Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was recorded, the Gaddigall people of
Speaker 1: the Urination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present. Hi,
Speaker 1: welcome back to my head Game podcast. I'm a Middleton.
Speaker 1: We started head Game in September last year and I've
Speaker 1: since spoken to some incredible people. We've got a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of new listeners to Headgame and I wanted to
Speaker 1: share one of my favorite episodes, and actually the first
Speaker 1: episode we ever dropped. Todd Russell is one top bloke
Speaker 1: and he shared his unbelievable story of surviving in the
Speaker 1: Beaconsfield Mine with me. It's nine twenty six pm on
Speaker 1: Anzac Day two thousand and six when an earthquake hits
Speaker 1: the small town of Beaconsfield in North Tasmania. It only
Speaker 1: reaches a magnitude of two point three on the Richter scale,
Speaker 1: the kind of earthquake that you probably won't even feel,
Speaker 1: but for Todd Russell it changes his life forever. As
Speaker 1: the earthquake hits, he's working almost a kilometer underground. Fourteen
Speaker 1: miners manage to scramble to safety from the rock fall,
Speaker 1: but Todd and fellow miner Brandt's Web are trapped hundreds
Speaker 1: of meters under the surface in a cage the size
Speaker 1: of a dining table. After cutting their clothes and boots
Speaker 1: to free themselves from the rubble, they assess the situation.
Speaker 1: All they have is the small amount of water seeping
Speaker 1: through the rock overhead and one musely bar between them.
Speaker 1: They agree to wait twenty four hours to eat it.
Speaker 1: They end up waiting four days, but it would be
Speaker 1: another ten days before they're rescued. I'm at Middleton and
Speaker 1: this is head Game today, an extraordinary insight into what
Speaker 1: it's like to be trapped nearly a kilometer underground with
Speaker 1: nothing but a mate, a musically bar, and the hope
Speaker 1: to be reunited with loved ones. Todd, it's great to
Speaker 1: have you on my podcast head Game. So take me
Speaker 1: back to the earthquake. Now. The earthquake hits a two
Speaker 1: point three on the Richter scale. Nothing We don't even
Speaker 1: feel it on the surface. However, underground is a lot different.
Speaker 1: Talk me through that moment when that happened and when
Speaker 1: you realized you were in serious trouble.
Speaker 2: So the night before I was working in the nine
Speaker 2: to twenty five level. It's the same level as what
Speaker 2: we got stack in on the ANXECT day. And the
Speaker 2: ground was very noisy, popping and cracking, and I actually
Speaker 2: got hit with a rock the night before, which is
Speaker 2: probably the size of a football, and it actually knocked
Speaker 2: the helmet off my head. So the next night when
Speaker 2: we come in, like I said.
Speaker 1: I was back filling and that's just due to the stretch.
Speaker 2: Yep and it's spitting rocks and dropping rock. So the
Speaker 2: next night, on ANAZAC day, like I said, I was
Speaker 2: doing some backfilling and Brent and Larry and arrived at
Speaker 2: around about it's about seven twenty five, seven thirty pm
Speaker 2: at night, and I remember parking my underground loader back
Speaker 2: at the cross Cup. I got out, grabbed my water bottle,
Speaker 2: and I proceeded up to where the light vehicles parked,
Speaker 2: which was halfway between where Larry and the bogger was.
Speaker 2: I placed that on the back of the vehicle as
Speaker 2: I proceeded up to the telly. Later, Brent reached into
Speaker 2: his pocket and he pulled out a coin and he
Speaker 2: tossed the coin and he said to Larry, what do
Speaker 2: you want heads or tarts? That was the difference between
Speaker 2: Brant being in the basket with me and Larry Knight
Speaker 2: being where he was. So the toss of a coin.
Speaker 2: The toss of a coin cost Larry his life. But
Speaker 2: say Brent, just by the toss of that coint it
Speaker 2: was nine to twenty five PM is obviously the seismic event,
Speaker 2: which registered two point three on the rector'scale. And even
Speaker 2: though you say you don't feel them vibrations, I have
Speaker 2: been informed at stage that some of the vibrations were
Speaker 2: fifteen k's away. You know, for us it was instant bang,
Speaker 2: quicker than you can blink, quicker than split second. And
Speaker 2: you know, I remember laying there and I'm in a
Speaker 2: position that nobody's body should be put in. My left
Speaker 2: leg was completely numb from my hip to the tips
Speaker 2: of my toes was numb that took six days to recover.
