Life Flight

Jarrod was driving along a ridge in his ute when suddenly he found himself tumbling down a grassy bank.

The car rolled five times before he was able to launch himself from the vehicle. The ute carried on rolling a further 100 metres down the bank, stripping away all panels from the vehicle.

Thankfully, his workmate who was watching on in horror nearby, was able to quickly call emergency services. A nearby farmer, who coincidentally was an ex-paramedic, was straight on the scene performing first aid.

“They didn’t move me because they wanted to keep my neck and back still”

Because of the rugged landscape the Westpac Rescue Helicopter had to land 100m away from where Jarrod was. Life Flight’s team carried him in a stretcher along the wet and slippery tussock so that he could be flown immediately to hospital.

There was a lot going on – it was quite chaotic… I didn’t even hear the helicopter come over!

During this ordeal, Jarrod was thankful to have the crew there to keep him calm. “There was one guy who was sitting next to me, he was really nice and making sure I was happy and okay”

When he got to hospital with a punctured lung, cuts to the head and hip, serious bruising and coughing up blood, Jarrod was surprised that he got off with little more.

“It was pretty horrific… but I didn’t have any broken bones.”

One of Jarrod’s colleagues stated that “he’s an extremely lucky man,” especially when thinking back on all the people who were able to be there so quickly.

At Life Flight, the Westpac Rescue Helicopter is often called to attend farming accidents – the most common being quad accidents. Due to the hard-to-reach nature of farming incidents, the Westpac Chopper Crew is normally the first at the scene, and they tend to have little information due to limited communications.

Crewman Logan explains that “you never know what you’re going to get with a rural callout, and because it’s so far away from most services, we are usually the first on the scene.”

Thankfully for Jarrod, a few months down the track, he is slowly getting back to work. He is still receiving physio for his neck, however “everything is looking pretty good.” Jarrod says:

Keep up donations because every minute counts. I didn’t expect to be rolling a ute down a hill that day, and my injuries were bad, but they could have been worse.