling it back up. Wow. While still knowing that their friend... They would have been in there for, you know, could have been two hours. I don't know. It would have been a long time.
00:34:44
Speaker
It really shows how quickly that flip happens and how dynamic the environment and the actual work that you did in Rescue, how everything changes in a second, everything changes in a heartbeat. At one moment, you're focused on the people at the end and the fact that even from the beginning, they might just be around the corner.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's the whole job was like that. Yeah, to then suddenly all you can think about is keeping your nails on the rock platform to stop going back around again. Yeah, exactly. Is there any words you can put on what you were thinking at that time?
00:35:28
Speaker
I'd never ever felt as desperate ever in my entire career as that point in time. Like I really do remember thinking, I don't know that I'm getting out of this. And it's probably lucky I didn't know that that was a person that had drowned that I was bumping into under my legs. Cause it probably, I wonder whether or not it would have made me think, Oh, you don't get out of this one. And that could have, you know, made me give up earlier. Maybe I don't know.
00:35:59
Speaker
you start to become comfortable with that position of I am the only chance these people have in some of these jobs that you go to because literally there's no one else to call. You're who they call when things go wrong. It's not like you've got a number to call when something goes wrong for you. It's sort of it's a funny position to be in when you're that last call. Thinking back about it, it was probably good to know that we had
00:36:21
Speaker
actually made the right call do we all go down to the bottom waterfall to find out what's going on and then come back and go into the canyon if we need to or is that time going to cost a life or more it's actually not all for nothing and we're not in this shitty dangerous environment for no reason we're here because people actually need us to be here and that was i guess a good feeling
00:36:43
Speaker
But yeah, it is one of those things where you go from thinking you're there to help someone to think and shit, I don't know whether I'm getting out of this. And that all would have happened in the space of 20 seconds probably.
00:36:57
Speaker
So Fitzy's boots and his big fists come down and drag you up out of that pool. You're now draped on the edge, dripping, catching your breath. I do remember saying to him, I thought I was fucked. I actually thought I was
00:37:15
Speaker
toast. But from that point, you know, we're still in a canyon. We're still wondering whether the water's coming up and the job's still going on. So, you know, I wasn't injured. I was exhausted. But that's when you've just got to crack on with the task at hand, I guess. And that's sort of what we did. Pretty sure, yeah, I went over first and just confirmed what was going on. The lady that was there was injured. She was in a lot of pain. And the guy that was there
00:37:43
Speaker
he basically then told me, my brother's in the pool. I think that's literally what I used to do. Just there, like where I was. And he's like, yeah, just like that. And that's when I straight away have gone, oh my God, like there's someone missing right at our feet, literally in the water. That's when we sort of had to think about what's the circumstances of this other element that we're now aware of. And
00:38:10
Speaker
I had to have that hard discussion with him about how long ago it was that he last seen him. I can't remember the figure that he said, but it was not a survivable timeframe. I had to literally say to him, there's no way he can be alive, which was probably a pretty hard thing to hear from a police rescue guy that's just lobbed up and might have been the only hope.
00:38:31
Speaker
And I remember thinking a few times there, I didn't know whether there was going to be like a flash flood type water movement come down there at any point. Like I'm just thinking, you know, is that a possibility? How much rain have they actually had in this catchment? What's the water doing? There's all those things running through your mind. How urgent is it to get out of here?
00:38:46
Speaker
It's tricky when you just come into terms with the fact that you think you nearly drowned yourself and, you know, you're trying to have those discussions with people in there. And as you've sort of pointed out, you know, like I've, I've gone from thinking, oh yeah, I'm here now. I'm going to be able to help these people to, you know, I think I'm just about to drown to then back into, no, we're here now to do this rescue mode. So it's sort of, it's a pretty big flip change in a very short space of time.
00:39:12
Speaker
It seems to also give a bit of a nod to that compartmentalizing or just, okay, I've got to flick in, I've got to flick out, I've got to flick on, I've got to flick off. I'm just going to not think about that for now because I've got another thing to do right now. If it was anybody else in any other sphere or environment,
00:39:32
Speaker
You go, I need to stop. I just need to gather myself for a bit here. That's right. There's not too many jobs that you can nearly die at a day at work and then just have to crack on and keep going, is there? I guess. So how did you crack on then? What happened next?
