Oakbank legend John Glatz reveals how love – and the RAH burns unit – saved him from the brink of death
Oakbank Racing legend John Glatz suffered burns to 60 per cent of his body fighting the Cudlee Creek bushfire. In an exclusive interview, he reveals the keys to his survival.
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It was the horrendous, hopeless moment John Glatz knew for certain he couldn’t save his Woodside home and belongings from the raging Cudlee Creek inferno – and it was time to try to save his own life.
It was mid-afternoon on December 20 last year and the Adelaide Hills farmer and horse trainer had never faced terrifying bushfire conditions like this before.
The air was choking thick with ash and cinders, the wind howling like a banshee in the dead of night and the sky had turned burnt ochre.
The 76-year-old sat on the ground exhausted, staring up at his home of 12 years and at a series of high-pressure hoses running across the roofline installed for just this occasion.
Every tap was melted and totally useless.
The legend of the Oakbank Racing Club, based just down the hill from his property, jumped back on his trusty, rusty tractor with a small firefighting unit on the back and set off – but for where, he wasn’t sure.
He didn’t get very far.
“There was a motorbike only about five metres away from me and it exploded in a massive ball of flames,” Glatz says from his hospital bed, that has become a home, at the Royal Adelaide Hospital burns unit.
“And that’s all I remember until I woke up here.”
The Oakbank chairman of more than 25 years before retiring in 2016 woke from an induced coma after 10 days.
Disorientated and highly agitated despite being heavily sedated, the next few days and nights for the father of two and grandfather of four were by far the worst of his long and happy life.
“Those first days were horrific,” he says. “The agony went on and on with no sense of day or night.
“You’re just drifting, struggling to regain a grip on reality, completely non-compos and hallucinating constantly.
“I had a recurring nightmare that someone was tipping water over me.”
What his traumatised brain was reliving was the reality of his dramatic rescue.
Someone had been tipping water on him for more than 20 minutes and it saved his life. Family friend Adam Stone found Glatz slumped on his tractor.
Risking his own life as the fires raged 40m high through the treetops and gas bottles exploded close by, he poured water on him, from his truck, head to toe, over and over.
When word came that no ambulance could make it through the firelines, Stone and passing local copper Joe McDonald bundled the badly injured Glatz in an unmarked police car and tore through the hills to Mount Barker Hospital.
Glatz was transferred to the RAH that night with the prognosis he was highly unlikely to live.
During his 10 days in the coma, the burns unit staff led by Professor John Greenwood thought they had lost him twice.
His wife Merri (Meredith), who only escaped the fire herself thanks to the quick thinking and quick driving of Mr Stone, rarely left her husband’s side.
Christmas was a dreadful time especially for the four grandchildren who just wanted their “dear Pop back”.
Given the extent of his burns, and in contrast to wild racetrack rumours that his face is unrecognisable, Glatz only has one obvious injury to the middle of his forehead.
That fact is even more remarkable when you hear that a two-way radio he had stuffed in a top shirt pocket melted entirely with the radiant heat.
Other rumours that he’s lost an arm, or a leg, or both are also not true.
“You can let everyone know, I’m still all in one piece,” he says cheerfully.
“I’ve lost a bit of hair and some weight (17kg) but not as much as I was hoping … but all in all other than feeling worn out all the time like I’ve run 20 miles, I feel the same (person).
“But If I was planning to do something mad like this I really should have done it when I was 20 years younger and I would’ve healed far quicker.”
The joking helps obliterate memories of the excruciating pain.
The changing of dressings, which happens every few days, are the worst of it. At times he has had to be moved to theatre and put under anaesthetic because the pain is so overwhelming.
Staff take photos each time they dress wounds to record the progress, or otherwise, of the skin grafts.
There have been numerous operations using unburnt skin from the rest of his body but he has little of that left now. Glatz shows me his left arm, which is one mass of a graft but amazingly I can see how the skin is already growing and healing.
