Police call CareFlight to rescue man from floodwaters (Mt Wells)
CareFlight’s rescue flight an NT first using night vision goggles …
A stranded man was rescued from rising floodwaters at Mt Wells after NT police called CareFlight to make a 120 km pre-dawn dash south from Darwin today.
The rescue flight was made possible by the crew of pilot Tony Birmingham and air crewman John Costin using Night Vision Goggles (NVG).
It was the first time in the Northern Territory a non-military helicopter has used NVG to make a rescue, and the first rescue mission for CareFlight which has stationed one of its rescue helicopters in Darwin since the end of December.
NT Police called CareFlight at 4.30 am when emergency services were unable to reach the 41-year-old Darwin man who was left standing on the roof of his car for hours overnight, surrounded by rising floodwaters in an area known to be infested by crocodiles.
The CareFlight crew, accompanied by a Darwin-based police officer, flew around low cloud using NVG and found the man had scrambled from the roof of his car to an area of high ground beside Saunders Creek, part of the Margaret River near the settlement of Pine Creek.
The man’s car was washed away by the flood.
Police from Pine Creek and emergency services personnel were unable to reach the man through deep floodwaters.
Mr Birmingham said his CareFlight crew plucked the man, aged in his 40s, from the high ground just after 7 am and flew him to where the Pine Creek police had gathered.
The man was not injured.
Earlier last night the CareFlight crew used their night vision goggles to fly an ill 10-year-old boy from Katherine to Darwin.
The helicopter took a doctor and nurse from the NT Air Medical Service (NTAMS) on the flight from Darwin to Katherine Hospital to stabilise the boy who was suffering respiratory difficulties.
He was flown under treatment by the NTAMS team to Darwin Hospital for ongoing care.
CareFlight has operated a medical-rescue helicopter based at Westmead in Sydney for 23 years and the charity’s doctors also undertake urgent international and interstate medical flights using its jet air ambulances based in Darwin, Perth and Sydney.
Since the charity was established in 1986 CareFlight has flown more than 18,000 medical missions for children and adults.
ENDS: For further information please contact NRMA CareFlight director Ian Badham on 0418 245 748.
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