Red-letter day for paramedic

It wasn’t a letter to anybody in particular but they were words from the MICA paramedic’s heart, recounting the moment he helped rescue 14-year-old Mack Oswald from a cave at Mount Pilot on August 8.

Mr Russell thought of how calm the boy remained while he was pinned between two rocks. 

He wrote of how Mack’s mother Sam stayed strong for her boy. 

But despite that situation being so rewarding, it took Mr Russell back to another critical incident where he was threatened by a relative of an unconscious woman the single responder unit paramedic was desperately trying to save. 

Mr Russell said he was motivated to write the letter because of the contrast between the two emergencies. 

“Mack and Sam just got my admiration,” he said.

“Mack got himself into a situation and if he panicked or was not a strong character it could have been made incredibly worse and more dangerous and complex for him and the people there to rescue him.”

Mr Russell said when Mack was in the cave there were times when he was concerned emergency crews would not get the boy out before sunset.

“I felt relieved – incredibly relieved – seeing him walk out,” he said.

“He walked out wrapped in a blanket with a smile on his face and Sam gave me a big hug.

“I got in the car and drove off and thought ‘that’s fantastic’ but it only worked because there was a group of people working together.

“Majority of the people there weren’t paid but were doing it because they care and they need to be congratulated and applauded.”

Mr Russell said there were things he had seen on the job over the last three decades that he needed to learn to cope with.

“Certain things make the job harder or easier but at least you know when you knock off that you’ve done everything you can for everybody you’ve seen,” he said.

“Then you can go home and sleep at night.”

No two days are the same. It certainly sounds like a cliché, but for me 

it became amazingly apparent after thinking about two patients I 

have recently attended an Intensive Care Paramedic in regional 

Victoria. I am just entering my 35th year in the job and you would 

think that I would be used to the ups and downs of it all. I think I 

generally am, however here I sit the morning after two day shifts, 

with 6 hours till I return to work for a 14 hour night shift and realise 

I have been replaying two events for some hours, so decided to share 

them with you.

Late one recent afternoon the pager on my hip starts to vibrate and I 

grab it from the holster quickly knowing I can stop the high pitched 

squeal that kicks in about 10 seconds after the vibrations occur. The 

job is a possible cardiac arrest. 

I arrive at the same time as another ambulance and we proceed into 

the small house with obviously distressed relatives leading us in. 

We find a middle aged woman on the floor with family attempting 

mouth to mouth resuscitation and we immediately begin our 

treatment. It soon becomes apparent the woman has a very faint 

pulse and is breathing once or twice a minute.  We need to stabilise 

this woman and get her to hospital safely and quickly. 

Stabilising the patient is proving difficult and during all this 

increasing numbers of emotional friends and relatives arrive and are 

yelling at the patient to wake up and stepping over her to get better 

access. I ask all attending to be careful and not step back and forward 

over the patient.  It is here that the job goes wrong.

Despite our efforts to stabilise this unconscious woman, a relative 

decides it is his right to go where ever he wants including stepping 

over her unconscious form on the floor as many times as he wants.  

So he begins to physical and verbally threaten us in this already tense 

situation. This continues to the point where we discuss leaving the 

patient and the house until police arrive for our own safety. Other 

family are encouraged to move him away and eventually he seems to 

get the idea. Not before agitating the entire event many fold and 

making our job so much harder, expecting to fight someone in order 

to save their family member!

We manage to extricate the woman and get her to hospital in an 

improving state. The night shift who visited the hospital later the 

night reported to me next morning that at that time she was sitting 

up chatting in a non urgent cubical. Probably totally oblivious to how 

close she was to dying. 

So the first story is not that remarkable, not a really unusual 

occurrence. Late one afternoon on a different day, my hip once again 

vibrates as the pager goes off. The case is to a 14-year-old boy 

trapped in a confined space.  It is about 30 kilometres away and 

halfway up a rocky hill called Mt Pilot. I arrive in the car park to see 

local volunteer SES and CFA trucks, lights flashing, and am advised 

everyone is halfway up the hill. A young teenage boy says he will 

show me where it is and proceeds to bounce off up the hill. At 55 

years of age and a number of kilos, bouncing after him was not an 

option but about 10 minutes of uphill rock hopping I arrive at a 

group of emergency services on the narrow track. I make myself 

known to each organisation head and get briefed on where we are at. 

