Rudi Welsch's Story

There was no doubt that without the RFDS I would have lost my life

I arrived in Australia from Germany with a friend in April 1960 and stayed at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp while we were being processed and work being organised for us by the government. The progress was too slow for us so we pooled our money and went to Brisbane in May as we had been told that there was plenty of work in Queensland

When we went to the employment office, because of our heavy accents we were mistaken for cane cutters and as the season hadn’t started we were turned away, as not being able to speak or understand English very well no-one realised we were available for any honest work and we thought that there was no work available through the employment office at all, later when we had learned a bit more English we understood what had happened.

However we set off looking for work and everywhere we saw a brass plaque we enquired. Some people must have thought we were dills because I know now that many of the places we went into would have been Solicitors offices and such.

Then our luck changed even though we couldn’t understand what was written on the plaque it turned out to be the Brisbane office of Mt Isa Mines and we were able to get work with them at Mt Isa. We were asked if we needed transport to the job etc and because of the language barrier did not realise the importance of the queries. If we had understood we would have been spared a fair bit of grief but we said that we would be ok and soon found that we did not have enough money for the train fare. However I was able to borrow enough from the publican where we were staying [who was also a German chap] by leaving my camera and some other belongs as security but we had very little for food for the next three days.

We were met at Mt Isa by an employee of the company who took our letter of introduction and transported us to the mines barracks where over the next couple of days we got a bit of a reputation for being big eaters having done it tough for food for a few days before we got there.

We worked for a while in the salvage yard then went onto shift work in the copper smelter. I didn’t like shift work because my biological clock wouldn’t seem to adjust so when I was offered a partnership deal in a private copper show in the N T near the Nicholson river I jumped at the chance.

There were three of us involved and we were driven the 400 miles to the mine by a Polish chap in a Land Rover. .

We worked the mine for a while and later had it inspected and was told that the main ore body was very deep and unless we had a lot of money to develop the mine we would be better advised to give it up. I wanted to take this advice and that caused some discontent amongst us so I went for a walk to let things cool down and walked to Pandanus Creek Uranium N T which was owned by South Alligator Uranium N/L and only a few miles from our camp. This mine was in the proximity of the junction of the Nicholson River and Buddycurrawa Creek.

I had a talk with the boss there and told him what had happened at our show and he offered me a job which I accepted so I collected my belongings from my old camp and started work for South Alligator in August 1961.

We were a party of 11 men at South Alligator, the boss who was also a geologist, two professional miners and the rest of us mining labourers. The mine was reputed to contain very high grade ore.

Every day we went up the hill from the camp to where we had four mine shafts. Any blasting was done at the same time each day, that is about 10AM, morning smoko, and for safety reasons everyone was required to move themselves and all tools, picks shovels air legs etc out of the drives before the charges were fired.

The miners had prepared to blast in the shaft furtherest up the hill and my workmate and myself were mullocking in the second shaft along a drive which was following a ore body and when it got close to blasting time we started moving the tools out.

Because of the direction the ore body was taking the drive had taken on a slightly upwards slope.

My mate had left the drive with a load of tools and I was gathering the rest together when there was a rock fall from the ceiling of the drive directly above me. I was bending over to pick something up when the fall occurred and two or three hundred weight of rock came down onto me mostly on my head and shoulders.

I was told that my mate rushed back into the drive when he heard the fall but the biggest rock was too heavy for him to lift off me. He somehow got me out of the drive and signalled for help. My back and shoulders had a fair bit of skin torn off but my head was the most cause for concern.

I do not have a lot of recollection about the trip out of the mine or down to the camp but one thing I do remember is hearing the doctor saying "why isn’t he dead?"

The RFDS in Cloncurry had been contacted and there was a bush airstrip about two miles from camp so the RFDS had flown in and were about to take me to the plane on a mattress on the back of a Land Rover. The road was along a dry creek bed and was very rough and by now I was having alternate bouts of in and out of consciousness and during the waking periods experienced the most painful time of my life so was probably glad to pass out again.

After taking off, the pilot was notified of another emergency on a cattle station so it was decided to pick that person up en route to Cloncurry and we got into Cloncurry at 8pm.

My head was in such a state that I had to be transported lying on my side and when they got me to hospital the full extent of my injuries were assessed. I had severe contusions to the back of my head and had lost a lot of blood but my face was a real mess. Both cheek bones were broken, the bottom jaws broken and displaced, nose broken and pushed out of place to one side, both eyes closed and there was concern that there could be damage to the eyes themselves. Apparently there was also a chance that the blow to the back of my head could cause permanent vision impairment, however, thank god, eventually my sight returned to normal.

They felt that it was to dangerous to subject me to further travel owing to my condition so a specialist surgeon was flown in to repair my face and head. He put every thing back in place but had to wire much of the broken bones together and for several weeks I could not see and had to live on fluids.

After about seven weeks on 5^{th November 1961 I was moved to hospital in Brisbane where I was subjected to further tests, some adjustments and dental procedures and eventually I made a full recovery.}

There was no doubt that without the RFDS I would have lost my life and

I shall be forever grateful to the RFDS for what they did for me.

As told to John Davis by Rudi Welsch