Miracle on Mont-Blanc/ By Catherine Galitzine

Miracle on Mont-Blanc/ By Catherine Galitzine

For three weeks, the young French couple had remained lost and snowbound in the Alps. They were as good as dead. Suddenly, 22-year-old Patricia rebelled. “I don’t want to die,” she cried. So they decided to walk out—or die trying.

            Their skis hissed across the untracked snow as Patricia and Herve Ranville made for the Anterne Pass, high in the French Alps. Married for four years and sharing a love for ski-trekking, the couple had decided to spend New Year’s Eve skiing and camping on Mont-Blanc. That night, they pitched their tent at an altitude of 1,878 metres and celebrated the coming of 1981 with packaged soup, rice and chocolate, washed down with snow melted on their little bottled-gas stove. Then, snug in their double goose down bag, they wished each other a Happy New Year and slipped into a peaceful sleep.

            Herve, 23, and Patricia, 22, were both teachers in the Yvelines department. They had discovered the joy of ski-trekking two years before. Realizing the potential hazards of their new sport, they prepared for each outing carefully—riding bicycles and practicing rock-climbing to develop their wind, doing yoga to increase self-control, using sophisticated equipment, mapping their routes from guide-books.

            Originally, they had planned a four-day expedition from the village of Chamonix to Sixt, via the Le Buet peak and the Anterne Pass. However, weather forecasts had forced them to re-route and shorten their trek, to two days and one night on the mountain. As they were leaving the Refuge du Tour, a little inn near Chamonix, Herve told the caretaker of their new plans.

            When Patricia opened the tent flap on New Year’s Day, she found that clouds were hovering over the Anterne Pass above them, fog swirled around the tent. “Mustn’t waste time,” she said, folding up their things.

            Wrong route.

            She and Herve went through the pass, set their ski bindings in running position and crossed the Anterne Plateau on their way down towards the valley floor. Around noon, a dense fog forced them to slow down. From then on, they navigated exclusively by compass and altimeter.

            Every 50 metres, Herve checked their position on their map to be sure they were following the right trail. At 2 p.m. the fog lifted briefly to reveal the high-voltage power pylon mentioned in their guide-book. “It’s okay,” Herve exclaimed. “We’re on the right track.” Since they were obviously not going to reach Sixt that day, they decided to put up their tent near the pylon. One night more in the mountains wouldn’t make much difference; they still had food for two days.  

            The next morning the fog was gone. Packing their belongings, the couple skied off  towards the north-west. Soon the slope became steep. Then suddenly, there was nothing before them but a sheer cliff overlooking a long drop. Realizing they had taken the wrong route, Herve and Patricia trudged back up to the pylon and started again; this time they went further to the pylon’s left—only to wind up peering into the same abyss. It was too late for another try now. They simply would have to set up the tent where they were and spent another night on the mountain.

            The next day, they slogged back up to the pylon. There, Patricia re-read the guide-book for what seemed the twentieth time. “ The trail must be somewhere off to the left, “ she said. Herve interrupted: “Look there! Ski tracks!” Laughing with relief, they started off. But they didn’t go far before realizing that the tracks were their own. Patricia dropped to the snow. The unending whiteness suddenly seemed hostile. She and Herve had been gone four days, and for the first time they were beginning to worry.

            For the third time, they struggled back to the pylon and set up the tent out of the path of possible avalanches. Threatening clouds piled up in the sky, and fat snowflakes began to fall. “We’re probably in for a few days of bad weather,” Herve said.

            Panic sets in.

            Fortunately they had begun cutting their rations the previous day. They still had one small tank of fuel and slightly over 5,000 calories of food. By keeping to 500 calories a day each, they could hold out for five more days. For the next four days and nights the snow was unrelenting. Herve and Patricia left their tent only to brush away the snow. All around them, huge avalanches broke loose with a terrifying noise. Panic was beginning to overtake them. They slashed their already restricted calorie allotment in half, causing spells of vertigo and spots in front of their eyes.

