00:02I saw the people hanging off the motor car first and then I was spun around straight
00:07away to land on the road, saw one car up the hill and it wasn't until I was just about
00:11to land, there was a bit of a dip in the road there, I saw all the police already there.
00:16So yeah, I made a plan with the emergency services police that were there and yeah,
00:22Senior Constable Ben was incredible.
00:24So you've then picked up Senior Constable Ben and the two of you have headed out to
00:29a vehicle and the occupants of the vehicle?
00:31They were standing on the side rail, the guide rail on the road which the car had been jammed
00:36up against and hanging onto the roof rack of the Prado.
00:38So there was two of them there and when we got out to the car I just flew out and
00:44hovered
00:44over the motor car and Ben reached out and helped the first lady in and she wasn't the
00:52most mobile but she did pretty well and then we dropped her off and went back for the second
00:56fellow who was really quite mobile and then it wasn't until we landed that other policemen
01:02came up and said hey we've got a little problem, there's still a dog in the car.
01:05So yeah, had to go back and get the dog of course, couldn't leave him behind.
01:09When we went back to get the dog I said well we worked out a plan and I'd drop him
01:14on the
01:14roof and then I'd just get well out of the road.
01:17I didn't want to scare the dog with the noise of the chopper which the dog's obviously
01:20already terrified in the car with the flood waters around and he had to smash the window in
01:24with one of the battens. So I just went off a couple hundred metres downstream and watched
01:29from up high and he had the dog coming out the front window and then at one stage it looked
01:35like it was going to disappear downstream and then it disappeared back into the car and
01:39into the back seats and then Ben managed to break into the back window and got the dog
01:45on the roof which he did a heck of a job. It's not a small dog a German Shepherd to
01:50wrestle
01:50it like that and then when he had it on top of the car I had to come in and
01:53land next to
01:54him and he was basically laying on top of the dog whilst holding it and not letting it
01:58go. It took a little bit for him to get it into the chopper but once the dog figured out
02:03what was going on he just launched in there and then we were right. It was easy.
02:07I think you can see on the vision the moment the dog realises.
02:10Yeah, yeah. He's like this is a good idea. We can do this.
02:14As you say, it's not a small animal. No.
02:17I'm really curious, once the dog launched into the helicopter, what was he like inside?
02:23He just sat there. Yeah, I didn't know he was there again. He sat in the back quite happily.
02:26I didn't turn around to look at him but yeah, he was right.
02:29Did you get much of a chance to speak with the human occupants of the car?
02:34Not at all. Drop them off and then there's been, as you know, so much rain around lately
02:39but I still had to go across the creek and pick up the other two and drop them into town.
02:43And I wanted to get back to town before the rain hit.
02:45So as soon as I dropped them off, they were in perfectly good hands.
02:48So I jumped in the chopper and headed off and grabbed the other two guys and came back to town.
02:53How much time have you spent in the air since Friday?
02:58A little bit. We're spreading it out now.
03:02It was busiest the first couple of days because most of our choppers were up at the Data River.
03:06And then those guys have come back now so we're spreading the workload around a fair bit.
03:10But it has been pretty crazy up there.
03:12There's every chopper in Kath and every company's been doing an incredible job.
03:16This chopper's going absolutely everywhere.
03:17And then in amongst that, Tyndall's not far away.
03:20So there have been aeroplanes coming and going that have been working well around us
03:23and the guys in the tower have been doing an incredible job as well of keeping everyone separated.
03:27If we have a whole channel, see what we're doing.
03:28If we go ahead, we'll really get the metal.
03:29If we go ahead and mention that in the background, we'll watch the huge chopper and take it so far.
03:30We're going to leave.
03:30Let's go ahead.
03:30We're going to start off.
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