Let’s keep it real – Saturday, June 27th was the day Geoff Salmond “dodged a bullet”. Geoff was on a quad bike checking fences at a Cattle Creek property when a steep slope, drop in terrain and heavy grass saw him face a real-life challenge.
“I stopped the quad bike and thought that the front wheels would touch the ground and the bike would level out. The dip was heavily grassed and probably in hindsight 5-6 feet high. As soon as I released the hand brake, I could feel the bike drop. It flicked me into the air.”
Geoff was thrown backward, his head hit the ground hard, but after strict instructions from his wife that “helmets save lives”, he was prepared with the right equipment.
“I felt a rush of adrenaline. I thought I had better roll the bike back onto its wheels. It was then I realised I couldn’t sit up, so I checked if I could move my arms and legs.
Weirdly enough I had the day before googled how to find the coordinates of your location, so I rang the property manager and told him of the accident and my coordinates, he called 000.
I was also able to call my wife to let her know. She is a physio and so asked me a few questions about how I was and from there I just waited.”
Queensland Ambulance Officers were in touch with Geoff to check how he was going. In the meantime, he was tracking the helicopter on his flight radar 24 app.
“I could see it was heading straight for me. The helicopter reached me about 12:30pm and circled a few times as they couldn’t see me but knew they were at the right coordinates.”
By then the neighbouring property owner had received the location and driven to the scene. He communicated with the CapRescue pilot and turned on his hazard lights and they were then able to pinpoint where Geoff was.
“They were not able to land close as it was too heavily timbered. They winched paramedics down and I was transferred into the stretcher basket and I was winched to the helicopter. The only thing I was afraid of was that the winch didn’t snap!”
Rescue300 took Geoff to the Rockhampton Hospital to start his long road to rehabilitation.
“At this point, I would like to thank my wife, the manager of the property, Richard from the neighbouring property, friends and family, especially from Toorilla Plains, who made a donation on my behalf to CapRescue.
“And most importantly huge thanks to RACQ CapRescue and Queensland Health for all the care I received. Much to the amazement of the doctors in Brisbane I started to run again in October and am now fully recovered and back to running 30 km per week and doing all the activities that I had done previously.”
So many things made a real difference on the day RACQ CapRescue was tasked to Geoff’s side, help our real heroes continue saving real lives donate today.