Speaker 2: My left knee was punched through one hundred mile galve
Speaker 2: and I steel mesh. My entire body apart from my forearms,
Speaker 2: from my elbows down and my neck up was covered
Speaker 2: in rock. And when I say rock, some of them
Speaker 2: were as small as fifty pieces, some of as big
Speaker 2: as footballs. And it wasn't until then that I sort
Speaker 2: of started to get my bearings about myself, that I
Speaker 2: realized what had happened. Initially, I thought there'd been a
Speaker 2: malfunction on the machine where the tires might have blown
Speaker 2: out or something like that, because of the percussion inside
Speaker 2: the basket. It's a basket that's one point for me
Speaker 2: to square, so it's only nine hundred high, and there's
Speaker 2: no roof above us. It's open, so we're open to
Speaker 2: the elements. But you know, and we've now got this
Speaker 2: suspended of ars like a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. We
Speaker 2: only need one piece of that rock to move, and
Speaker 2: as a fair chance that we're going to be crushed
Speaker 2: to death. But I remember laying there in the darkness,
Speaker 2: completely buried in so much pain, and I remember screaming
Speaker 2: to Larry and to Brand to get us out. You
Speaker 2: get us out, Get us out, and trying to get
Speaker 2: Brand to help me get the rock off me. And
Speaker 2: I was one of one hundred I think it was
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixteen kilo when I was working underground.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe I was physically strong enough to heave
Speaker 2: up and push the rock off me. But each time
Speaker 2: that I did that, it compacted tighter and tighter, and
Speaker 2: I was unable to take a smart's oxygen in. The
Speaker 2: pressure was actually starting to push the contents and my
Speaker 2: stomach up. I slowly suffocating, And you know, I remember
Speaker 2: laying there in excruciating pain, and I just prayed to
Speaker 2: the big fellow. I said, you've got to take me.
Speaker 2: I said, I can't handle this anymore so, and I
Speaker 2: remember laying there wanting it to end. And an image appeared,
Speaker 2: and that image was a picture of Caroline, myself and
Speaker 2: the three kids. Because only only a week or two
Speaker 2: weeks before Beaconsfield happening, we went and had a family
Speaker 2: portraits taken and one of the photos was our group photo.
Speaker 2: And once that image appeared, I knew I had to fight.
Speaker 2: I couldn't leave my family behind. And to see that
Speaker 2: image was the image that brought me back to fight.
Speaker 2: And then screamed to brand even though I'm now buried
Speaker 2: at around about read about the four hour mark, worried
Speaker 2: about a crush injury.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got the toxins, you've got, you've got the
Speaker 1: you've got the gravity that's against you, You've got the
Speaker 1: rocks that have on you. You've got a situation where
Speaker 1: it's pitch black, and you know how dangerous it is
Speaker 1: down there. You're thinking, I'm never getting out of the situation,
Speaker 1: and then you've got your power next year, that's unconscious. Yep,
Speaker 1: this picture comes up, but that's your reason.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's what that's what I now fight for. So
Speaker 2: you know, brand's now come come around. We've said about
Speaker 2: removing this rock that's covering my entire body, one rock
Speaker 2: at a time. Obviously, there was no room to put
Speaker 2: it outside the basket, so the bigger rocks had to
Speaker 2: be stacked inside the basket. The smaller rocks we found
Speaker 2: places for. So now we're in a basket that's one
Speaker 2: point four meters by now seven hundred, so we've taken
Speaker 2: half the space of the case stacked with rock. We
Speaker 2: had one guy on his background laying on his side,
Speaker 2: so each time we want to toss and turn, it
Speaker 2: was just like laying on a bit of razor blades.
Speaker 2: So after you know the concerns of a crash injury,
Speaker 2: four and a half hours later, I am now in
Speaker 2: a position where I'm pretty much totally incapacitated because my
Speaker 2: left leg's completely numb.
Speaker 1: So when did your power come to? When did he
Speaker 1: when did he sort of come to When did you
Speaker 1: realize there must have been a relief to find out
Speaker 1: that he was actually because looking knowing that he's there
Speaker 1: and he's not responding, you're probably thinking he's dead.
