Sunday, April 13 at 7.00pm

Ossie Burke (part 2):

Last week we met 23 year old Ossie Burke who had a serious crash mustering on a remote Queensland property, he has a badly fractured leg but there was a problem the RFDS couldn’t reach him.
The remote property’s airstrip was too short for their King Air turbo prop plane to land they need 1000 metres the strip was only 400. Stuck on the station and badly in need of help pilot Cameron Gibbs
and the service’s only married medical team Dr Bill Hines & Flight Nurse Sue Hines had to come up with another plan. The station where Ossie was stuck had a small aircraft so the crew flew Ossie to
Tibooburra where Bill & Sue found Ossie with a serious fracture and in such serious pain he was going into shock.
Bill removed Ossie’s boot to rule out any blood clots & then needed to resplint his leg for the flight to an orthopaedic surgeon in Adelaide. Each tiny movement is excruciating for Ossie. Ossie isn’t having much luck, earlier that day he got engaged and didn’t even have time to celebrate before his serious accident. Flight Nurse Sue tells Ossie she met her husband Dr Bill Hines when she broke her ankle
too! Ossie is flown to Adelaide where doctors find he has two serious fractures to his leg, his fiancé of one day rushes to Adelaide to be by his side. He won’t be back mustering on the station for weeks and weeks!

Rhianna
It’s nearly midnight and Flight Nurse Gayle Leverette receives an emergency callout to pick up an 11month old baby girl struggling to breathe. Tiny 11month old baby girl Rhianna is fighting for her life,
her temperature is an alarming 41 degrees and her heart is racing at 180 beats per minute. Gayle is concerned she may go into respiratory arrest, as babies become tired they run out of energy to keep breathing.
Gayle needs to get Rhianna to a hospital with the proper facilities to deal with the tiny baby suffering from phenomena. Nicola, Rhianna’s mum is extremely worried phenomena has already claimed
members of her family. As the night continues Rhianna becomes more and more distressed and Gayle is worried about her ability to breathe at altitude on board the plane. To everyone’s relief once in
Broken Hill hospital Rhianna is put on very strong antibiotics and begins to make a recovery.

Peter Absolom
Flight Nurse Helen Flemming, Dr John Price & Pilot Magnus Badger are off over the border to South Australia to a property to pick up a farmer who has crashed off his moor bike, he’s in a serious
condition – and wasn’t wearing a helmet. They must get to their patient, Peter Absolom, but the strip has no landing lights, so Magnus must land the plane with only flares to guide him. After a hairy landing, which Magnus performs without a hitch their patient rushes onto the plane. It’s a serious problem for the RFDS because he may be suffering spinal injuries and they need to get him onto a
vacuum matt so they can fly him to hospital.
When Peter gets inside the plane he collapses onto the ground in agony, he begins to shake uncontrollably from the pain. But the cabin is so small the medical crew are struggling to get Peter
onto the vacuum matt. It’s not an ideal situation but one Helen & John have to deal with, there’s no way to move him now, it’s impossible he’s in too much pain and they don’t want to risk any further injury. Magnus needs Helen & John to work fast because the flames from the flares are about to extinguish and it will take a few hours to relight them. Time is critical. They finally get their patient in a state to fly and head back to Broken Hill. Peter later discovers he has several broken ribs and he is grateful to be alive.

Rhonda Bignall
Not all of the work the flying doctor’s do is dealing with broken bones, more often than not they need tohelp people deal with depression. Dr David Garne has a very special patient today, Rhonda Bignall.
Rhonda is still suffering from the loss of her husband almost a year ago. Rhonda is in such a bad way she even blames herself for his death. Barry, her husband broke every bone in his body when he went
to close a fence and his car rolled over the top of him. Remarkably after recovering from that accident, he was diagnosed with cancer. He was told he had only 24 hours to live, he lived for 4 weeks.
Rhonda still questions if she did all she could to save Barry. Dr Garne is trying to help Rhonda understand there is nothing more she could have done, he death was a tragedy but Rhonda couldn’t
have done anything to save her husband.
Since Barry’s death Rhonda has hidden away from her tiny community. Barry’s best mate Graham Wellings, the local publican and White Cliffs fix anything man is trying to help Rhonda regain her life
too. Graham rallied the 200 strong population to build Barry a proper gravestone, something Rhonda could never afford. The day the grave stone is erected Rhonda on the 1st anniversary of Barry’s death
Rhonda begins to brighten. A few days later she begins to join in the local activities, even attending an annual pizza night fundraiser for the RFDS. It’s the beginning of a new life for Rhonda. It’s a very
special moment.