            The snowstorm ended on January 8. Around 9 a.m. the couple heard a helicopter. Herve grabbed his red overalls and waved them frantically, shouting “Hey! Hey!” But the helicopter was already disappearing beyond the pass. “It’s not possible,” Herve said, his voice broken. “He didn’t see us.” Later in the afternoon, they spotted a second helicopter, but it was even further away than the first.

            The next morning, the sun was out again. If help didn’t come, Herve thought, they would have to backtrack to their starting point. But for the moment, it would be foolish to move. They had to wait for the snow to pack down. “You know, Pat,” Herve said, “in mountains, they don’t stop searching, just like that. They’ll certainly be back.

            Patricia’s parents had reported the couple missing to the High Mountain Gendarmerie Station in Chamonix on January 5, four days before. But when authorities questioned the caretaker of the inn where the Ranvilles had stayed, he had forgotten Herve’s parting words about a change in route; all he remembered was that the couple was heading for the area around Le Buet. When the snowstorm ended, police inspected the region on foot and from the air; they flew over the Anterne Pass, but a high voltage wire prevented them from flying low enough to spot the couple.

            As the days wore on, it seemed impossible to the rescuers that the Ranvilles could have survived more than ten days in storms and minus 25 degree C. cold. On January 11, the search was suspended because of bad weather. As tactfully as possible, a young policeman prepared the couple’s parents for the worst.

            The next day, January 12, Patricia and Herve were certain the search had been called off. Four days had gone by since they sighted the helicopters. During that time, nothing broke the oppressive silence of the mountain. “If we don’t get ourselves out of this, we’re done for. We have to backtrack,” Patricia declared. After much debate, she convince Herve to take the food they had—some cheese and hazelnuts—and go to search for help. Herve didn’t like the idea of going alone. But, reluctantly, he began the painful climb towards the Anterne Pass.

            After three and a half hours, he had gone only 300 metres. Then he saw clouds rushing towards him, indicating that it would soon be snowing. He returned to the tent.

            The next day, the couple awoke to find that their tent buried under 50 centimetres of powdery snow. That evening, when he peeled off his boots and socks, Herve found that his toe had gone blue. He knew there was very little he could do about frostbite except drink huge quantities of water, but the last little bottle of fuel was half empty. He forced himself to eat some snow, even though he knew every mouthful swallowed would lower his body temperature. Before going to sleep, the couple dined on one raisin each.

            Blocked for another two days in their tent by a terrific storm, Herve and Patricia contemplated their imminent death with composure. They passed the time writing wills and farewell messages. Suddenly, Patricia rebelled. “I don’t want to die,” she cried. Herve helped her do some yoga exercises to regain her calm, and finally they fell asleep.

            Next morning, Patricia decided: “Whatever the weather, we’re leaving now.” They had nothing to lose. Weren’t they as good as dead already?

            It took them four hours to dress, dismantle the tent and close their bags. Finally, around 12.30 p.m., moving like a pair of robots, they plunged into the storm back towards Chamonix.

            Nightmare trek.

            Guided only by their compass and altimeter, Herve and Patricia trekked for three days. On the fourth morning, the storm grew too violent to travel. The wind gusted at 120 kilometres an hour. Visibility was zero. Lying in their sleeping-bag, they wondered where they were and how long their tent would resist the elements. Herve’s feet began to thaw in the warmth of the sleeping-bag, and the pain was excruciating. “Talk to me, Pat,” he begged. “For God’s sake, don’t stop talking.”

            For 12 straight hours, Patricia described imaginary feasts, recited recipes, talked about anything that would distract Herve from his suffering.

            Like a curtain rising on a stage, the fog lifted from the mountain the next morning to reveal the flat, smooth surface of Anterne Lake. Herve’s navigation had been perfect!