00:39:48
Speaker
The gentleman, we got him down, top laid him down and the lady that was there, so I put her injured shoulder on the outside and just put a lanyard to both of us and abseiled us both down together and then Fitzy came down.
00:40:03
Speaker
That was sort of how that wrapped up I guess and down to the ambos and there were obviously stacks of people there by then because a fair bit of time had transpired from when Fitzy and I had made that commitment initially to going into then all of those resources that had turned up in the meantime. And they were probably wondering for this whole period of time they'd lost contact with you as well. They didn't know what was going on inside either.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think I've had this discussion with my old rescue coordinator at one point about because he was on that job. Yeah, I did actually wonder that and above him too, you know, the bosses that were involved. I'm sure over the years I gave them all a scare or two from some of the stuff that I'd got involved in and been uncontactable for a period of time for, but no more worthy than that one, I don't think.
Recovery and Mental Health
00:40:54
Speaker
The Saudis, the Ambos, they take care of the party. You guys start packing your gear back up and you start that slow climb up the stairs to get back up to the conservation hub. Yeah, slow, cold, wet, heavy climb. What time of year was this, by the way?
00:41:13
Speaker
It was a couple of days before Australia Day, so it was in peak summer. But obviously, we'd had that rain come over and stuff. So who knows, in the Blue Mountains, it could have been five degrees. But I actually don't remember, to be honest with you. Yeah, I don't remember. Well, let's touch on that. You said, you know, a few times it's a bit hazy or it's a bit foggy there.
00:41:33
Speaker
It seems that that's got a connection with PTSD, with post-traumatic stress, with the ways that people who've done jobs like yours respond. Are you able to talk a bit more about that and what your experience of it is?
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, I've learned a lot more about it in the last couple of years since I've started all of the treatments and stuff that I'm doing at the moment about that effect that it has on the brain and sometimes that chronic cortisol and adrenaline issues actually physically affect your brain. It's not just this fuzzy psychology type thing. It's actually a chemistry change in your head.
00:42:13
Speaker
One of the things that I've definitely noticed, and I've certainly noticed it with other people that are in similar situations to myself, that concentration and memory are shot to shreds. I was doing a Masters at Uni, a small handful of years ago, and towards the end of it, it was really tricky because I had such a short attention span and couldn't remember anything.
00:42:35
Speaker
So it made studying at that level really hard and I'm starting to think, you know, I mustn't be, I mustn't be as smart as I thought I was. I'm not up for this. But, you know, it definitely takes a toll on your memory and cognitive function generally, actually. It's a bugger of a thing to how the impacts that it can have and how it can affect your life. Just like a flooded canyon isn't to be underestimated, it's definitely linked to it.
00:42:59
Speaker
And the majority of people that I've, you know, I'm in circles with these days are suffering some element of that either memory loss or concentration or both. It's sad actually, because it's not only traumatic things that you black out, if that's even a term for it or, or delete, it's, it's unfortunately, it's, it's often big swathes of time. And, you know, there's a lot of good times wrapped up in your life too. And a lot of that stuff's pretty foggy too, unfortunately.
00:43:34
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.
00:43:53
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 lots of fresh air dot com. That's rescued with a D.
00:44:12
Speaker
Matt, amazing story and it doesn't end there because I'm interested to how the days, the weeks after that event, did you start to slow down enough? Did you allow yourself to actually start reflecting on that day?
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah, not really. You know, that job wasn't over that day because there was still a body unaccounted for in the canyon and I knew full well that we were going to be back there tomorrow. So for me, it's pack up, set up and reconfigure for tomorrow. And again, just talking about memory, I have zero memory of this, but apparently when I got home, I walked in the door and literally collapsed on the floor and babbled out some crying blubber about Nellie dying and then sort of fell asleep on the carpet.
00:44:55
Speaker
for a little while. I must have been absolutely cooked. For me, that was literally get home, dry as much stuff as I could, get ready for tomorrow. It was another early start. As I said to you, it's a huge group of people involved at this point in time. Myself and a different rescue operator the next day and the divers and we went back in. The water level was almost the same. I don't think it had come down at all. I could tell the water was still just hammering down through that rock slot.
