sinking deeper and deeper into a warm, peaceful pool of serenity. The drugs are kicking in …
Maybe I do belong here.
CHAPTER ONE
The Bells
Firefighters around the world will tell you that nothing stirs the blood like the fire station bells. How can one simple sound be so emotive? Excitement, curiosity mixed with trepidation, power and pleasure. It would hit like a hammer, sending my brain into a glorious panic. Beethoven or McCartney could only dream of achieving what one single toneless, rhythm-less bell can do to the human soul.
I joined the NSW Fire Brigades in 1990 and for 10 years, between 1996 and 2006, I was stationed at Macquarie Fields Fire Station. We occupied a block in the suburb of Glenquarie, between the police station and the ambulance station. This was said to be a working-class area, a term from yesteryear as the unemployment rate at the time was one of the highest in Sydney. Macquarie Fields, in particular, Glenquarie was a suburb that had a large Housing Commission (government-assisted accommodation) area located between the Georges River and other private housing estates. It was named after Governor Macquarie (1762–1824) by surveyor James Meehan (1774–1826) in appreciation for 2000 acres of land granted to him by Macquarie.
I held the rank of Senior Firefighter and was a qualified NSW State Rescue Operator. I was a three striper; we were supposedly the ‘cranky old bastards’ who had stayed in the job way too long. We weren’t officers, just ‘baggy-arsed firies’ who had laboured for too many years at the coalface. Although my enthusiasm for action had long gone, I was still hyper-vigilant, always on edge, a strange concoction of emotions that plagued older firies, particularly the ‘rescue dicks’.
So, I rolled up for another night shift. It began like all the rest – a quick chat with the off-going shift while changing into my uniform. I threw my frozen dinner into the microwave, allowing myself to be hypnotised by the rotating plastic container. As usual, I was a little on edge but thinking of nothing in particular, just daydreaming and ready to catch up with my crew around the mess room table.
Then thud! Like a punch in the gut, the air was energised with the screaming of the station bells.
My first instinct was to press stop on the microwave. I’d been caught before. As I locked the mess room door and headed down the hall I was trying to convince myself it was just another ‘Joey’, that’s what we called false alarms or ‘nothing calls’. A quick run in the truck and I would be back in no time, feasting on my gourmet curried chicken and rice. With the bells still echoing through the station, I made my way to the watch room where the duty officer handed me a copy of the printout from the station teleprinter. Immediately, four words leapt from the page.
Person hit by train.
Everything else seemed a blur.
Then, like soldiers deserting the battlefield, every emotion ran from my body, and I was left with just one – dread. It seemed like minutes but, in reality, it was only a few seconds before my breathing settled and I regained my composure.
Person hit by train, Minto Railway Station. There were map coordinates and line after line of Fire Brigades jargon. I grabbed my helmet and turnout coat (firefighting jacket) from my peg and jumped into a backseat of the waiting fire truck.
My fire station was one of the designated rescue stations. Our truck was a specialised vehicle carrying more than a tonne of extra equipment, vital for extricating people or animals from just about every unfortunate situation imaginable. In particular, road and rail accidents, industrial entrapments, high angle building and cliff rescues and, yes, cats in trees. It carried a crew of four, two of whom had to be state-certified rescue operators, highly trained in rescue above and beyond that of a general firefighter. Our crew of four were all rescue qualified. The Station Officer sat up front with our driver, Neil Mahony, while Bill Spek and I jumped in the back.
There was no need to look at the map. We had been to Minto railway station dozens of times, mainly for false alarms activating or other joeys. We all lived locally so choosing the quickest route wasn’t an issue. What we did need to sort out was the best side of the station to position our truck. The printout, now in the boss’s gloved hand, told us ‘southbound track’. That meant a shorter drive, which was ideal; we all knew that every second counts and any minor delay could be the difference between life and death. As our heavy-laden truck lurched and swayed like an overloaded camel, we trundled through the streets of Macquarie Fields and Minto, past modest cottages that housed enough nationalities to rival an Olympic village: Anglo-Saxons, Pacific Islanders, Indians, Australian Aborigines, Chinese, Vietnamese and Pakistanis, all cooking evening meals, resulting in a pleasant potpourri which wafted through our open windows, fighting for attention with the foul stench of sweat and stale smoke that permeated the truck’s cabin. With our siren screaming through the suburbs we overtook a struggling pushbike rider. I’m not sure why, but my immediate thought was, I wonder if he’s experiencing the doppler effect. I often think of odd things at odd times.
Fear of the unknown is a very real fear and, sometimes, for me at least, the excruciating weight of expectation could be as heavy as the truck I was riding in. Although I was the senior rescue operator among the crew, an inspirational pep talk was the furthest thing from my already cluttered mind. I would leave that for the boss, although, he would have his hands full juggling all the radio messages and organising additional crews and resources. I certainly didn't want any added pressure, it didn’t sit well with me; I had a habit of awfulising incidents and often doubted my ability to be a leader. A trait, no doubt, handed down from my father, which was probably the reason I was still a baggy-arsed firie and not a high-ranking officer like some of my college mates.
There was another crew turning out with us, from our neighbouring fire station, Ingleburn. That was a ‘retained station’, that is, they were a part-time station. This meant that when their pagers activated, they would down tools at their workplace or stop whatever they were doing at home, jump into their cars and drive to the fire station. The truck could then proceed to the incident only when the minimum number of crew members arrived. From the radio chatter filling our cab, we knew Ingleburn were on their way but were a few minutes behind us.
As Neil swung our truck into the railway station carpark, my head was spinning with past training drills, rescue protocols, scenarios and scene assessments. Trying to ignore my whirring nerve ends was like trying to ignore a toothache.
If the poor victim was actually under the train, I needed to liaise with the railway station personnel, place a signaller up and down the track, lower the carriage pantographs, locate the driver and ensure he has removed the keys, chock the wheels, decide on the equipment needed. Had I forgotten anything? Oh yeah, take a few deep breaths and calm down.
Once on the platform, I was confronted by a very young uniformed cop. It was bad; I could see it on his face, his contorted brow and owl-like eyes gave him away, his cover was blown, his bravado had abandoned him. Along with the stationmaster, they confirmed my worst fears.
The stationmaster whispered, ‘A teenage boy jumped down onto the tracks.’
Apparently, for reasons unknown at the time, he had laid his head on the cold steel rail then waited for the inevitable to happen. This was confirmed later by the station’s CCTV footage and the train driver:
‘I saw someone lying on the track from over 100 metres away but I just couldn’t stop in time.’
The boy was located two carriages back, still under the train. There was a very high probability he was dead, but at that