            They decided to climb 200 metres higher to the Anterne Pass. Patricia fainted three times while preparing to leave. When they finally managed to break camp four hours later, Herve fell several times in the first few metres they covered. “We’ll never make it,” he muttered. In despair, they almost pitched their tent again. Then, somehow, they found the strength to go on.

            Six nightmarish hours brought them to the pass. There they decided to descend another 200 metres, still heading towards Chamonix, to the “Moede Canteen” shelter. But it was boarded up. They tried to hack open a window with their ice picks. Impossible. There were iron shutters behind the boards. Philosophically, they pitched their tent for the last time. Tomorrow they would reach a village—or they would die.

            The next morning, Herve and Patricia set off again, moving into a narrow gorge whose walls were lined with heavy layers of snow that might fall at any moment. It was madness to navigate between them, but it was their last chance. Each time one of them fell, it took nearly half an hour to get up. Oblivious to hunger, thirst and pain, they struggled forward on a prodigious wave of hope.

            Around 5 p.m., on January 22, a passer-by who lived in the village of Le Mont, saw a pair of strange, skeleton-like skiers. Rushing to meet them, he asked, “Are you the two youngsters they’ve been looking for?”

            “Yes, I think so,” Patricia stammered. “We’re the ones.”

            Patricia and Herve Ranville were treated for frostbite at the hospital in Chamonix. Herve had to have all ten toes amputated. In 22 days, he had lost 15 kilos, Patricia 12.

            Early in their six-month convalescence, the couple discovered why they hadn’t been able to find the trail to Sixt. The guide-book’s description of the route was incomplete and misleading.

            To all mountain climbers, the experience of these two young teachers is a formidable lesson. Thanks to excellent equipment, judicious rationing and a tremendous will to live, they had held out far longer than anyone had thought possible.

“if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail”                 -Abraham Maslow

***********              ************            ***********

“ Discipline without freedom is tyranny;

freedom without discipline is chaos.”

***********              ************            ************

   “ Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.”

***********              ************            ************

“When you don’t know what you want,

you often end up where you don’t want to be.”

***********              ************            ************

“There are two types of people  –

Those who come into a room and say,

“well, here I am!” and

those who come in and say

“ah, there you are.”

***********              ************            ************

 

“Asking politicians to give up a source of money

is like asking dracula to forsake blood.”

***********              ************            ************

 

“You are permitted in times of great danger

to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.”

***********              ************            ************

“Did I come this far to die” / By Sheldon Kelly

“Did I come this far to die” / By Sheldon Kelly

“On the night of February 4, 1982, Doris Callahan was awakened in her Dover, Massachusetts, home by a terrible vision of her son Steven. At the time of the revelation, Steven was sailing alone in a small yacht in the mid-Atlantic. “I could actually see him,” Doris told her husband, Edgar. “He was clawing up through dark, murky water.”

            Doris tried to set her dream aside. For Steven, the nightmare was just beginning.”

            It was nearing midnight when Steven Callahan, 29, lay down on the bunk of his seven-metre sloop Napoleon Solo. In the seven days since leaving the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa, he had sailed 1,300 kilometres. This was the last leg of his round-trip crossing of the Atlantic, a demanding test for the boat he had designed and built as the prototype of a small ocean-cruising yacht. With fair winds he would reach the Caribbean island of Antiqua ahead of his scheduled arrival date of February 24. But tonight, February 4, a storm was brewing.

            Suddenly, there was a tremendous crash against the hull. In seconds Callahan was waist-deep in water, and the boat seemed about to sink. He grabbed a knife and tried to cut loose his survival duffel bag. The boat listed more steeply. She’s going down, he thought, taking me with her! He broke through the hatch. Waves lapped over the deck, and the bow was completely submerged.

            Callahan cut loose the life raft, then jerked the cord to inflate it. Placing the knife between his teeth, he leapt to the raft as the mast’s anti-collision strobe light short-circuited and began flashing surreal shadows against the roiling ocean.

