00:00 Okay, so it's been absolutely overwhelming.
00:05 The amount of messages is just, I can't explain.
00:12 The amount of offers of support, I can't,
00:14 it's too hard to comprehend.
00:17 People I haven't spoken to for so long
00:19 have come back into my life.
00:21 It's amazing, it's just amazing.
00:26 And I've had a couple of bad things happen to me
00:30 over the last dozen years or so,
00:33 and it gave me PTSD and gave me anxiety.
00:36 And that included a king hit,
00:40 where I was unconscious for two and a half minutes
00:42 and went to hospital three days later,
00:44 'cause I wouldn't go.
00:45 And the doctor said I had a seven and an eight mil blood clot
00:48 and the only reason I'm alive
00:49 is 'cause I've got the thickest skull he's ever seen.
00:52 My mom always said you were thick, Ed.
00:53 And then a couple of years after that,
00:56 I got held up at the G-spot
00:58 with two shotguns and two knives.
00:59 And then I lost my mom and her loving partner, Tony,
01:06 in 2018, or we lost, sorry.
01:08 And then this happened.
01:11 And this has changed me.
01:15 I shouldn't be on solid ground, I should be in it.
01:24 There's no reason or rhyme how I survived that.
01:26 It was felt 400 plus meters away, birdland, by people.
01:31 It was heard 600 meters away from people
01:34 up at Catalina, up above Hanging Rock.
01:37 Two people have come forth and said that.
01:39 And here I am.
01:42 And here I am.
01:43 I've got 48 hours and 35 minutes after it happened,
01:49 I'm released from hospital.
01:52 I've got, yeah, I've got to keep this out of the sun
01:55 for 12 months.
01:56 I've got to keep my brim hat on for 12 months.
01:59 You know, and that's all it leads to, and who cares?
02:01 I mean, I just, it's,
02:03 every day is just a bonus.
02:06 And I can't believe, I can't believe I'm here.
02:11 There's no, yeah, I just can't believe it.
02:14 I honestly can't believe it.
02:15 So for the first, I never opened the front flap,
02:20 and I opened it afoot when I got there at 10,
02:22 quarter past 10.
02:23 I never open it until I'm ready to serve the first person.
02:28 And that day I did, and I've never done it before.
02:31 If I didn't do that, like I said yesterday,
02:35 I'm a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle,
02:37 and the trucks and the food truck is shattered.
02:41 There's it everywhere.
02:42 There was a dozen people out the front.
02:44 And people, when they're waiting for me,
02:47 they're normally right out the front, in front of the flap.
02:49 But everyone was standing to the side.
02:51 And why, why were they, you know, why were they?
02:55 A saucepan got flung 10 to 15 metres out the front.
02:59 For that to happen, that the force must've,
03:01 the flap was only a foot.
03:02 It must've opened it up for that to get out.
03:04 There was a heap of other stuff on the ground as well.
03:06 But that in particular, something I was told,
03:08 I heard the bang, I was standing there.
03:16 I heard the bang, and in no time at all,
03:18 there's a second, I looked to the right,
03:21 'cause it was from the right, and I heard this bang.
03:25 I didn't think of gas, explosion, anything.
03:27 I just went, "That's, I'm gonna be deaf after that.
03:30 "I'm gonna be deaf."
03:32 That was the loudest thing I've ever heard.
03:33 And then as I looked up to the right,
03:35 just all in that time, I see flames go up.
03:38 And then flames must've gone up to the roof,
03:40 come down the front, and that's how I got singed.
03:42 That's how I got burnt face, and I'm guessing.
03:45 I'm not sure.
03:48 And then I got out of the van.
03:50 I went back in it half a dozen times.
03:51 I don't know why.
03:52 People were saying, "Get out, get out, Andrew."
03:53 And I was just going in to get something out,
03:55 get this out.
03:56 I don't know.
03:58 I didn't feel pain for minutes, didn't feel a thing.
04:01 And then eventually people sat me down,
04:04 and I don't know how many people were just pouring water
04:07 on me, I must've had 200 plus litres of water
04:11 poured onto me, I don't know.
04:12 They ran out of water at one stage,
04:13 and they were still trying to pour it on me.
04:15 I said, "I know where there's some."
04:16 And I just got up off the milk crate,
04:17 and they were trying to hold me down,
04:18 'cause I had two 12-packs in my truck.
04:20 I went back into the truck, got them out,
04:22 put them down so they could pour it on me,
04:24 like it was on fire.
04:25 Just not knowing.
04:27 It's certainly no hero shit.
04:29 It's just, "What am I doing?"
04:32 And then once I sat down, once I got on the gurney,
04:36 they got on the gurney for the ambulance,
04:38 I was just saying, "What am I doing?
04:40 "What's going on?
04:41 "Why am I here?
04:42 "How did I survive that?"
04:43 I can't believe I've survived that.
04:46 I'm in shock, but it's not PTSD shock or whatever.
04:50 It's not a bad shock.
04:51 It's a shock of, "Why am I here?"
04:52 I haven't stopped smiling since it happened.
04:56 I have not stopped being happy since it happened.
05:00 I don't know, I can't explain it.
05:05 I wish I could.
05:06 In fact, no, I probably don't.
05:08 I probably like having that thought
05:10 for the rest of my life of why.
05:12 A lot of people have said,
05:13 "You know, your mum and Tony were looking out for you."
05:16 And I said, "Yeah, yeah."
05:17 And then I said, "No, no, no, we'll turn this around."
05:19 No, it's not.
05:20 Mum was being selfish.
05:21 She knows that if I go up to her now,
05:22 I'm with her an eternity,
05:23 she's going, "I'm not ready for that.
05:24 "You can stay down there for another 10 or 20 years."
05:27 So that's why I think, if Mum helped,
05:29 that's what she was doing for me,
05:32 just to give her a break from me for another bit of period.
05:35 I've got insurance.
05:36 I don't know what it covers.
05:37 I don't care.
05:38 I'm not looking at it this week.
05:38 It's irrelevant.
05:39 It's just irrelevant.
05:40 I'm here.
05:43 I'll look at that next week.
05:44 If I don't, I'll look at the week after.
05:46 It's irrelevant.
05:46 If that was my first dilemma,
05:52 maybe I'd be in a different headspace.
05:55 But it wasn't.
05:56 I just kept getting knocked to the canvas
06:00 and something lifts me back up.
06:02 It's ridiculous.
06:03 I...
06:04 - Okay.
06:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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