Down on the Farm

(From Airwaves magazine - Issue 2, October 2006)

Just after Christmas 1998, farmer Dave Clouston was crushed under a 300kg haybale, breaking his spine in half.Today, Dave is a Westpac Farm Consultant and at a recent Supporters Club Function he shared his remarkable story of survival and his thoughts about the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and the people who came to his aid.

The following is an edited version of his story, in his own words.

I suppose there were various tacks I could have taken in what I was going to speak about tonight.  But at the end of the day I figure that everyone here has a pretty good handle on what the chopper does.

Though most likely, very few of you if any, have much of an idea of just what the service means to someone in the poo.

OK the background stuff.

Farm boy, born and bred down Fairlie way.  The place recently featured in the snow.  Did the high country mustering thing –  mainly at the head of Lake Tekapo and up the Rakaia Gorge.
The accident happened on the 28th December 1998 – which I think was a Wednesday.  Rather scary to think that’s nearly eight years ago.
I was farming in partnership with my ex and her parents at Whitecliffs and except for a bit of a drought that year, things were going pretty well.  That afternoon I’d gone off to load and stack about sixty big square bales of hay we’d bought in.
The truck driver was running late so rather than make him wait while I unloaded them off the truck
and stacked them in the barn I pushed all the bales off the truck with the front end loader and let him get away.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing as later we found out he was late because the bales kept falling off the truck while they were loading it.
Anyway I then proceeded to stack the bales. To best fit the barn they are stacked five high.
As the loader can only reach four high to stack five bales high you have to stack three in the barn then stack two bales on top of each other then place those two on top of the three.
As these bales weren’t very well baled, it was hard to get them right.  But to cut a long story short although the stacking wasn’t pretty, I never dreamt they would move.
Anyway, again being safety conscious, when I went to put the next ground layer bale in it wouldn’t sit right because of some loose hay on the floor of the barn.  So I backed off, jumped out of the tractor and bent over to clear the hay away.  Even though I felt secure that the stacking was safe, I remember clearly for some reason having an uneasy feeling .. “this isn’t a good place to be right now”.
It was a sixth sense sort of thing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Bugger.
I remember the impact vividly.  I was bending over and it was just a huge numbing shove from behind.  A 300kg bale falling about 10 feet kind of shove. The fifteen or so bales I had stacked had come down.
At that time there was no real pain.
The body is amazingly good at looking after itself.  People I have talked to since who have had serious accidents have said the same.
The pain came later and if you’re lucky, as in my case, you’ve been found and they can give you something for it.
Part of it is your mind just seems to switch into survival mode polarizing your thoughts to only those relevant to your situation.
I was under the bale for 50 minutes and 1 hour and note the different way of keeping time.
I remember my ex pointing it out later.  In some ways I was completely with it and in others I wasn’t.  I just couldn’t remember time in the normal way.
Basically I concentrated on keeping time as I realized it could be important to relay how long I’d been there to whoever found me.
There were a hundred and one thoughts that could have gone through my mind during that time but the only things that did, were related to survival.
My biggest driver was staying conscious. I knew it could be dangerous to lose consciousness and I really wanted to tell whoever found me to get a chopper.
The medics later commented that given my injury they were surprised I was conscious.  Perhaps it was because I focused so strongly on that issue.
My biggest fear was what the internal damage was or that I was bleeding internally because I can remember starting to feel bloated.
As it happened about 2:30 I knew I could be in for a bit of a wait.  It would be at least 6:30 before anyone would even start to wonder where I was, even later before they would come looking.
At one point I had the bright idea of digging myself our from under the bale. Even though I could see my right knee was lying under my right shoulder and could touch it and feel absolutely nothing, I just didn’t click that I wasn’t lying flat with my legs our behind me, as you’d naturally assume when you’re face down with you face just clear of the ground.
It wasn’t until discovering that what I’d presumed to be a rock high up under my sternum was in fact my right boot that the penny dropped. I wasn’t lying flat and my back must be pretty munted to have my legs folded under me in such a way.
The guts of it was I was literally folded in half.  Turns out internally it was just bruising to a kidney but my spine was like a letter J that had been flattened.