            Floating close to the sinking boat, Callahan cut away a section of the mainsail, and grabbed two floating cabbages and a tin of coffee. It would not be enough! His life depended upon getting that survival duffel bag. He tied the raft to the stern, re-boarded, and then ducked into the pitch-black water that filled the cabin.

            Disaster strikes.

            He surfaced for air several times as he cut away at the bag’s tie-downs. Finally he freed the bag. When he turned to leave, the hatch was sealed shut by water. This is it! Callahan thought. He clawed at the escape route, struggling for his life.

            Suddenly, the hatch blew open, and Callahan emerged, gasping for air. He boarded the raft and tied a long cord to the stern of Solo. If  the ship remained afloat, he, would re-board her in the morning and gather more provisions.

            Just before dawn, the cord snapped. Callahan watched as the mast’s flashing light grew smaller, then vanished. Adrift on a tiny raft, he thought first of trying to keep warm, and then of the creature—probably a whale—that had shattered the sloop’s hull.

            The sky remained dark and rainy throughout the day. Waves rose to six metres in gale-force winds, often completely submerging the two-metre circular raft. Callahan bailed with his salvaged coffee tin. Salt-water sores had developed on his knees and elbows; deep cuts on his thighs and back—suffered in Solo’s flooded cabin—made movement painful. During lulls, he took stock of what were now his life’s most precious possessions.

            Included in the survival duffel bag were a kilo and a half of food, ten days’ supply of water, a spear gun, a beacon-sending radio, ropes and cords, a Boy Scout utensil set, two flashlights and three solar water stills—each capable of producing by condensation about half a litre of fresh water daily. He also had a rocket gun, flares and an air pump, a plastic box containing navigational charts and a sea-survival book.

            Too far.

            Callahan listened to the signals being broadcast from his radio and studied the chart. He was 565 kilometres east of the nearest shipping lanes, drifting in a north equatorial current, and weeks away from potential rescue. The survival manual stated that one could live 30 days without water. Without sunshine the solar stills would not function, so Callahan limited himself to a quarter litre of water daily. He ate sparingly.

            His thoughts drifted home to his parents, his two brothers and sister, and his small farm and boat-building shop in Lamoine, Maine. I’m going to survive, he vowed. Somehow, I’m going to make it.

            After 36 hours of steady SOS signals, Callahan shut off the radio, knowing that no one could hear the beeps.

            The storm finally ended four days later. During lulls in the weather, Callahan had spotted an occasional dorado—a dolphin-like game fish that follows and frolicks around ocean vessels. Now the number of fish around the raft grew, circling, leaping, always just out of spear-gun range. Although the solar still hadn’t yet functioned and his food supplies were almost gone, Callahan was heartened by the presence of the dorados. They represented life, food and even companionship.

            Lonely peril.

            While the dorados cavorted, Callahan worked feverishly on the stills, stopping occasionally to study the chart and the log notations. Calculating his approximate speed by timing the passage of heavy seaweed, he believed he was averaging 25 to 50 kilometres every 24 hours. His direction was checked nightly by sighting the North Star and the Southern Cross, and rechecked daily by marking the positions of the rising and setting sun. By lashing pencils into a crude sextant sighted simultaneously on the North Star and the horizon, he had calculated his latitude. He was attempting to reach the shipping lanes and the Caribbean.

            Suddenly a large shark approached and began tearing at the ballast tanks—water-filled pockets hanging below the raft. Callahan jabbed it fiercely with the spear gun until it retreated. He had never felt more alone. Yet, whenever he looked, the dorados were there, swimming ever closer to the raft.

            Doris Callahan could not shake off the vision. “I won’t rest,” she told the family, “until the twenty-fourth arrives and I know that Steven is safe.”

            On his tenth day adrift, Callahan spear-gunned a spiny triggerfish. The next day he speared his first dorado. That night he feasted on the delicious meat, and during the following days he extracted every bit of fluid and meat from the fish, eating eyes, organs, roe. Maybe he could survive—if the dorados stayed with him.

