Rescuers release never-before-seen footage from 2022 Eugowra floods

Australian Community Media

Aeromedical group LifeFlight have released never-before-seen footage of the Eugowra floods to mark a year since the natural disaster ravaged the regional NSW town and surrounding areas.

Transcript

00:00 [ENGINE REVVING]

00:03 We just saw the town of Yirgara.

00:11 It was just absolutely devastated.

00:14 There was a great torrent of water

00:16 coming right through the town.

00:18 And every roof had somebody on it waiting to be rescued.

00:23 Being able to use our animal rescue capsule

00:27 to start rescuing people and their pets,

00:30 I think that's a phenomenal outcome for those people.

00:33 And I really think we saved a lot of lives,

00:35 including pets' lives that day.

00:37 We had no expectations of what we were going to do that day.

00:41 And there was so many people on roofs.

00:44 It was really intense.

00:46 And we just got about our business of saving people.

00:50 Most of it was rushing water.

00:54 It was brown.

00:55 It was full of mud.

00:56 There was so much debris, like water tanks, vehicles,

01:01 hay bales, animals just floating downstream,

01:05 that it was quite a hazardous situation, really.

01:08 What we saw with the Smiths is that they

01:11 were in their backyard in waist-deep water

01:14 with their two dogs.

01:16 We first rescued Leslie and one of the dogs

01:20 in the rescue basket.

01:22 And we decided to send me down to rescue Brian and Buddy.

01:28 And when I got down to Brian, the water

01:31 was up to his neck by now.

01:32 So the water was rising so fast that I

01:36 have got the dog Buddy into the animal rescue capsule

01:41 and used a strop to rescue Brian back up into the helicopter.

01:45 Kim's house was right in the middle of the river.

01:49 And it was a flowing torrent of water.

01:52 And we were under the impression that it

01:54 wouldn't be long before her house would be floating away.

01:57 So we felt it quite necessary to rescue her fairly urgently.

02:02 When we were near Kim's house, we

02:04 saw her come out onto her balcony and wave her arms.

02:07 And from above, we could see down at her house.

02:12 And she was literally in the middle of the torrent of water

02:15 of the river.

02:16 So we deemed it urgent that we need to rescue her,

02:19 because we could see no way for her to be

02:22 rescued in any other way.

02:24 It was a great torrent of water.

02:26 It was so fast flowing that I'm thankful for our training

02:30 that when I got into the water and came off the winch hook,

02:36 that I was able to go up the side of the house

02:38 and into her house to rescue her.

02:40 We have done training in the past

02:43 to calm people down and reassure people.

02:47 But I think it's just the presence of somebody

02:49 rescuing her and saying, hey, I'm Aaron.

02:52 I'm here to rescue you.

02:53 I think that's just got a calming nature,

02:55 because she could probably see no way out of her situation.

02:59 And we were lucky enough to be there

03:02 and be able to do what we do.

03:05 It was a phenomenal day.

03:06 And being able to rescue so many people and their pets

03:09 is just, for me, one of the best days in aviation

03:13 that I think I've ever had.

03:14 And rescuing so many people in such a short amount of time,

03:19 it was just a privilege.

03:20 And I think we really helped save a lot of lives that day.

03:26 [MUSIC PLAYING]

03:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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