Bali bombing anniversary: Professor Fiona Wood reveals images that still haunt her
Two decades on from a terrorist bombing that shocked the world, burns specialist Professor Fiona Wood still struggles to “talk about Bali”.
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It is the images of those who did not survive that still haunt burns specialist Professor Fiona Wood.
And even now, 20 years on, she openly admits to still struggling to “talk about Bali”.
Prof Wood, who was named Australian of the Year in 2005 for her work overseeing recovery and treatment plans of injured Australians, said she can still vividly recall the looks on the faces of all the wounded as they came through the doors of Royal Perth Hospital (RPH).
“My overwhelming memory (of Bali) is seeing the relief on their faces that they were home, in Australia,” Prof Wood said in Perth this week.
“And then I saw the extent of their injuries and I knew we have a significant, long road ahead.
“They had blast injuries, some orthopaedic injuries, shrapnel, as well as burn injuries.
“On reflection, the hardest time to deal with was when people don’t survive and we faced that on three occasions over the subsequent days and weeks,” Prof Wood said, fighting back tears.
“That is certainly a time when, despite all our efforts, the outcome is beyond return. And those are the harrowing times.”
More than 100 patients were flown back to Australia, with 28 sent to her team of 30 at RPH, following the bombings inside two packed Bali nightclubs on October 12, 2002.
One of the victims whom Prof Wood has never forgotten is Jodie O’Shea, a 29-year-old woman from Sydney who sustained burns to 92 per cent of her body.
She died a few hours after being admitted to RPH on October 15. Staff taking comfort that when she died “it was, at least, in her mother’s arms”.
Another is Perth mother-of-three Tracy Thomas, 41, who had been inside the Sari Club having a drink with a friend. She had suffered burns to 60 per cent of her body. She died on October 20.
The third is Simone Hanley, a 28-year-old woman who had 75 per cent burns to her body. Her kidneys stopped functioning and she was in intensive care for 58 days before she died on December 9 – the 88th Australian to lose their life in the terror attack.
A biography on Prof Wood’s life and the impact of the Bali bombings – titled Under Her Skin and released on October 5 – reveals how Prof Wood “found that day extremely difficult”.
“She locked herself into one of the toilets at the hospital and broke down in tears,” author Sue Williams writes.
“Then, knowing that the other patients still needed her, she pulled herself together, washed her face and went back out and got on with it.”
Prof Wood said she tries to hold on to the positives, admitting it could be her survival method.
“All these years later it’s still quite harrowing. Yet, on the other end of the scale, it was special,” she said.
“I saw all the positives that came out of the profound negatives.
“It was extraordinary to be part of it. It was a privilege to be part of it.
“To be honest, it was really incredible to see what could be done when everyone works together.”
Prof Wood’s team were among the busiest in Australia, working around the clock for the first five days to try and save as many lives as they could.
Some had performed 30 operations in a row, including some that would take longer than 10 hours.
Despite the losses, what Prof Wood’s team achieved was nothing short of miraculous.
The recovery mission that unfolded has been described as the biggest peacetime emergency evacuation of Australians from overseas.
Bali bombing survivors such as Peter Hughes, who was at the Paddy’s Bar when the first of the three explosions went off, have lived to tell their story despite Prof Wood fearing he was close to dying before he even left Bali.
Prof Wood put her team’s success down to planning.
In the months leading up to the bombings, the burns teams across the country had put together a disaster response plan that was put the Federal Government to deal with a mass-casualty event.
Listen to the AFP’s new podcast Operation ALLIANCE: 2002 Bali Bombings
WORKING TOWARDS GOAL OF SCARLESS HEALING
Prof Wood, a mother-of-six, is a plastic surgeon driven by a goal of scarless healing and reducing the time it takes to heal burns.
Prior to her work with Bali survivors, she was known for her spray-on-skin bedside cellular treatment, Re-Cell and Cellspray, which she invented with Marie Stoner in the early 1990s.
Prof Wood used the cellular treatment on many of the people who were injured in the bombings.
Her research didn’t stop there. In addition to laser therapy and topical creams, the team is looking at a range of projects including how to stimulate the brain to improve healing, as well as exploring how intelligent surgical knives can provide surgeons with better accuracy.
They are also looking at an extension of spray-on-skin using 3D printing, which creates more layers of the skin and framework.
All with the goal of improving healing time frames.
Advancements in research have led to improved outcomes for people with severe burns, such as 27-year-old Ben Smith, who suffered burns to 55 per cent of his body as an eight-year-old.
He is a living warning to children about the dangers of playing with fire, after he threw a used but empty fuel drum on to a fire he lit on a property on the fringes of Perth. It exploded and his school uniform caught alight.
“They put me in an induced coma. I was in ICU for about two weeks, and then in the ward for about three months,” Mr Smith.
Mr Smith has since had more than 30 surgical procedures and been involved in several of Prof Wood’s research projects.
He describes Prof Wood as his “second mum”.
“The whole team and staff on the burns unit, I’m friends with a lot of them. Some of the nurses have known me nearly my whole life – they really are amazing people,” he said.
“Fiona is so real and really does care. When you talk to her, you can see it in her eyes that she is passionate about it.”
Under Her Skin: The life and work of Professor Fiona Wood, National Living Treasure by Sue Williams, will be available from October 5.
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Originally published as Bali bombing anniversary: Professor Fiona Wood reveals images that still haunt her
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