            On the 14^th day, the solar stills began producing water. Sharks often hit the raft during the night, but he drove them away with sharp prods of the spear gun. After each attack, his fears for the raft increased.

            Every third or fourth day Callahan managed to spear-gun another of his treasured dorados. When the rubber band that released the spear from the gun broke, he lashed the shaft of the spear to the gun, making it into a hand-held spear. The dorados moved closer—as if to allow him to make the kill. He was profoundly moved. They are actually helping me, he thought.

            On the 8^th of March, 12 days after his scheduled arrival, Callahan’s family reported to the US Coast Guard that he was missing. A check of possible ports of departure and arrival was begun, and ships were notified. When no trace of the boat was found by March 17, the Coast Guard called off the search.

            The following week, the Callahan’s eldest son, 34-year-old Edgar, Jr –once a commercial deep-sea diver—arrived from Hawaii. He immediately organized a search centre in the family kitchen. “If I know Steve,” he said, “he hasn’t given up. We’ve just got to locate his position.

            In his log, Callahan carefully noted navigation, water and food intake and weather conditions. Should he die and the raft wash ashore, the data might prove valuable. Perhaps that is my reason for existence, he thought wildly. To drift at sea, suffering until no more suffering can be borne, so that others may learn of man’s limitations.

            I cannot live another week, he thought one baking-hot afternoon. Then, standing painfully to search the horizon for ships, he saw a full rainbow, inset with a smaller one. Its beauty on the glistening sea overwhelmed him. Callahan had never been particularly religious, but at that moment he believed he saw the scheme of nature, the beauty and the horror, all fitting strangely into life’s cycle. He began to pray, awkwardly, spelling out his thoughts and hopes.

            Last chance.

            On March 20, disaster struck. While he was hauling in a dorado, the spear gun’s shaft broke, ripping a hole in the raft’s side. Then a storm hit. Callahan tried closing the hole with line after plugging it with foam from the boat cushion. It continued to leak, and he had to pump air and bail throughout the day and night. Exhausted, he began pacing himself, allowing brief moments of sleep before resuming his life-and-death struggle.

            On the third night following the accident, as Callahan worked with a flashlight tied to his forehead, a large shark zipped by. At dawn the shark was still there, circling. “ He knows that I’m getting weak,” Callahan said to himself.

            Four days later, his 52^nd adrift, the storm grew in intensity. He noted in his log: “My body is rotting away before my eyes.” He broke down, screaming in frustration, then crying. “O Lord, did I come this far to die?” He lay beneath the canopy sobbing as the bottom tube of the raft deflated. Several moments later he struggled to his raw knees and began anew to pump air into the damaged tube. Again the foam plug was blown out. He knew this was his last chance; he’d better find a solution or he would die.

            Then the answer came to him: remove the handle from the Boy Scout utensil fork and put it through the top edge, the foam plug and the handle will hold the lashing in place. It worked; the foam plug held.

            Several hours later, the storm ended and the dorados clustered near the bow. Callahan held the spear gun ready, too weak to strike a killing blow, yet desperately in need of food. His body was deteriorating. His sores were not healing; his fingernails had loosened. A dorado approached, then rolled over on its back, revealing its soft underbelly. Callahan killed it easily, thankfully.

            Edgar Callahan, Jr, worked night and day studying drift pattern and weather data in order to project probable conditions and the path of Steve’s raft. He finally worked out that Steve had to be within a 320-kilometre quadrant north-east of the group of island that rims the Caribbean Sea. Several days later it was reported that Solo’s wreckage had been found on a Puerto Rican shore. The Callahan family cried and prayed together, but decided not to give up. “I’m certain,” insisted Edgar, Sr, “Steve is alive.” He even thought about selling the house to finance a private search operation.

