Senior Sergeant Heath Merry inspires with one man campaign against workplace trauma

A KNIFE-wielding thief has a quick-thinking police sergeant to thank for saving him from being gunned down.

Sen Sgt Heath Merry of Broadmeadows police station nominated for a Pride of Australia. Picture: Jay Town

A KNIFE-wielding thief has a quick-thinking police sergeant to thank for saving him from being gunned down.

The crook had just robbed a Broadmeadows liquor store when he was confronted by a junior police officer.

Instead of fleeing, he ran straight towards the officer, screaming: “You’re looking for me? I’m going to kill you.”

Senior Sergeant Heath Merry, in a nearby police car, saw the young officer, gun drawn, and the thief.

He sped around the corner and drove the police car between them, forcing the thief to jump back and flee.

He then drove after the running fugitive until the man became so exhausted he was unable to evade arrest.

“He was getting pretty close to shooting the fella,” Sen-Sgt Merry said of his young colleague.

“He said he had no other option. I guess the end result was we didn’t shoot anyone that day.”

Sen-Sgt Merry has a record of helping junior officers in traumatic situations.

He has been known to pull them off jobs, such as a train suicide and a child’s drowning, and instead attend himself.

That attitude is a legacy of a particularly harrowing job going back more than a decade.

He and a colleague, then in their early 20s, were called to the suicide of a woman at her Werribee home. When her husband arrived, he asked where his children were.

They searched for the two young children and found them, drowned, in the spa bath.

Next day, Sen-Sgt Merry found his workmate’s uniform and badge on the boss’s desk, with a note reading: “Shove your job up your arse.”

His colleague didn’t answer calls or knocks at his door, and most officers at the police station never saw him again.

Three years later, Sen-Sgt Merry spotted his old partner down the street, working as a door-to-door salesman.

“The moment he saw my face, he went white,” he recalled.

“He said, ‘I can’t cope, I can’t cope’. He was just a mess.

“I had to drive away and leave him, which was ... hard.

“I think about that now every time when we get jobs.”

Sen-Sgt Merry took classes to learn about post-traumatic stress.

Now, he meets police psychologists to try to prevent history from repeating itself.

He hopes to introduce mandatory psychological debriefings, and to create a DVD for members after traumatic jobs so they can watch it, or give it to their partners.

Sen-Sgt Merry has been nominated by a colleague for the Heroism Medal in the Pride of Australia awards.