A 14-year-old boy, Mack, and his younger and slightly slimmer mate 

were exploring the rocks and caves. They have worked their way 

along an ever narrowing chasm between two house size granite 

boulders.  The first boy has managed to squeeze through the tiny 

outlet into a small cave and get out, the second lad has become stuck 

and while trying to free himself has actually slipped down into the 

narrowest part of the chasm. 

He is lying on this left side, left arm out above his head, just 

millimetres of clearance so he can move his head but wedged front 

and back from upper chest to hips. I attempt to go in from each end to 

see for myself but get only within two metres of his feet and one of 

his outstretched hands through the cave at the other end. I see that 

the granite walls curve longitudinally and also vertically with a slight 

sliver of daylight bouncing in from above but no possibility of vertical 

access from above. 

I am immediately struck by the fact that this is a terrifying situation 

for this boy and that there is a real chance we will take hours to get 

him out. The other point that is immediately obvious is that this boy 

is calm and has not complained once. He is pressed against rocks 

front and back that has cold water trickling down the walls and 

puddling under him, he can hardly take a full breath and has been 

like this for almost an hour already, but is speaking logically and 

calmly without a hint of panic. It must be stated that through the next 

two hours in which he remained trapped like this he did not utter a 

negative word or panic in any way. He was amazing and, apart from a 

small slip in judgement which got him in this situation, he is one of 

the people I will most admire in my entire career.

The boy’s mother, Sam, was at the scene and it wasn’t hard to see 

where he got his strength as she too held it together knowing, I am 

sure, that her distress or panic would only worsen the situation.

Without taking you through a step-by-step extrication, I will give you 

a brief overview. A very skinny and brave SES volunteer was ahead of 

a fellow paramedic and me, (again a smaller stature paramedic than 

myself) in the cave at the head end of the patient. At the foot end 

working jammed in sideways was the lad’s uncle and a CFA 

volunteer. On the track at the edge of the cave were Police, CFA and 

SES personnel as well as another of our paramedics liaising with our 

communication centre and ensuring we were safe and our requests 

passed on.

The local police sergeant and I discussed the issue of reducing light 

and possibly going into or through the night. He had mobilised 

“search and rescue” but the main team was 3 hours away and they 

were going to fly two officers by helicopter but were still up to a 

couple of hours off. We were very aware that as the sun set, freezing 

temperatures and darkness would add a whole new set of challenges 

and make the situation ever more life threatening for a young patient. 

The sergeant mobilised generators, heaters and lighting all which 

would be needed and have to be carried up the hill.  

Throughout the rescue we were discussing and brainstorming ideas 

to release our patient. Each time some one would either head off 

down the hill, or come up from below with, bits of timber, “no too 

wide,” so it gets taken back down and sawn down the middle before 

being bought back up. Then there is a need for thicker timber; I am 

shown a photo of the picnic table in the car park “would this do?”, 

yes, and within 10 or so minutes it is being fed into the cave. Tarps 

and blankets, lights, long poles and our plastic slide sheet all come up 

the hill.

After about 2 hours of trying we decide to use a long pole to thread a 

strap attached to our slide sheet under the patient then possible see-

saw the sheet around the patient, put chainsaw bar oil down the 

sides of the sheet and try and slide him up slightly and then feet first 

drag him out.  Pushing the pole through takes a long time and the 

boy’s uncle at the other end makes it happen by digging at boulders 

under the patient’s legs to get the pole through. Through most of this 

digging he himself is sideways between the cold granite chasm walls. 

Once the slide sheet is through and adjusted, the SES volunteer and 

those at the other end manage to get it open enough that it does its 

job and, with the rocks moved from underneath him, the boy slides 

clear.

After nearly three hours trapped the young lad comes walking down 

the track with a blanket wrapped around him, none the worse for 

wear. He doesn’t need to go to hospital and the campfire now lit in 

the car park and the hugs from family and friends soon warm him up.

I am not sure I have been involved in something which was so 

potentially dangerous and with so many factors that needed to come 

together just right and it did.

Of all the personnel involved, there were 3 professional police 

officers, one full time fire officer and 3 full time ambulance staff. All 

the others were volunteers, we had none of the resources of a big city 

but we were organised, committed and determined. For those in the 

cave and the chasm I have nothing but admiration and their 

selflessness and bravery. For the others who supported, supplied and 

trudged up and down resourcing all requests, (special mention to the 

ambulance uni student observing for the day who must have gone up 

and down 4 times) your dedication was outstanding.

As I was preparing to leave the scene the boy’s mother came to me 

and with the first hint of a tear I had seen from her gave me a 

heartfelt hug. 

No two days are the same!