            On April 21, day 76, three black frigate birds appeared above the raft. The water turned a deeper blue; the dorados were joined by other fish. Soon Callahan saw the outline of steep cliffs. As he drifted nearer, he spotted a barrier of coral reef pounded by violent surf. It could cut him to shreds. He stripped plastic and foam from the boat cushion, hoping that it, along with the piece of mainsail, might offer some protection against the coral. Now, a few hundred metres ahead, lay the final test of his 4,200-kilometre ordeal.

            Suddenly a fishing boat raced into view. Callahan waved frantically, and the boat headed for the raft. Three fishermen from Marie Galante, a tiny islet 130 kilometres south of Antigua, were astounded by what they saw: leaping dorados surrounded the raft. It seemed as if the long-haired, bearded man inside the circle was their master!

            What had brought the fishermen to the area at that moment? They had seen the birds, which signaled fish, hovering out to sea. And what brought the birds? The dorados again, always the dorados.

            Although suffering from serious malnutrition, dehydration, exposure, multiple sores and wounds, Callahan was lucid, giving his name in a parched whisper. He weighed 18 kilos less than normal. Yet several hours after being carried ashore he could stand without assistance.

            Fishermen and villagers sought him out during his recuperation. They gathered outside his hotel room, waiting for the chance to see him, “ the great fisherman that God brought back.”

            The plentiful dorado meat had kept him alive for his 76-day ordeal. But to Steve Callahan they were more than food. “ The whole experience with them was mystical, even spiritual,” he says today. “ What they did for me borders on the miraculous.”

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting”                          -Edmund Burke

“Don't die, Hilton! don't die!” / By Chris Pritchard

“Don't die, Hilton! don't die!” / By Chris Pritchard

“The marsh waters ran red with blood as the giant crocodile clamped its jaws over the man’s arm. Choking back fear, the young girl waded in to save her friend”

            As she climbed into the truck on that bright April afternoon in 1981, 12-year-old Peta-Lynn Mann felt a flutter of excitement. Less than an hour before, she had arrived from boarding school in Darwin to her home at remote Channel Point, 180 kilometres to the south-west. Now she was going for a drive into the tropical countryside she loved so much.

            The region abounded in wildlife—pigs, buffalo, crocodiles and a variety of birds. Here her parents, Robert and Wendy Mann, immigrants from Zimbabwe, had set up a hunting and photo safari business. The Manns were away, so it was their young partner, Hilton Graham, 23, who was taking care of Peta-Lynn. The two were great friends and Graham had planned an outing as a treat for Peta-Lynn. “We’ll shoot a pig for barbecue out on the island,” he said, as he started the truck and headed down the track towards Palm Springs, a spot 20 kilometres away and almost cut off by swamp. Although called “the island,” the area was joined to the mainland by a narrow strip.

            They came to a stop in a clearing under a banyan tree, near where they kept an airboat. (These heavy, flat-bottomed boats carry their propellers well above the waterline to travel easily over reeds and shallows.)

            Graham, tall and strong built, shoved it out on the mud-brown swamp waters. He slung his rifle across his back, steadied the boat while Peta-Lynn stepped in, then pushed clear. Cruising on low throttle round the island, he nosed through the jungle of paper-bark trees and creepers in the hope of surprising and shooting a pig. Peta-Lynn crouched in the bow, staring into the dense vegetation, hardly daring to speak above a whisper.

            Suddenly, at around 5.30 p.m, the boat ran aground in the shallows. Graham unhitched his rifle and clambered overboard to push the airboat into deeper water. As he did so, his pistol slipped from its holster and fell into the swamp. The water reached only to Graham’s calves, so he knelt and groped around on the muddy bottom. “I’ll tie up the boat and give you a hand,” Peta-Lynn said, jumping in and wading a couple of metres to the bank.

            Splash ! Graham was startled by the sudden sound in the water close behind him. He turned and found himself staring down the throat of a crocodile nearly four metres long, its jaws open like a giant trap. As he raised his left arm in a gesture of defence, the bristling rows of rapier-like teeth snapped together. Graham felt a burning pain shoot up his arm.