Speaker 2: The things I couldn't see because you're in darknes.
Speaker 1: And you know he's there and he's not responding. Are
Speaker 1: you thinking in your head he's dead?
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, I'm thinking I'm not getting a response.
Speaker 1: To it's pitch black as well.
Speaker 2: Because what people don't realize is when you work underground,
Speaker 2: there's a difference between dark and darkness. You're sitting in
Speaker 2: a room, you turn the lights off, bang, it's picked
Speaker 2: black dark. But over a period of thirty or forty seconds,
Speaker 2: your night light starts to come through your and you
Speaker 2: can actually see through the darkness. When you're underground, you
Speaker 2: cannot see two centimeters in front.
Speaker 1: Now, So how do you know that he's alive? That
Speaker 1: brunt's alive?
Speaker 2: So we're probably about I don't know, two, probably three,
Speaker 2: three and a half hours into it. So once I
Speaker 2: made contact with him, like he then yelled out to me,
Speaker 2: so he's obviously come around. He's now fearing for his
Speaker 2: life as well. So now he's yelling out to me.
Speaker 2: The next thing you know, bang right, we're on level
Speaker 2: playing field and he's We're talking to each other through
Speaker 2: the darkness, not knowing where each other were. Like we
Speaker 2: knew were within an area that we were, but I
Speaker 2: didn't know what position he was in. He didn't know
Speaker 2: what position I was in.
Speaker 1: Was it a relief or did it incite panic?
Speaker 2: If Brand hadn't come through, well then and that image
Speaker 2: of mine didn't come through, It's just fortunate that we
Speaker 2: both pulled through, because there'll be nothing works and you
Speaker 2: can imagine learning a small area with a deceased body. Besides,
Speaker 2: you know, even now you're now dealing with that as
Speaker 2: well as whatever else is going on.
Speaker 1: So that mindset flip. You see that picture, you've now
Speaker 1: got Brant on side, what do you how does the
Speaker 1: communication happen and what do you start doing to make
Speaker 1: to make things better for you?
Speaker 2: So without using the words that we probably used underground
Speaker 2: throughout the course of the day, but it was a
Speaker 2: matter of you know, look, our main priority now is
Speaker 2: if your free brandt we need to free me. And
Speaker 2: because because of the rock and stuff that we're using,
Speaker 2: a lot of was quartz and that too, and quarts
Speaker 2: is very sharp, so you know, we've got a lot
Speaker 2: of cuts, bruises, and lacerations throughout the course. But you know,
Speaker 2: over the over that that period of the few hours
Speaker 2: to get the rock off me and then obviously we're
Speaker 2: going to the next six stays station there where you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that we were doing, a
Speaker 2: lot of things that we're talking about just to try
Speaker 2: and keep a morell up.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned morale in the military is everything. You know,
Speaker 1: we see, you know, humor in the face of adversity.
Speaker 1: You know, morale is ultimately, I would say one of
Speaker 1: the key survival methods of staying alive.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Morale, whether that's hope, whether it's just humor in the
Speaker 1: face of adversity, just trying to keep morale high, because
Speaker 1: that's what's going to keep you alive, right yep. How
Speaker 1: did you keep morale to a level where there was hope?
Speaker 2: Well, we're going to two stages there, you know, like
Speaker 2: you have morele and you had that roller coaster ride
Speaker 2: as well. So throughout the course of the next six days,
Speaker 2: we had some highs and we had a lot of loads,
Speaker 2: but morele we talked about family, and that's what got
Speaker 2: us through. You know, both Brand and I were two
Speaker 2: completely different people. We'd never worked together before in seven years.
Speaker 2: We'd started at the mine on the same day under
Speaker 2: the same mining contractor, but never ever worked together to
Speaker 2: Anzac day two thousand and six. You know, it was
Speaker 2: interesting how everybody's got a different life story. And Brand's
Speaker 2: older than him and Rachel. They've got twins who are eighteen.
Speaker 2: At the time. I had a younger family, so I
Speaker 2: had three children. I had two boys and a girl.
