I dropped my camera and rushed to help after discovering mayhem of Army trucks rollover

In the drizzly rain, I couldn’t make out what was ahead of me as I turned a corner on a windy road south of Lismore, making my way back there after photographing floodwaters in the town of Coraki.

Stopping the car, I picked up the long lens of my camera and the shape in front of me became clear. An Australian Army truck had flipped on its side and was stretched across the road.

After capturing a couple of frames and putting my gear down, the gravity of the situation soon became apparent.

Racing round the other side of the vehicle, I found Australian Defence Force personnel everywhere; some walking wounded, some just lying on the ground. It was mayhem and at that stage I didn’t even realise there had been another truck involved in the accident, which had rolled into a paddock.

I’m a Rural Fire Service brigade member on Sydney’s northern beaches so I immediately went into RFS mode. One of the things we deal with all the time are motor vehicle accidents, so the first thing I tried to establish was who was in charge and to get an idea of how many injuries there might be. I also rang the emergency services.

The scene was pretty confronting. The truck was positioned as if it had been driving one way and had been picked up and turned 90 degrees. It was obviously it had skidded, jack-knifed and rolled in the wet conditions.

There were 32 soldiers on the trucks from the Army’s 7th Brigade, based in Brisbane, and they had been in the area clearing roads from the damage caused by ex-tropical cyclone Alfred.

Our first-aid training with the RFS is pretty basic so I was just trying to work out who was badly injured and who shouldn’t be moved. A lot of it was actually just calming the Army guys down to stop them from moving people before they’ve been checked out.

A high-ranking pandemic arrived after about 10 minutes and he was able to begin proper triage. Others including my colleagues at the RFS soon turned up as well. Every unit required for an incident like this was fortunately close by.

With emergency services on the ground, I got out of the way as many of those on the trucks were transported to hospitals in Ballina, Byron Bay, Lismore and Tweed, and hung around to help the RFS guys wind up their hoses.

I’ve come across a lot of stuff in my career where things just happen in front of you, particularly when you put yourself into disaster situations. But when you’re one of the first on the scene for something like this, you have to forget about taking photos and try and help.

I wasn’t aware of what had happened at the time, but we now know one that one of the troop carriers lost control before the other one tipped over while trying to avoid it.

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After eventually heading back to Lismore, it was only late on Saturday night that I heard that the 13 personnel who had been injured were expected to make a full recovery, which is incredible.

I still didn’t get much sleep, going over things in my head about what I could have done differently.

But waking up to know they’re all going to be OK has taken a load off my mind, especially as they were young men up here to assist with the disaster response.

I’m proud I was able to help.