Emergency Anecdote

This is a true story… from an Outback Australian town in which I was working as a paramedic.

I was called to a car that had rolled over (and down a ravine).

When we arrived, all we could see was the car half down the steep ravine and stopped with the front end of the car stuck on a rock and the body of the car almost at a 90 degree angle up the slope. We donned rescue harnesses and set up our ropes, so that we could make our way down to the car.

We called out to the occupants, but no one responded.

As I descended down the steep slope (attached to ropes) – I made certain that I didn’t become entangled or in any way attached to the car, which had the potential to fall at any moment. As I came around to the drivers side door, I found it had been opened and there were distinctive blood hand prints on the side of the door and body of the car as the driver had tried to climb up the hill.

I explored the rest of the car and found no occupants.

We organised police assistance and after securing the car, I made my way down to the bottom of the ravine to see if I could find our patient. No sign of him…

The search continued…

About two hours later (well after concluding that the patient had disappeared) – a car stopped on the side of the road and an older man climbed out…

“Is there a yellow car down there?” – the man asks…

“Yep…” I replied… “You haven’t seen the driver by chance?”

“Yeah, there’s a man down a the pub…” the man shakes his head and then continues to say “Says he hitch hiked his way to the pub after having some bad accident, where he nearly drove all the way off a cliff… says he was really lucky, and had to climb up the car to somehow get out… if you want to see him… he’s still drinkin pretty heavily at the pub”