            Tug-of-war.

            The crocodile, its jaws firmly fastened on Graham’s arm, began to roll over, but for some reason released its hold. Graham gasped in anguish. “Help! Peta! Peta!” he cried to the girl on the bank. She stood riveted with horror. A despairing thought flashed through Graham’s mind,  What could a little girl do anyway?

            Graham got up from his knees as the crocodile thrashed wildly with its tail. Now the reptile lunged at him from the side and struck again. Its jaws clamped tightly on Graham’s right thigh and he felt himself being pulled much more vigorously than before. Blood gushed from his torn forearm. He tried desperately to get a firm footing in the mud. Unless he could hold on, grip something, the crocodile would pull him down into deeper water. He knew crocodiles roll over and over, often drowning their prey before tearing it to pieces.

            Already Graham could feel the reptile’s unbelievable power, as his own feet were slipping further from the security of the near-by bank. He thrust out his right arm and screamed, “Peta! Grab hold!”

            Peta-Lynn felt no fear now. She waded back into murky water and called, “Hang on, Hilton!” the water was up to her knees as she slithered in the mud. Then she reached out for his arms and grabbed it with both hands. She planted her feet in the marsh, flexed her knees and pulled with all her might. It was like a tug-of-war, she thought, with Hilton the rope, and unless she anchored him, he would die.

            Out in the deeper water, the crocodile was splashing with renewed fury. It wouldn’t let go of Graham’s thigh and Peta-Lynn now realized with horror that gradually she was being dragged forward. The crocodile was winning the tug-of-war.

            A bloody sight.

            After what seemed to Peta-Lynn a very long time-actually only a minute or two-the crocodile suddenly spun Graham round full circle under the water. Peta-Lynn was swept off her feet and, still clutching Graham’s arm, was dragged under the water too. The crocodile could easily drown them both, she knew, unless she fought on. Righting herself, she searched for a foothold on the bottom, dug in her toes and pulled with all her might again. If only she succeeded  in holding on, the crocodile might open its jaws just long enough for her to pull Hilton free.

            The water reached above her waist now, but she kept her grip—even when a vicious tug from the crocodile again dragged Hilton’s shoulders, neck and then his face completely under the water. Peta-Lynn had seen the despair on his face, and she thought she’d lost him. But she gasped for breath and kept pulling.

            Suddenly the crocodile stopped rolling. Peta-Lynn felt herself falling backwards into the marsh, dragging Hilton towards her. His head broke the surface and he sputtered, gasping for air. The reptile still had a hold on him, but then five paces from land it unaccountably let go and sank back into the depths.

            Peta-Lynn pulled furiously on Graham’s arm. “Hilton, Hilton! Come on!” He staggered out, stunned, his face deathly white and expressionless. Blood streamed from his arm and thigh.

            They had barely taken two steps when the crocodile broke through the water again with a noisy splash. It snapped wildly at Graham’s right buttock, and succeeded in ripping the flesh through his khaki pants. But Peta-Lynn gave a sharp tug and the giant reptile lost its hold and fell back. Blood streaked the water as the beast lay waiting, its eyes above the surface, watching.

            Desperate.

            The two scrambled up the bank, and Peta-Lynn helped Graham to a tree about 50 metres distant—far enough, she hoped, for the crocodile not to attack again. Graham could barely move, weak from shock and loss of blood. Peta-Lynn settled him against the tree trunk. His shirt was in shreds from the shoulder to the sleeve, his trousers were ripped to tatters. “Wait here,” she said, “and I’ll get to the truck.”

            She sprinted two kilometers along the jungle track, then picked her way through open countryside to the vehicle.

            Fortunately, when she was eight, Graham had taught her to drive in the open country. Now she quickly turned on the ignition in the truck and drove back as fast as she could across the rough terrain. Graham was limping towards the truck when she came upon him. She leapt out and helped him on to the passenger seat. He sprawled there on his left side, his wounded thigh and buttock uppermost and his lacerated left arm hanging limply at his side.