Speaker 2: So I had Lam who was six at the time,
Speaker 2: Madison who was ten at the time, and my UTIs
Speaker 2: was twelve, so they were younger. You know. As part
Speaker 2: of our conversations it was about if anything happened to
Speaker 2: him or happened to me. We had messages, specific messages.
Speaker 2: We want to take them back to our family. So
Speaker 2: once we got our bearings, one I think it was
Speaker 2: my cap lamp had been smashed in the rock fall.
Speaker 2: Brance fortunately was knocked off his head, so after Scramsy
Speaker 2: threw the rocks, we found his cap lamp, so we
Speaker 2: had lights sparingly. So knew and we knew that the
Speaker 2: battery would only last a period day twelve or fourteen hours.
Speaker 1: Maybe you had to rush in your light. How did
Speaker 1: you food water? How did you rush in that?
Speaker 2: So the first six days, like I said, I had
Speaker 2: my water bottle in the basket, but still to this
Speaker 2: day I have no idea where that water bottle went to.
Speaker 2: So over the six days we started collecting groundwater in
Speaker 2: one helmet, so the dripping of the water, because Beaconsfield
Speaker 2: was a very wet mind but to get a mouthful
Speaker 2: of water it took somewhere for sinner, probably two hours
Speaker 2: just to get a mouthful of water. So we then decided, then, look,
Speaker 2: you know, we can't rely on this, so we started
Speaker 2: collecting our urine in another helmet, worst case scenario, not
Speaker 2: that we didn't do that. Luckily we didn't have to.
Speaker 2: But over the six days I said, you know, I said,
Speaker 2: we started collecting the water. We had no food apart
Speaker 2: from Musley bar Brandt was. He gave me half his mulybo,
Speaker 2: but I lost it. So I didn't eat for the
Speaker 2: first six days. We never slept for six days because
Speaker 2: we're too frightened it And like I said, over the
Speaker 2: six days before being found alive, there was so much happening,
Speaker 2: you know, because I had a watch on and I
Speaker 2: knew that the accident happened about nine to twenty five,
Speaker 2: So every time I got to nine to twenty five,
Speaker 2: I knew it was day shift. I knew it was
Speaker 2: night shift. And over the course of the next six days,
Speaker 2: like I said, there were so much happening as underground
Speaker 2: loaders working in the nine to twenty five level, bogging
Speaker 2: the dirt out, taking it back and put it in
Speaker 2: the stockpile, even to the extent where it started to
Speaker 2: lift the back of the machine that both Brand and
Speaker 2: I are on. You know, we've got all this rock
Speaker 2: suspended of us, like at three dimeters of jigsaw puzzle.
Speaker 2: And unbeknownst to both Brandon and myself at this time,
Speaker 2: the body of Larry Knight had been found two days in,
Speaker 2: so they didn't give both Brand myself any chance of survival.
Speaker 2: So what we're now concerned of is now they found
Speaker 2: the back of the machine, they're going to bring in
Speaker 2: a big loader, put a big chain on it, drag
Speaker 2: it out so they could give our bodies back to
Speaker 2: our loved ones so they could bear it. But it
Speaker 2: got those stage we could hear the underground drill rigs
Speaker 2: drilling away, and it just sounded like they were rahabilitating
Speaker 2: the area. But all of a sudden, there's dead silence,
Speaker 2: and we couldn't understand why. We could hear the machines
Speaker 2: driving off in the distance, you hear the light vehicles
Speaker 2: start up and drive off, and we knew that the
Speaker 2: day shift had come on and the night shift had
Speaker 2: gone off. But after a period of time, like I said,
Speaker 2: there was dead silence, and we didn't know whether someone
Speaker 2: else had been hurt or something from a potential rock fall.
Speaker 2: And then you know, we're laying there in the pitch
Speaker 2: black darkness, with which if you haven't been underground, you
Speaker 2: don't know what darkness is, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's just this almighty explosion. So what we realized later
Speaker 2: thirty meters from where we were laying, they started drilling
Speaker 2: and blasting.
Speaker 1: Did you try and communicate with them?
Speaker 2: So we tried to make communication. You know, we had
Speaker 2: some supplies and shift during some rock it's all bashing
Speaker 2: on the steel carriage trying to notify them that, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden the horn horn beeped, so
Speaker 2: we thought we'd been found alive. But it wasn't. It
Speaker 2: was just to notify people that were in the area
Speaker 2: that the machine was starting up and was driving off.