Luckily my father in law decided to check and see how I was going with the hay and found me at about 20 past 4. I remember his head suddenly appearing around the end of the bale.  I hadn’t heard him pull up as the tractor was still running.  All I said was “I think I’ve broken my back and I’ll need a chopper.” He rolled the bale off me and shot away to ring for help.  He didn’t stay and chat because I think it was pretty obvious I had.
Guess what – there’s no such thing as “dial a Westpac chopper”. First they had to send an ambulance and then they said send the chopper quick.
To say hearing the chopper in the distance was a relief would be such an understatement.  Just having the chopper there was like a huge release and it allowed me to be a bit more aware of what was going on around me.
From the time of the accident until reaching A & E was just under 4 hours.  Shock had prevented pain at the level of my break but my shoulders and neck had hardly moved in all that time and were killing me. As soon as I’d realized I had a spinal injury I’d stayed as locked in one position as I could.
They gave me something to knock me out at the doors of A & E and the last thing I recollect about 1998 was waking up just before midnight following an operation to put some steel rods in my back and throwing up over a couple of nurses.  They took it really well.  Then I went back to sleep.
The ambulance ride from Public to Burwood took well over an hour – to reduce jarring they had to travel no faster that 15kph.
I spent the next three months at Burwood.  Basically the prognosis was I was a complete T12 L1 para.  T12 L1 is the level of the break.  Depending on the nature of the damage some people have various sensations but complete para in layman’s terms essentially means below the break completely stuffed.
And what amazing piece of technology do they use in the diagnosis? They start at your toes and work their way up - with a pin till you say ouch!
The doctors do a marvellous job, but at the end of the day they only heal the body.  It’s the nurses that heal the person.  Without them the doctor’s work would be wasted.  Every time they strike I’m right behind them.  They so earn their pay.
The head physio, Beth, was an awesome lady.  Unfortunately she’s gone to Australia for decent pay.  A comment she made during my first visit to the gym sums up how well they understand.  I asked if I could use the punching bag hanging in the corner.  Beth simply said, “yes, but don’t leave any blood”.
To sum up the chair, parts of it stink.  But if you want to take that attitude at Burwood you have to be pretty determined.  From day one it’s “get over it and get on with it”.One thing that at first amazed me was that virtually straight away you were put in a ward with 3 other people.  I thought it was good old funding. But I soon realized it was on purpose.  Naturally all you want is a bit of privacy to feel sorry for yourself, but that’s the last thing you’ll get. It’s a “the world doesn’t stop just because your world has fallen to bits”, sort of thing.
At the end of the day dealing with the chair stuff is best summed up by these two sayings – figure out what you can change, accept what you can’t and have the wisdom to know the difference.
And sometimes you can’t change your circumstances but you can always choose your attitude to them.
To sum up the accident’s specific stuff I was in Burwood for 3 months.
Before Lincoln Uni, a bit of farm consultancy work and working here (at Westpac), I spent a couple of years physically farming from the chair.
I’d just like to finish by trying to put some meaning around just what the chopper means to someone who’s used it.
Firstly I remember lying in Burwood reflecting on if the accident had been way more final.  You get a lot of time to think at Burwood.  My thoughts revolved around the fact that as a farmer my biggest claim to fame, to making a difference in the world, was producing x tonnes of basic commodities that fed and clothed - in world terms -wealthy people who had choices.  The guts of what I’m trying to say here is that in comparison to the guys in the rescue team and those in the medical profession, I’d done diddly squat of real consequence.

Log on to the chopper’s website some time and check out all the missions. They’re listed per month giving a brief description of what they are for.  The truth of the matter is there are way too many accidents for the team to remember.  But I can guarantee most of the dudes rescued will remember the rescue team for the rest of their lives.
And that sentiment isn’t only limited to those who fly in the chopper. Accidents have a huge impact on family and friends.
If in one word I had to sum up what the Westpac chopper means to people in the poo, that word would be “hope”.
All of us can think of a situation, from something trivial to big, that without hope it’s easy to consider flagging it.
In an accident situation chucking the towel in can be a dodgy option.
I can honestly say that I think the reputation of the rescue chopper is great enough that just getting the chopper there is something to hang on for and give hope to the situation.
The unknown can be a scary thing and there is still a lot of unknowns once the chopper gets there.  But because of their reputation you really can’t underestimate the feeling of relief just hearing the chopper coming gives. It’s sort of like the beginning of the end of the unknown.
I’d just like to summarise what the Westpac Rescue chopper means to the people who need it - by saying that just knowing the chopper is coming changes the light at the end of the tunnel from a train - to daylight!