            It was 6.05 and growing dark as they set off for Channel Point. A few hundred metres up the track, Graham passed out. Peta-Lynn wondered whether she should stop. She took a hand off the steering wheel and shook him. Graham groaned, and the girl said, “You’re not going to die on me, are you?”

            Graham grunted an inaudible reply, then fainted again. Just before they reached Channel Point, he began to moan. “Don’t die Hilton! Don’t die!” Peta-Lynn sobbed.

            Her desperation got through to him. Graham now summoned all his strength and replied forcefully, “Die? The hell I will.”

            There was nobody at Channel Point, but Graham dragged himself to the radio and called Welltree Homestead 70 kilometres away. “I’ve been badly mauled by a croc,” he said, “and I must get to hospital. Peta will drive me towards Darwin. Send someone from Labelle to meet us.” Labelle Homestead, where his fiancés and her family lived, was only 30 kilometres down the track, but a hill blocked direct radio contact from Channel Point.

            In the kitchen Peta-Lynn grabbed a tin of antiseptic powder from the family first-aid box. Then she pulled a clean sheet from the linen cupboard. She sprinkled the powder liberally over Graham’s wounds and draped the sheet around him. She decided not to waste time binding his wounds. She had to get him to hospital fast.

            The scars remain.

            They got back in the truck and headed towards Darwin. Graham was slumped in the seat, but his eyes were open. Every minutes, she checked to see if he was still conscious. Occasionally her fear that he might die got the better of her and she asked: “Are you still all right?” Graham would answer with a clipped “Yeah.”

            At last Peta-Lynn saw lights in the distance. It was Graham’s fiancée, June-Ellen Townsend and her brother Henry in a Landcruiser, followed by a second vehicle. At 7.45, the vehicles met, Graham was transferred to the Landcruiser, Peta-Lynn climbed in with him and they sped towards Darwin.

            Just after eleven o’clock, they pulled up at the emergency entrance of Darwin Hospital. Graham was rushed to the operating theatre, where he was given 1,500cc of blood, as well as antibiotic, tetanus and pain-killing injections. Two fractures in his left forearm were set. In his thigh, gaping wounds 25 centimetres long were carefully cleaned and scraped of dead tissue. After a week, when it was clear that infection had not set in, the wounds were stitched. For two weeks he stayed in hospital, and back at school again, Peta-Lynn was a regular visitor.

            “She’s a wonderful, brave little girl,” Graham says, “She had read—and we had even talked—about how dangerous crocodiles could be. But when I was facing death, she risked her life to save me.”

            Now fully recovered but still bearing scars, Graham has often returned to the Palm Springs marsh—but has not searched again for his lost pistol. Crocodiles are territorial, he knows. And while he has not seen his toothy tormentor, Graham imagines as the air boat glides over the dark, still water, that he is being watched.

            On October 6, 1982, in her first official duty of the royal tour of Australia, Queen Elizabeth II presented Peta-Lynn with the Royal Humane Society of Australasia ‘s Clarke Gold Medal for what the  society’s secretary Colin Bannister described as “the country’s most outstanding incident of bravery during 1981.”

“Today’s stress is tomorrow’s good old days.”                       -Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

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“When you try to understand everything

you will not understand anything,

when you understand yourself

you will understand everything.”

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 “He who can take no great interest in what is small

will take false interest in what is great.”

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  “It is vain to expect our prayers to be heard,

if we do not strive as well as we pray.”

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“Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people

before meeting the right one so that

when we finally meet the right person,

we will know how to be grateful for that gift.”

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  “When the door of happiness closes,

another opens, but often times

we look so long at that closed door

that  we don’t see the one

which has been opened for us.”

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 “It is true that we don’t know

what we’ve got until we lose it,

but it’s also true that we don’t know

what we’ve been missing until it arrives.”

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