Speaker 1: In a survival situation like that, which I think is
Speaker 1: really important for the listeners, is any little glimmer of
Speaker 1: hope like that that horn blood did you just and
Speaker 1: you grubbed hold of that? Was that morale in itself?
Speaker 2: Yep? That lead to this because you know, and then
Speaker 2: then then you get the drilling and blasting and your back,
Speaker 2: your back then here at the floor level, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you're on the downer. And like I said, we're in
Speaker 2: pitchfake dark, and so we've turned the light on the
Speaker 2: Spirit because we're using it sparently, And we just looked
Speaker 2: at each other and said, what the you know what?
Speaker 2: And I took a pen from my pocket and I started,
Speaker 2: I mean left leg, I started recording times and dates
Speaker 2: so that whatever they did on the outside killed us,
Speaker 2: that if they recovered our bodies, there was proof to
Speaker 2: prove that what they did killed us and we were
Speaker 2: alive at that particular point in time. And then on
Speaker 2: my right leg, this was probably the hardest thing that
Speaker 2: I endured while I was underground. So I sat there
Speaker 2: and I wrote a goodbye letter or goodbye note to
Speaker 2: every individual of the family Mum, Dad, Carolyn, Trent, Madison, Leam, brothers, sister,
Speaker 2: a whole lot just on my left leg, you know,
Speaker 2: just saying look, I can't I can't even remember what
Speaker 2: I wrote. But there was a there was a little
Speaker 2: note to each of them so that you know when
Speaker 2: our bodies were recovered, and that's what we did. And
Speaker 2: that was the first six days, and it wasn't until
Speaker 2: the Sunday afternoon. Is there was two gentlemen that came
Speaker 2: back down to the nine to twenty five level and
Speaker 2: as I said, unfortunately Larry lost his life and his
Speaker 2: body was recovered two days into the rescue, and that
Speaker 2: area then became a crime scene. So it was caughting
Speaker 2: off for investigation purposes. Processes in place, and now it's
Speaker 2: a crime scene. It had to be guarded by minds
Speaker 2: inspectors and stuff like that, so that you know, if
Speaker 2: our bodies were recovered and then they do the full investigation.
Speaker 2: And these two gentlemen, like I said, come back down
Speaker 2: to that area and they made a remark to the
Speaker 2: mind's inspector that maybe you need to have a coffee,
Speaker 2: and he sort of twigged on what was happening, and
Speaker 2: he said to the guys, he said, look, it'll take
Speaker 2: me about fifteen minutes to have a coffee. So no
Speaker 2: sooner did that mind's inspector go out of sight. They
Speaker 2: entered the nine to twenty five level at their own risk,
Speaker 2: and that's what they did. They entered their own risk
Speaker 2: because it was such a heavy, devastated. As I said earlier,
Speaker 2: Brandon and I were two completely different people, and apart
Speaker 2: from two things we had in common, we both married
Speaker 2: high school sweethearts, and we both knew how to see
Speaker 2: Kenny Rodgers again.
Speaker 1: But so it sounds like Kenny Rodger's going on done now.
Speaker 2: With But music in general is another healer and another
Speaker 2: motivator and jokes like bow yep, Brandt is a joker.
Speaker 2: And you know, throughout the course of the rescue, I
Speaker 2: had my strengths, he had his strength. So we relied
Speaker 2: on each other strengths to get us through. But that
Speaker 2: Sunday afternoon when we did each other yep pretty much.
Speaker 2: And then so that Sunday, when these two gentlemen entered
Speaker 2: the nine twenty five levels do that so called risk assessment.
Speaker 2: We were singing the gambler. Yeah, And then I remember
Speaker 2: I remember lying lying now on our back, singing the Gambler,
Speaker 2: and it didn't sound real good, but it was morale boosting.
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, I just hear this
Speaker 2: noise and I said the brand shut up. He said why.
Speaker 2: I said, no, no, that shut up, shut up, shut up.