A proud man, who has been made vulnerable through his injuries, Glatz greatly appreciates the care and compassion he’s received from RAH staff, led by adult burns centre manager, Natalia Adanichkin and nurse Stuart Harper.
“This is an A1 team of dedicated professionals who have done their absolute best for me,” he says with as much emotion as he ever conveys.
“I’ve seen about 20 different staff and they’ve all been brilliant.
“There’s great experience and comradeship with people like Briony (nurse) being here 27 years.
“I’d like the message out there that this is by far one of the top burns units in the world.”
Glatz is concerned for the unit’s future given the uncertainty surrounding administrator KordaMentha looking at saving massive costs throughout SA Health.
“The staff haven’t said anything directly but I feel an unease about their future,” he says
“Obviously things have to run to budget but if you fiddle too much you’ll fracture something built up over decades.
“It always worries me when we have a team of bureaucrats dictating the way things should be.
“They should get in bed beside me for a week and they’d have a better perspective.”
Lying in bed for 73 days straight, with little to do, he’s even fed through a tube in his nose, is ideal for deep contemplation and reflection.
Glatz reckons he has solved many of the world’s pressing problems – but “nobody’s taking any notice.” Tracking the development of the coronavirus crisis is of particular interest because he and Merri were due to leave this week for Singapore and take a cruise back to Sydney with a stopover in Darwin – a place he’s always wanted to visit.
He reads the paper daily and watches the news.
The family, hospital staff and even Glatz himself have been pestered daily by local, national and international media groups looking for an interview.
One online news service ran a photo of him drinking a beer in his hospital bed surrounded by beaming friends – but it clearly wasn’t him and they never checked to clarify if it might be.
It just added to the inevitable stresses.
Glatz marvels at the strength and resilience of his family, including daughter Lucy Brooks and her husband Rob and their sons Jack and Harry who live just down the road at Woodside almost lost their house too.
His son Ben and grandsons Dylan and Jack live at Lucindale in the South-East.
“Within hours they were organising to have asbestos cleared from the property and then getting buildings demolished, putting up fencing and seeing the animals treated,” he says.
“They just got on with the job and they haven’t stopped.
“I can’t think what would have happened without them.” Friends have played a vital role supporting the wider Glatz family.
He hadn’t seen one old friend for 46 years before he walked into his hospital room.
Even in a gown, mask and hairnet he still recognised him. There have been hundreds of wellwishers with former Gawler race-club chairman John McKinnon, father of former AFL player Marty McKinnon, achieving what no one else could.
“He snuck in like a naughty schoolboy and handed me a can of beer.” Glatz says with a big grin. “I told him I could kill for one so he brought one in.
“I’d finished three quarters of it before staff cottoned on and took it away.”
Friends have provided something far more important – photos of the Glatz family from their own albums for the couple that have lost everything.
He has to keep reminding himself that, apart from the cleared farm block on Donoghue Rd, he doesn’t own a single thing in the world.
“Not even a pair of shoes … absolutely everything is gone,” he says.
“It’s difficult to think you’ve been collecting things for 50 or 60 years and built up a lovely set of tools and workshop equipment and all of a sudden, there’s absolutely nothing left.”
As for his own future, his life has been in an emotional and psychological suspension – but it’s time to move on.
Preparations are underway to transfer him to Strathalbyn Hospital, closer to home.
A few weeks after that and he should be able to join Merri at a furnished flat they have rented at Woodside to stay close to family.
Rebuilding is not out of the question but Glatz says he won’t train horses again. “Life is too short,” he says.
Short-term goals on a long and winding road to recovery include attending Oakbank’s revamped Easter Carnival in six weeks.
He is a big supporter of the move to revitalise the event by racing three days over six days culminating on Easter Saturday (April 11) with the running of the epic Great Eastern Steeplechase.
Glatz hopes to catch up at the Hills course with Mr Stone and buy him a beer, or two.
And there’s one more thing.
“I want to be back riding a motorbike again and I will,” he says with his trademark stubborn determination.
“I’m going to have as normal a life as possible and enjoy every moment with my family.”