SA Bushfire Crisis: The rescue of racing legend John Glatz
In a remarkable recount, the man who rescued Oakbank racing legend John Glatz from almost certain death in the Cudlee Creek bushfire has told of his terrifying experience.
East, Inner Suburbs & Hills
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The last thing Adam Stone would wish to be called is a hero.
Given what he knows now about the uncontrollable Cudlee Creek fire, he might have stayed in a city pub with his workmates and sunk a few beers.
Within an hour of leaving the hotel, he was at the centre of an inferno, faced with terrible choices and worse odds as he helped Oakbank Racing club legend John Glatz and his wife Merri survive “an unimaginable hellhole”.
At lunchtime on Friday, December 20, the family man from Balhannah, 41, was just about to enjoy his first beer with his Elders colleagues when his phone rang. It was a friend, near neighbour and senior CFS member.
“He told me the fire at Cudlee Creek was out of control and likely heading our way at Balhannah and that I should get home before it was too late,” Mr Stone remembers.
“I put down my beer and took his advice.”
Finding his own home safe, he rang his friends Rob and Lucy Brooks at Woodside, where the fire was heading.
The Brooks live next to the Donoghue Rd property of Lucy’s parents, John and Merri Glatz, known for their involvement with Oakbank Racing Club, where Mr Glatz was chairman for more than 25 years.
Mr Stone had met the Glatz family several times and visited their farm.
“Rob said he was bailing up the kids and getting them to safety, but would be back to defend the house,” Mr Stone recalls.
“I said I’d drive over with my truck that has a small firefighting unit on the back.”
By the time he reached Woodside, the situation was worsening rapidly.
“The wind was so strong and noisy you couldn’t hear anything and I could taste ash in my mouth,” he says.
At the Brooks’s house, he was stunned to find Merri Glatz, standing in the carport with her handbag on her arm and her dog at her feet.
“She was in shock,” he says.
“She hadn’t even tried the front door because she thought it would be locked. I grabbed her and the dog and we drove flat out through the fire front along Murdoch Hill Rd. All I could see was a wall of flames and the white line in the road that I followed.
“I could have hit a fire truck or car coming the other way but wouldn’t even have seen it until the last second.
“There were animals everywhere, cattle, horses and sheep all scared for their lives, running like crazy in all directions.
“We were running for our lives too. How we got out without hitting something was a miracle. Someone was watching over us on that run.”
As the truck reached the bottom of Murdoch Hill Rd, they left the fire behind and reached an oasis of safe ground where a police car was parked.
He left Merri with the officers and jumped back in his truck and returned to the Brooks’s property.
At the house, he frantically hosed down fires and cut cattle out from twisted fences with a neighbour. Then he got the call that Mr Brooks was stuck at the police lines and wouldn’t be coming back. Half an hour later, his friend rang again to say John Glatz wasn’t answering his phone and could he go and check on him.
“I was busy putting out a fire that was endangering the Brooks’s home so I wasn’t so sure about leaving at that very minute,” he says.
“Just then a police officer named Joe, who lives locally, pulled up. I asked if he could check on John but he had another three houses to check first so I decided I had to go.”
Driving with every tree in sight ablaze and a million embers showering his vehicle, he had a growing sense of dread. As he pulled up, his worst fears were confirmed.
“I looked across and I could see John on his tractor just a few metres away, slumped over the wheel arch and the steering wheel,” he says.
“I couldn’t believe it. There was no sign of life. I thought he was ‘a goner’. There was no doubt in my mind. He was in between the house that was on fire, stables on fire and the shed that was on fire. Look, everything was bloody on fire.
“There was stuff exploding. Gas bottles going up, fuel tanks igniting. And then the noise of the wind. Like nothing I ever want to hear again. If that wasn’t Armageddon, I don’t know what is.”
Mr Stone attempted to lift the 73-year-old, who is a big man but fit and strong.
“I burnt my hands on the tractor, which was red hot, and I couldn’t move him so I went around the other side and grabbed his shirt but it ripped like paper in my hand,” he says.
“I finally got hold of the top of his jeans and his trouser belt and heaved him off the tractor.
“I had no control and John fell right on top of me. I was even more certain he was gone. His eyes were a terrible grey colour. There was horrible black spittle around his mouth and just then this bubble appeared from the middle of it. I realised he was still breathing. It was an incredible moment. I pushed him over, and carried him a few yards as best I could, to the side of the road to be nearer to my truck.
“And then I started the pump and put water on him, head to toe, over and over. He was alive but non-responsive.
“There was an occasional groan so that I knew he was still with me. All the time I’m saying ‘Just stay with me Glatzy, just hang in, mate’.”
Another neighbour drove up and placed a call for an ambulance but he couldn’t stay as his own house was on fire and he didn’t know who was trapped at the property.
“After about 15 minutes, I couldn’t stand it any more, waiting to hear or see the ambulance, and I rang triple-0 myself,” Mr Stone says. “The wind was so loud they couldn’t hear me. I kept yelling the address but they couldn’t understand. Finally, they said the ambulance was definitely on the way. I was so relieved: ‘Stay with me Glatzy,’ I said. ‘They’re coming for you, mate. You can make it’.
“I tried to keep him comfortable. Your mind goes mad in that situation and I suddenly thought: ‘I’ve got bore water in here. Is that going to give him infections?’ Then I thought: ‘We can deal with that later. I’m not stopping watering’.”
He kept pumping water for another few minutes before Joe, the policeman, returned.
“I asked him to check on the ambulance and when I saw his face, I knew it was not good news,” he says.
“The ambulance had turned back because the fire was too intense. So it was down to us to get John out of there. We yanked off his boots and jeans and saw that at least his legs weren’t burnt. We lifted him into the back of Joe’s car and he took off with me following in the truck.”
By the time Mr Stone reached the top of the road, the policeman was out of sight in his mad rush to Mount Barker Hospital. Entering the hospital 20 minutes later, Mr Stone found the entire Royal Adelaide Hospital burns unit there.
“The doctors didn’t hold much hope,” he says.
“They told me John had burns to 60 per cent of his body.”
Burns surgeons use a scale where they add the age of a person to the percentage of their body burned. If the number is more than 100 then the chances of survival are remote. Mr Glatz’s number was 133. But survive he did. After two weeks in critical condition at the RAH, he had a first conversation with Merri. He asked if she was staying with Lucy and Rob, which told her he knew they had lost everything. Mr Glatz remains at the RAH facing a long recovery, having already undergone skin graft surgery and with more operations to come.
After having his own burns patched up at Mount Barker Hospital, Mr Stone picked up his wife and they spent the next two days fighting spot fires. But he won’t do it again.
“The message from these fires is any bushfire action plan on catastrophic days is out the window. Just get out of there and stay out,” he says. Mr Stone has caught up with the Brooks family, who are coming to terms with disaster.
“They (John and Merri Glatz) don’t have a teaspoon left between them,” he says.
“That must be so difficult after such a full life. They’re a wonderful family.
“For our little world of Woodside to be stung like this, it’s just terrible. We need people from the city to come up and support our community.”
Throughout the ordeal, Mr Stone says he didn’t think about his own safety. “Not because I’m brave, just because you deal with what you have to and just get on with it,” he says.
“The scariest part was driving up to John’s and realising how bad it was. That place was an unimaginable hellhole.
“Hot from hot weather, but hotter than hell with the intensity of the fires.
“If I was thinking about what I was doing out there for one moment, I would probably have got myself back to Adelaide drinking cold beer.”
The next beer Mr Stone is looking forward to is with the man he calls Glatzy.
“That’s going to be one very special moment,” he says.
“And we might have more than one as well.”
