Bill O'Connor's Story
Bill O’Connor tells his story about the post hole digger and if it had not been for the RFDS…
Narriarra is about sixty km a bit north of east of Tibooburra and in 1962 I was rebuilding a fence several miles from the homestead. The job had been started by a chap by the name of Ernie Porch and his brother Bob. Bob put a axe through his foot so they pulled out and another chap named Billy Squires took over the job and he got a couple of miles done and managed to cut off two of his fingers. So I took over the job to finish it and got my leg tangled up in the post hole digger and it got torn off, this is what happened.
The post hole digger was an old Mobilco and had no cut off switch at the end where the operator would be controlling the machine and as I moved the lever to put the augur in place to dig a hole for a strainer post it hit a root an bucked back a couple of yards and caught a length of wire from the old fence that I had pulled out of the way, the wire caught my left leg and dragged me straight into the digger and wrapped me around underneath it.
My leg was broken at the ankle, the shin and torn almost completely off at the knee it was hanging by just a piece of skin on the inside of my leg with the bone sticking out about three inches my heart was doing a great job pumping blood out in a 6 or 7 inch fountain.
The chap that was with me was at the other end of the post hole digger but did not know the location of the cut out switch so he pulled the lead off the spark plug of the post hole digger to stop it but was not able to help me get untangled from under the digger and the wire, as he could not handle the sight of the damage, so I told him to go and get my father and he took off without giving me the pliers so that I could free myself. As it turned out the wire was only caught by a small hook and so I was able to get untangled but I knew that I had to control the blood flow, so I pulled the belt out of my shorts but that wasn’t good enough so I got a piece of wire from the old fence and put it around the leg and pulled it as tight as I could then twitched it up until the blood stopped flowing.
I knew that I probably would not be able to stand the pain if the protruding bone touched the ground so I got a stick and put it on top of my uninjured leg then under my stump and across onto the post that was supposed to go into the hole that I was digging this kept my stump off the ground.
By now I was very thirsty but did not have a water bag there, it had gone home with the Ute so I got my pipe out and lit up a smoke but it tasted terrible so I gave that idea away.
My dad and brother Jim turned up in due course and got me to the house on the back of the Ute and the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (RFDS) was summonsed by radio and they flew in. Vic Cover was the pilot and Dr Healey was the medico. [Dr Healey was a relieving RFDS Doctor at that time].
The ambulance met the plane at Broken Hill airport and I was rushed to hospital and into the care of surgeon Mr Gibson. I had lost too much blood however to be operated on so I was put on ice so to speak until they got my blood count and pressure up and Mr Gibson would not allow me to be moved off the ambulance stretcher to be x-rayed so the x-ray was done with me still on that stretcher.
My leg was amputated later that night but if it had not have been for the RFDS I would have been just another sad statistic from the bush as I do not think anyone could have survived a long trip to medical aid on the back of a truck in my condition. The journey to a hospital where the necessary treatment could have been administered was over 300km away .
This account is as told to John Davis by Bill O’Connor.
© John Davis & Bill O'Connor May 2008
Footnote: Bill O’Connor returned to Narriarra after 8 months convalescence and rehabilitation and eventually took control and has run the property ever since. He was 24 when he lost his leg and is 72 now.