00:45:24
Speaker
it wasn't going to be safely passable and here's I guess the difference in the job is when the savable lives at risk then you push the boundaries when it's a deceased person you're going into recover you don't take those risks we got to that point and I just said no it's not worth the the risk of us going down through that water again like we had the day before so we actually bailed out yeah we called it a day
00:45:49
Speaker
My first reaction to hearing that you went back the next day, I'm kind of gobsmacked because I'm like, you know, if I'd come to a possibility of end of life moment in a work situation, surely there was someone else that could have called and given you the day off or something like that. But maybe the fact that you were there meant that you were able to then analyze the water the next day and make that call for safety to say, actually, it's the same as yesterday. It's not worth it.
00:46:16
Speaker
Yeah, having that knowledge of the actual conditions in there from the day that we were in there probably was important and
00:46:23
Speaker
And by that time in the unit, I was probably one of the people that was most experienced Canyoner. So that's probably another reason why I was kept on that job. And not to mention, I would have liked to have seen it out too. It would have been a lot about me actually wanting to be there as well. You know, if I hadn't been told that I wasn't allowed to go back in, obviously you have to accept that, but I would have wanted to see that job out there. And unfortunately, rescue work is a bit like this. It drags people in and you don't like letting go of stuff.
00:46:49
Speaker
Did you ever find time to actually start pulling apart what had happened internally inside the canyon for you? I went back in the next day again with another operator, a different rescue operator, and we saw that job through. That was a three-day long job. Along with that goes a lot of paperwork and a lot of reports. There's a fair bit of decompression that you have to do in the sense that you've actually got to write a lot of stuff up. People ask you a lot of questions about it.
00:47:17
Speaker
I don't know that it's one of those things that, well, that I really stopped and thought about that moment or what the consequences of that could have been. I don't know that I really stopped long enough to think about it in any great detail. I didn't really ever until recently stop and think about what that actually meant. How many years passed between the Empress job and do some, I think you call it doing some work on it?
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah well that's you know that's nearly 15 plus years later and there's a whole bucket load of jobs before and after that and I guess you know not not at that level but in some ways not that different. It's a bit weird I guess when that's your line of work and that's the sort of stuff you do you normalize things that are not normal and
00:48:08
Speaker
That's what I think people in those lines of work do for, you know, it really is for their own sake that they have to do that and you have to do to to keep going. But but yeah, you're right. It's it's later now that I can see the effect that it's all had on me that I've stopped and looked back and gone, wow, that wasn't a normal day at work or that job that I was doing wasn't a normal job. That really was something different.
00:48:38
Speaker
I probably wished I had that moment a long time ago because I think I probably would have managed myself very differently in acknowledging how wild that job was or the jobs that I was going to, how abnormal those things were.
00:48:53
Speaker
could have had an effect on me and I probably wish that I'd come to that realization a lot younger but it's tricky because you know you join the I joined the police force when I was 20 years old and you're in that impressionable young age and it molds you into a particular way of thinking and
00:49:14
Speaker
You know, a lot of your formative years in that type of work have spent, you know, a lot of your formative years are spending that line of work. So it's quite normal to you. Can you remember the next time you went into Empress after the job?
00:49:29
Speaker
I've only been back in there once since and I think that's intentional. I certainly stopped doing it socially and I think I took a group on a training day through there once to show them what had happened. I don't know that I ever went back in there again.
00:49:46
Speaker
I think it's actually in my little things that I want to conquer in the future. I think I probably would like to see myself go through that thing again and prove to myself that I can still do it, but I don't know whether I need to either.
00:50:01
Speaker
It certainly took the shine off it and, you know, even just as a little thing that I had problems with many years later was the sound of helmet grinding on rock. And that little sound, you know, when your helmets touch the cliff or whatever and you get that little grinding noise on your helmet, that was, you know, I didn't know what was going on at the time but it was triggering something there that was starting to rattle me.
Lessons from Adventure
00:50:26
Speaker
They, you don't really know what's going on at the time, but they, that's one example of one thing. And then a few of those things start to happen and build up. And next thing you know, you've got a whole bunch of these little things that are subconsciously reminding you of stuff that you'd rather forget. Yeah. And sometimes it's through senses that you might be a bit oblivious to at the time. You know, if you're five senses, it could be a smell or a sound or a sensation or something like that.
00:50:53
Speaker
The thing that stands out to me, or there's lots that stands out to me about this, is how quickly things change in the bush, and how all of our adventures and our experiences, even if we're just going for a bush walk, we've done a million times before, through a canyon we've done 50 times before, or whatever it is.
