From an emergency service worker

On the Friday night before, I heard John Brumby say, 'Tomorrow will be the worst day in our history.'

It's funny that after such a grave warning, it still took a while for the enormity of the fires to sink in.

As an emergency service worker rostered on to do the 14hr night shift on Saturday, I guessed that I might get sent up the mountain to help. Before I left I stocked up with certain equipment and stores, just in case it got worse than I anticipated. And before I knew it I was getting waved through the road blocks on the Melba Highway and getting closer and closer to the haze that I had been watching from a distance. But even then I had no knowledge of the size of this problem. I started to fidget in my seat a little as I began to feel the radiant heat of the fires that had penetrated the truck I was in. It got so hot there even my partners' shoes melted to the road as soon as he stepped out to help the first victim! And as we needed to be escorted down the highway, dodging the falling electricity poles and burning trees that lined the road, I started to feel my heart go significantly faster than usual!

The scenes I saw there were what I imagined the last day on earth would look like. The visibility was pretty bad- smoke and ash were everywhere. It was dark but you could see fires burning not only in the distance, but just a few metres away on the sides of the road. In a desperate attempt to evacuate, people had been trying to drive far too quickly in a poor visibility area and there were car crashes lining the sides of the road- Most we did not stop for, the flames had already caught up to those who were trapped in their cars.

Although you might expect the injuries sustained to just be burns, burns and more burns (which certainly did happen), the residents of King Lake and King Lake West (where I worked) were injured in all sorts of ways. Broken bones from desperately jumping from windows and from car crashes, smoke inhalation, the unconscious, head injured, dehydrated, respiratory complications, eye trauma. Injuries that would normally get seen by an emergency ambulance were instead triaged low (by comparison) and people with significant burns instead had to drive themselves to a hospital. Even if emergency services wanted to transport patients there was not always a choice. I got stuck in Yarra Glen for 3 hours as the fire surrounded us and we had to wait until a route out was created.

It was not only the horrible trauma to people that affected me. I'll never forget driving past a paddock that was on fire, with a herd of cows still alive, but on fire. Seeing that knocked the wind out of me.

I was pretty amazed to hear the escape stories of those well enough to talk to me- Those who had hidden underneath something and just gritted their teeth as they felt the flames wash over them. Those who injured themselves whilst watching someone they love get burnt, or flip their car in the poor visibility.

The damage is widespread- in physical distance, in variety of damage and in emotional hurt. Nearly everybody I know feels this has personally affected them. It left me saying to God 'Is this going to be another one of those unexplainable events?

C.