General News
11 December, 2024
Couple rescued by Lifeflight after vehicle swept away by floodwater
The couple and their dogs were moving to Kowanyama when their vehicle was washed off the road.
A missing couple and their two dogs spent three days stranded in remote Gulf country, enduring 40-degree days and nights concerned about a nearby crocodile.
The couple, aged in their 50s, were returning to Kowanyama from Normanton and attempted to drive across a river crossing at Clark Creek when a “wall of water” swept their four-wheel drive into crocodile-inhabited floodwater.
They climbed out of the passenger window to escape and swam to the bank.
Left without phones or food, the couple drank water from the river and scribbled “SOS” in the dirt.
The Mount Isa-based LifeFlight aeromedical crew flew to their rescue on Saturday.
The were found on the Burke Developmental Road near Dorunda Station.
The rescue crew took off at 8.40am from the Mount Isa base to search for the missing couple after a friend had reported them overdue.
They had left Normanton on Thursday, December 5 and had not arrived at Kowanyama.
It is believed the couple had attempted to drive across a river crossing, when the vehicle was overcome by floodwater.
They told the LifeFlight rescue crew they had to scramble out the passenger window to escape and the male driver had to swim back into the vehicle to free their two dogs before he could swim to shore.
Pilot Michael Adair was able to land the chopper on the road beside a river, before the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) flight paramedics assessed the patients.
They were treated for dehydration and exposure and loaded onto the rescue helicopter, with their two dogs, and airlifted to the Normanton Hospital for further treatment.
Mr Adair, an experienced chopper pilot from New Zealand, is used to flying over snow and mountains. His six-hour flight in the Queensland Outback on Saturday was a first.
He said the couple couldn’t believe they were being rescued.
“They said: ‘thank God you’re here, we didn’t think anyone was coming’. The wife told us she had been hearing voices in the bush from exposure and had convinced herself that nobody was coming to help them, so she was very emotional when we hugged her,” Mr Adair said.
“The couple had written two big SOS signs in the dirt and were frantically waving up at the helicopter as we flew over them.
“These people had resigned themselves to dying and seeing the look on their faces when they saw us and realised they weren’t going to die – that’s the reason we do this.”
Emergency services were notified that the pair hadn’t arrived at Kowanyama when they were expected to, but flooded roads prevented police from reaching them.
“They were in really good spirits and when we arrived, they were very happy and jovial to see us and then the reality of the fact that, hey there is a helicopter there, and they’re about to be rescued and that’s when the emotion welled up,” Mr Adair said.
“She’s sort of resigned herself to the fact that this might be it, so hearing the helicopter come over the top and once we were actually out – it sounds silly, but you touch her and give her a hug and she knows that she’s not imagining it and she’s actually going to be saved – yeah it was pretty intense.”
Brisbane-based LifeFlight flight examiner Mark Overton said the rescued couple told the LifeFlight crew they were moving from Normanton to Kowanyama and everything they owned was in the four-wheel drive that was washed away.
“The car flooded quickly, the electric windows locked, and the pair managed to get out the passenger window,” he said.
“The man had to dive down to retrieve their two dogs who were limp by the time he got to them, but they were OK. They had a cattle dog and a rusty red dog we called Bluey and Bingo.”
