00:00The wilderness is such an amazing place for people to enjoy, to families to enjoy.
00:07It's an amazing place for children to learn some really valuable life experiences.
00:11But at the same place, it does have its dangers and people need to be very cognisive of those,
00:17appreciate the environment but also appreciate the dangers that are inherent in it.
00:21Look, first and foremost, I'm an emergency specialist.
00:25But I've been really fortunate in my career that I've been able to take that sideways number of directions.
00:30And for the last almost 10 years, I've been working with Amulets Tasmania as a retrieval specialist.
00:39I'm passionate about disaster medicine, I'm passionate about military medicine, wilderness medicine.
00:46And of course, you never know what's going to happen on the day.
00:48You never know when you turn up to work whether it's going to be a day of checking equipment
00:52or whether it's going to be a day where something unexpected happens.
00:57That day on the Franklin River was certainly, I think, one of the most challenging, most complicated,
01:03I think most rewarding days of my career.
01:06I was actually packing with my family to go kayaking and got a call from my boss saying,
01:12you know, there was this awful situation of a Lithuanian rafter who was trapped in the Franklin River.
01:18His knee was trapped between two massive boulders and the team had been there all night trying to extricate his leg with a variety of mechanical devices.
01:29And we had to plan to try and amputate his leg because at this stage that was the only option left.
01:35And given the length of time he was in the river, it seemed very likely that he was going to be extremely hypothermic
01:40and there was a grave risk of him being a cardiac arrest after we got him out.
01:45And of course, to our horror, as soon as we did get found as free, kind of as expected, his heart rapidly slowed and then stopped.
01:53It seemed so unlikely that he was going to survive.
01:55But we also knew that he was profoundly hypothermic and bizarrely that's protective.
02:00We started CPR and we started the infusions and ventilation that is required to keep somebody alive.
02:05Because the next challenge was trying to get him from that rock in the middle of nowhere back to the hospital.
02:10But it all actually went pretty smoothly.
02:12I think due in part to all the preparation that had gone into planning for that.
02:16It's a team event.
02:17It's only possible through the incredible work of a very large number of people,
02:23sort of pilots and engineers and crew and paramedics, police, doctors.
02:28Everyone works together.
02:29They put their own ego to one side.
02:31They put the patient's needs first.
02:33And when you have all of those aspects, then some pretty incredible things can be achieved.
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