00:51:12
Speaker
There's always that element of the unknown and the element of contingencies and consequence. How can we always be prepared for the thing we don't expect? That's what adventure is, the definition. It's like any activity with an unknown outcome. It'd be boring without that, right? Life would be pretty boring without adventure. Exactly. It does make me reflect on how can we be better adventurers? How can we be better
00:51:42
Speaker
outdoors people. And even in places that you're very familiar with. And I got to the point where I'd done the same thing 30 times over and probably stopped thinking laterally about the activity or the problem at hand or what I was trying to conquer. It was just programmed into me. I've done this stacks of times before. This is what I do.
00:52:04
Speaker
Whereas if you took somebody green there, they'd probably look at it from one step back and go, OK, well, that's some that's one way of doing it. But what about this or this or this? And I think sometimes when you're under the pressure that you can stop thinking that way. It takes a bit of effort, I think, to to make sure that you stop and think about it rather than just doing what your program to do or what you'd seen other people do or whatever.
00:52:30
Speaker
there is a, there's always that potential of one slippery rock or a one wrong turn or one flat battery or one something of something that you were relying on, not, not working out for you. And you're in a, you're in a whole new world. It's a different day for you when that, that stuff happens.
00:52:49
Speaker
Matt, thank you so much for taking us into Empress and for letting us understand or try to understand some of what was going on that day for you and for Fitzy and for those people. Thank you for just your humility and your ability and willingness to talk about it. A lot of people wouldn't be willing to do that.
00:53:13
Speaker
Yeah, it sort of helps me too. I think sometimes it's good to get some of these things off your chest that you've held way too tight for too long and sometimes it's actually good to talk about it, particularly if someone can take something away from it and there's little hidden things in lots of these stories that I wouldn't even be aware of that someone will pick something up from or
00:53:32
Speaker
Even if they're critical about something that's happened, at least that way they're thinking about the situation or what could be done differently or what could be done better. As we always say, if this helps one person somewhere down the track, it's all worth it. It certainly is. Before I wrap it up, is there anything else you wanted to add or anything? Make sure you check the weather.
00:53:55
Speaker
Well, that's the thing. You know, one thing changes. You know, the rain came quickly and it changed the conditions. And for you, the change happened when you went from, oh, yeah, they're just around the corner to, well, hang on. Suddenly, I'm having to change everything about everything I believe right at this.
00:54:15
Speaker
Split second. Yeah, right at that moment. There's always that little element of the unknowns and sometimes you can err on the side of it, a workout fine, or sometimes you can err on the side of caution and take a different approach to whatever it is that you're going to do. I don't like people thinking that you've got to over analyze things to the point where you just can't do anything. That's going to take the fun out of everything and the adventure out of things.
00:54:40
Speaker
What I hope people don't take away from the messaging is that it's not about stopping you enjoying yourself and having fun. It's just make sure you really think about it, prepare for it, enjoy it. Go out, give it a nudge. Give it a nudge. Get into it. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, just make sure you do your homework.
00:54:56
Speaker
Well Matt, where can people hear your voice more? Where can they learn more about the things that you're doing these days? They're probably sick of it after all of this, but I've got a podcast focused on emergency services mental health, which is called the Heart to Heart Walk Podcast.
00:55:12
Speaker
There's certainly tales of the emergency services and it's associated with a big walk that we're doing in the not too distant future actually. The Heart to Heart Walk 2023 is going to kick off on the 1st of July from Lambert Center of Australia out near Fink and going all the way into Canberra.
Conclusion and Resources
00:55:29
Speaker
I'm contactable on Instagram and there's a LinkedIn contact there as well.
00:55:33
Speaker
And again, I recommend everyone, if you haven't listened to episode one of this podcast, which is the first one with, with Matt here, um, he goes into a lot of detail about, about what the heart to heart walk project is. Yeah. And his podcast is an absolute cracker. So go to your podcast app of choice and look up the heart to heart walk podcast. And again, Matt, you Brian, you're an absolute gentleman. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
00:56:02
Speaker
The rescued podcast is produced on the unceded land of the Gundangara and Darug people of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. I pay my respects to elders past and present and acknowledge their enduring connection to and care for country. Special thanks to our sponsors, Patti Powen, and to Jen Brown for production support. This has been a Lots of Fresh Air production.