A Darwin man reunited with the CareFlight crew that saved his life

Scenes of raw emotion haved unfolded after a Darwin man was reunited with the CareFlight crew that saved his life. IN PICTURES.

TO emphasise how close he was to losing his life, Chris Garner held his index finger and thumb close enough together that only a sheet of paper could fit through it.

“I was this close to death,” he said.

Chris lives around the corner from the CareFlight hangar at Darwin Airport and until August last year – when one of their lifesaving charters flew him to an Adelaide hospital with a collapsed lung – he had no idea the service helped Territorians like himself.

Chris Garner gives CareFlight pilot Nick Palad an emotional hug reuniting after his lung collapsed and he nearly lost his life, eight months ago. Picture: Floss Adams.

“I always thought that CareFlight rescues people that get stranded on boats and remote communities,” Chris said. “You talk about football players as heroes but the doctors in Adelaide told me if I hadn’t gotten there so quickly, I would have died.

“What they do for Territorians, really they are heroes.”

It was an unexpected nightmare for Chris, his wife Ruth and daughters Ashlyn, 8, and Kayleigh, 5.

“I have asthma so I thought it was my lungs and treated it like asthma attacks,” he said. “But what actually happened is I had an infection in my lung.”

His whole right lung “filled up” and collapsed. Ruth rushed an agonised Chris to Royal Darwin Hospital in the early hours of an August morning last year.

“I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to my two little girls, I just had to leave home straight away,” Chris said.

Staff at the Royal Darwin Hospital staff performed a quick procedure on Chris and then sent him with CareFlight to Adelaide.

The small plane turned into an airborne hospital, simulating the same resources with tubes and apparatuses strung everywhere in bid to save Chris’s life.

Chris Garner steps inside the plane after visiting it again for the first time since the incident. Picture: Floss Adams.

CareFlight flight nurse Jody Lee worked on Chris and kept him alive for the whole two hour flight, while pilots Nick Palad and Marc White guided the plane.

The speed in which Chris was taken Adelaide is why he still sees the sun rise and set.

“When I realised it was CareFlight that had saved my life, I burst into tears I was so grateful,” he said.

This past Wednesday, eight months later, Chris reunited with the team who saved his life.

There were hugs, tears, and endless thank you's.

Chris and his family have registered a team in this year’s CareFlight Territory Challenge, a month-long fitness challenge where participants run, walk, ride or swim to raise funds for the service.

“If all the efforts that we make to do volunteer work and to raise awareness and to actually be hands on raising money … if that helps save one more Territorian like me, it’s worth it,” he said.

Chris Garner and his wife Ruth speak to the media with CareFlight plane in the background which flew him to an Adelaide hospital in a critical state. Picture: Floss Adams.

Chris urged anyone interested to join the challenge.

For more information or to register, visit careflightchallenge.org.

Chris still faces ongoing health challenges but now finds peace in the finer details of life.

“There’s so many things that I’ve got perspective on about life. (I’m) really appreciating the laughing children in the house, going to the markets … There’s just so many things in life,” he said.