A monthly bulletin of matters of interest to The Sydney Bushwalkers, Box 4476 GPO Sydney, 2001. Club meetings are held every Wednesday evening from 7.30 pm at the Wireless Institute Building, 14 Atchison Street, St. Leonards. Enquiries concerning the Club should be referred to Mrs. Marcia Shappert - Telephone 30-2128.

STOP PRESS

On Sunday 18th February our President, Fazeley Read, was injured on a bush walk. Fazeley has both bones below the knee broken in her left leg.

The accident occurred on Pat McBride's Barrington Tops National Park walk. On Sunday at 9.30 am. the party was making its way down the steep river bed of the upper Allyn River. Christine Austin, who was directly behind Fazeley, saw a rock start to topple and made an attempt to stop it falling, but was unsuccessful (It probably weighed about 1001bs.) Chris yelled a warning but Fazeley was unable to get clear in time. The rock hit a log and tipped sideways onto her leg. It was immediately obvious that her leg was badly broken.

While the party mode Fazeley as comfortable as possible and improvised a splint, Pat McBride and Craig Austin set out for Lagoon Pinch, via the upstream route. Wayne Stool and David Rostron set out for the some place, going downstream. Pat's and Craig's route proved the shorter, and they arrived first at a farm managed by Mr. Ron Colliston at Upper Allyn, From here Search and Rescue contact Marcia Shappert was phoned, and she in turn phoned the Federation of Bushwalking Club's contact.

No one seems to know who contacted who after that, but the first to appear on the scene was an R.A.A.F helicopter at about 2.30 pm. After a reconnaissance flight, the helicopter landed at Upper Allyn to unload one man and some fuel and to announce that the helicopter could manage the rescue.

However, despite its hovering just above the trees, and lowering a man on a cable, the helicopter was unable to reach the injured Fazeley, and at 4.15 it gave up and flew off. Fazeley had now down lying in what must have been great pain for nearly seven hours, and was to wait another three hours before a rescue party arrived on foot. Apparently all other rescue attempts had been called off when the helicopter radioed that it could effect a rescue; therefore, the police and ambulance did not set out until advised of the helicopter's failure. Many precious hours had been wasted.

The rescue party, when it arrived at Lagoon Pinch, consisted of two policemen and