Bendigo Creek flood nearly cost grandmother Marlene Wing-Quay her life

A Bendigo woman has been reunited with her “heroes” — the SES members she credits with saving her life. See her incredible story of survival.

When floodwater burst through Bendigo Creek, sweeping her car off the road and into the treacherous waterway, Marlene Wing-Quay feared she may not survive to see her children again.

Now she has been reunited with the two men she credits for getting her out of the most dangerous situation of her life.

Ms Wing-Quay waded through paddocks and clung onto a fence in rushing floodwaters on October 22 for more than an hour.

She managed to catch the attention of an SES vehicle manned by Bendigo unit officers Braden Verity and Trent Ross.

“It was a miracle, they are my heroes,” she said.

SES Bendigo rescuers Trent Ross and Brayden Verity with Marlene Wing-Quay. Picture: Julieanne Strachan

“I knew if I hung onto that fence I would come to a house. I was counting the fence posts.

“I stood up in the middle of that road, I opened my black and white shirt up to a white t-shirt underneath, and they flashed me their lights and I knew they had seen me.”

The red Mercedes Benz swept away by Bendigo creek on October 22, 2022. Marlene Wing-Quay managed to escape through a window.

Ms Wing-Quay had escaped her red Mercedes Benz through a window.

The vehicle was found the following day, having been tossed hundreds of metres by the fast flowing waters.

The SES unit officers discovered her by chance just before 11pm, on their way to another job in Woodvale, northwest of Bendigo.

Mr Ross got out of the vehicle and, using SES rescue equipment, waded through 100m of water to save the grandmother.

Mr Verity said the stakes had been very high.

“If she’d fallen over she would have drowned right there,” he said.

“The creek was really flowing out where she was, coming up the her knees and like something you see on a clip of white-water rafting.”

Ms Wing-Quay, who had been on her way home that evening, said she had never seen conditions like it in her 30 years at her rural Woodvale property.

“I am a local Bendigo girl. My grandparents were married here in 1913,” she said.

“My family is the children and grandchildren now. And I’m one of 15 so there are lots of brothers and sisters and nieces.”