Wyong Fire Brigade share tales of desperate river rescues, donut spills and the night the emergency came to them
Go behind the scenes with three Wyong fire captains as they share tales of desperate after-dark river rescues, donut spills and the night the emergency came to their own station.
Central Coast
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A day, and night, bunkered down with Wyong Fire Bridgade, can often throw up a ‘situation’ or three. From after-dark water rescues to donut spills - the Central Coast fireys have seen it all.
When they pulled up to a job on an otherwise ordinary afternoon to find people in the water that “pretty much pulled the trigger” for Wyong Fire Brigade to execute a hastily formed plan.
Only minutes earlier, the retained firefighters were sitting around the station “having a chin wag” when a call came in that a car had left the road and plunged into Wyong River.
Being the strongest swimmer it was decided en route that Deputy Captain Tim Farlow would dress down to his “light blues” in the event they would have to enter the water.
“It was the 5th of September (2017), I remember because it was my sister’s birthday,” Dept Capt Farlow recalled.
When they arrived a male police officer was pulling a woman out of the river who had witnessed the car plunge into the water.
She was “buggered and a mess herself” from trying to “swan dive” down to the wreckage.
The male officer had also stripped down.
The report was of a male, 69, driving the car before it left the road. They had no idea who else could be trapped inside.
“I spoke to him and I said, the first thing I remember was looking, and saying ‘where’s ya gun?’,” Dept Capt Farlow said.
“I was hoping he wasn’t going to leave his gun on the side of the bank but he’s like ‘my partner’s got it’.
“I’ve quickly gone through some water techniques, only holding onto the rope, not tying it off in case a bit of drift wood comes along and drags you under.”
With the sun starting to fade the pair took turns diving down as far as their burning lungs would allow, scrambling to touch anything metal in the murky darkness.
“The only thing we could pinpoint where we were (close) was we could taste fuel,” he said.
Every time he resurfaced Dept Capt Farlow said he saw another emergency service vehicle had turned up with spotlights being quickly established.
By the time the Volunteer Rescue Association turned up in a boat, the fireman and the police officer left the water.
Sadly the rescue, had turned into a recovery.
The PolAir helicopter picked up a heat signature down near the bridge and police divers were able to recover the 69-year-old’s body.
By this stage it was confirmed he was the only victim.
In the days to follow police divers would salvage the car in 11m of water.
A report for the Coroner later found the man was intoxicated and had a heart attack, which caused him to swerve off the road.
The officer who also dived in, Senior Constable Andrew Mitchell, was later singled out for a NSW Police bravery commendation.
Dept Capt Farlow received nothing. Perhaps NSW Fire & Rescue expect that kind of heroism as par for the course.
KRISPY KREME MILK TRUCK CHAOS
Wyong Captain Jamie Loader was “probably asleep” when a call came through about a motor vehicle accident at the roundabout on Wyong Rd and Britannia Ave at Watanobbi.
Unknown to him at the time, a man, who’d only been out of jail for a month, was blind drunk and on a mission to get home.
It was 10.50pm on July 27, 2017, and in his inebriated state the 26-year-old man saw a 10-tonne Pantech delivery truck with the engine still running parked at the 7-Eleven service station at Wyong.
He got in, revved the engine a few times before managing to put it in gear.
The truck’s GPS would later reveal he tried to take the roundabout at 87km/h only to get airborne, spin around and plough into the rear of two homes.
The man was ejected through the windscreen.
“I remember the airconditioning unit from the refrigerated truck was lying next to him,” Capt Loader said.
“There was milk, Krispy Kreme doughnuts ... all sorts of those products from the 7-Eleven just everywhere, like for 100m down the road you were still finding chocolate milks.
“There was a really funny scene where what looked like an awning had been thrown over one side of the house and that turned out to be the roof of the Pantech.”
Capt Loader said it took until dawn to secure the damaged homes and extricate the truck which was leaking fuel.
“The fuel tanks had broken off and were on the ground underneath the truck, so they couldn’t drag it out or it would rupture the tanks,” he said.
The would-be truck thief, along with a family inside the house damaged the most, miraculously survived.
He was later sentenced to a year’s jail after tests found he had a blood alcohol reading of 0.252 — more than five times the limit.
He pleaded guilty to car theft, drink driving, driving without a licence and destroying property with $250,000 damage done to the house, $15,000 to the truck and $10,000 to the house next door.
WHEN ACTION COMES TO THE BACK DOOR
Dept Capt Farlow was on a pre-dawn train to his day job when he got a call from a fellow retained firefighter, who works as a paramedic.
“I received the call before the pager even went off from a firefighter who was working in the ambulance station behind,” he said.
“I said, ‘What’s wrong, Matty?’ and he’s said a car’s gone through the fence and landed on your car’.
“And I said ‘WHAT?’ At this time of the morning I’m like, ‘what are you going on about?’
“And then he started sending me photos.”
The brigade had been called to The Grand Hotel at Wyong, behind the fire station following reports of a pursuit.
Police had pursued a stolen Toyota Hilux into the pub’s car park behind the station before the offender ploughed into the station’s metal fence.
The stolen car and the fence damaged Dept Captain Farlow’s 4WD, which he’d parked there before catching the train.
Captain Loader said they arrived and walked straight around the back to where the stolen ute was before “walking back round” to the rear of the fire station where the extent of the damage to Dept Capt Farlow’s car was discovered.
And it wasn’t even the first time a car had ploughed through the station’s fence.
“We seem to get more than our fair share of these weird ones,” Capt Loader said.