North Queensland’s flight paramedics battle road carnage on the Bruce Highway

The carnage and confronting scenes of fatal crashes on the Bruce Highway are all too familiar for North Qld flight paramedics, who are often first on the scene. Here’s a look inside the reality of their jobs.

Townsville critical care flight paramedic Brodie Rollason. Picture: Shae Beplate.

The carnage and confronting scenes of fatal crashes on the Bruce Highway are all too familiar for North Queensland flight paramedics, who are often first on the scene.

After years of working as a critical care flight paramedic based in Townsville, Brodie Rollason has simply lost count of the number of serious road traffic crashes she’s responded on to one of the most dangerous roads in the country, the Bruce Highway.

Many of them were fatal, while others left people with life-changing injuries.

She said some of the most horrific crashes that she had ever seen occurred around Bluewater before it was recently upgraded.

Many of them continue to haunt her, including a horrific crash that claimed the life of a 26-year-old man in 2020.

Truck and car crash on the Bruce Highway at Bluewater on January 15 2020.

He had been killed instantly after the maroon Camry sedan he was driving veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided with a B-double truck travelling south on the Bruce Hwy near Bluewater on January 15.

“Road trains can do a lot of damage — it was incredibly graphic,” she said.

A 26-year-old Townsville man was killed instantly when his car collided with a B-double on the Bruce Highway at Bluewater. Photo: Sharni Anderson/Facebook

“I think we’ve got to respect and understand that these are huge vehicles that cannot stop the way smaller cars can.

“Here someone was attempting to manoeuvre around it and pulled in, and this road train has crashed into the car, killing the driver.

“He was the single occupant. Not only is that horrific, but the impact that it had on the crews that attended and the driver of that road train who could not have prevented that crash.

“It’s really disappointing to see that kind of behaviour because it impacts so much more than an individual person.

“These choices impact families, they impact livelihoods, they impact abilities, and they impact first responders as well.”

She said another recent crash that really stuck in her mind involved a driver who crashed his car on the Bruce Hwy between Rollingstone and the Frosty Mango.

She said speed appeared to have been a factor, but he was lucky to walk away.

“I just remember his family arriving and just hearing the screams of his mother,” Ms Rollason said.

“That’s totally understandable from her perspective, but it was just really horrific. That fear it created in her about the life of her son.”

The experienced paramedic said she fears many motorists in North Queensland who are familiar with Bruce Hwy often get complacent when it comes to observing the Fatal 5 — speeding, mobile phone distraction, drunk driving, fatigue, and not wearing a seatbelt.

“I think a lot of our really significant crashes do occur on the Bruce Hwy. They’re long, straight stretches of road, which can be really fatigue-inducing when you’re not getting regular stimulation,” she said.

Parts of the Bruce Highway with no widened centre lines and long stretches of road susceptible to fatigue.

“It’s a road that we’re all really familiar with, and certainly in regional Queensland, we do a bit more driving between our destinations on the Bruce Hwy.

“I mean, who of us hasn’t gone up to Cairns for a weekend or to Airlie Beach?

“But I think we do get really complacent about this potentially dangerous stretch of road.”

She said it can often be frustrating because the majority of the horrific crashes she responds to are preventable.

Townsville paramedic Brodie Rollason. Picture: Shae Beplate.

“The Fatal 5 … These things, they come up again and again as the causes of these crashes,” she said.

“We see not only lives taken but families really affected.

“Road safety is everyone’s responsibility, so I think it can be a bit frustrating at times to see the hurt, harm, and horror those small decisions can cause.”

Originally published as North Queensland’s flight paramedics battle road carnage on the Bruce Highway