Speaker 2: Then I held out, is there anyone out there? And
Speaker 2: this voice come back? Our hearts just sunk. After six
Speaker 2: days and during all this hardness and what we did
Speaker 2: to finally have communication to the outside world. You know,
Speaker 2: I've spoken to these two gentlemen and they told me
Speaker 2: how they both just collapsed to the ground when they
Speaker 2: heard our voices. And then after being found alized, that's
Speaker 2: when everything changed. Like the first six days felt like
Speaker 2: a twelve hour shift, it just went so fast in it.
Speaker 2: But after being founderalized, the next eight it felt like
Speaker 2: twelve months because they had to put implementations in place.
Speaker 2: Now they've got to dot their eyes, cross the t's
Speaker 2: and do everything correctly, because now they've got two guys
Speaker 2: that are alive, buried under all this rock, and what
Speaker 2: they could have done could have us. Then now I
Speaker 2: got put implementation in place on how they're going to
Speaker 2: extract us from where we are and bring us home safely.
Speaker 1: So you get this hope we've been found, we'll be
Speaker 1: out of even a couple of hours and you're still
Speaker 1: under there for eight days.
Speaker 2: You know, you can imagine for both Brand and myself
Speaker 2: the emotions now that we've been found alive. You know,
Speaker 2: here we are thinking the next time they press this button,
Speaker 2: they're going to kill us. And they had it was drilled,
Speaker 2: it was ready to charge and blast, but they found
Speaker 2: us beforehand.
Speaker 1: Because of Two's world as it went against protocol.
Speaker 2: Yep, and went into the nine to twenty five level
Speaker 2: to do that so called risk assessment for one last
Speaker 2: chance before they press that button again. It wasn't charged,
Speaker 2: but they were going to charge it and they're going
Speaker 2: to blast. So then once these two gentlemen left the
Speaker 2: nine to twenty five level, they went out and informed
Speaker 2: the Mind's rescue person who were there on site, the miners,
Speaker 2: the Mind inspector. They've gone them from underground to the
Speaker 2: office and next thing you know, mate, it's just gone
Speaker 2: wolf like wild fire. It's gone throughout the countries, throughout
Speaker 2: the world, everywhere that these boys have been now found alive.
Speaker 2: So for the guys that are looking after the rescue,
Speaker 2: the pressures now gone from here to here. So they
Speaker 2: had a control room up on the surface and I
Speaker 2: think they had somewhere around I think twenty five individuals
Speaker 2: in that control room and trying to come up with
Speaker 2: scenarios on how they're going to extract us from where
Speaker 2: we were. But what they did to start off with
Speaker 2: is they brought an underground lader like the one I
Speaker 2: said a bit the horn earlier, So the same loader
Speaker 2: they brought in and put a communication system in where
Speaker 2: they could ask ask a series of questions, and they
Speaker 2: also had another transmitter set up so when we yelled back,
Speaker 2: it was being transmitted back to a guy writing all
Speaker 2: the answers to the questions down and some of the
Speaker 2: questions were how high off the ground was the basket?
Speaker 2: How far was the boom extended? So that's all that's
Speaker 2: all now recorded. They then take that back to the surface,
Speaker 2: back to that control room, then put in a plan
Speaker 2: or roughly right, I think the boys this is where
Speaker 2: they are from what they're telling us, this is where
Speaker 2: we believe they are. So where they started drilling to
Speaker 2: us was pretty much in the right vicinity. When they
Speaker 2: broke through. They're so precise that that drill still spinning
Speaker 2: like that. We both turned and looked out the little
Speaker 2: cavity behind us, and here we just sitting there spinning
Speaker 2: their like that, looking at us, spurting water at us.
Speaker 2: So that then became our link line to the outside world.
Speaker 2: So now we're starting to get water. Now we're starting
Speaker 2: to get food. They've sent a camera through that's now
Speaker 2: set up to a tuva and video recorder recording all
Speaker 2: our movements. Twenty four to seven, we had a telephone
Speaker 2: sent through in a plastic bag in pieces with a
Speaker 2: diagram and a screwdriver. Over the next eight days there
Speaker 2: was so much hat opened, and you know, they had
Speaker 2: experts in from all different fields. You know, I don't
Speaker 2: beknownst to both Brandon myself. Three hundred meters directly above
Speaker 2: us at the six thirty level, they had guys using
Speaker 2: explosives and using all different types of explosives so that
Speaker 2: if any stages in the final stages of the rescue,
Speaker 2: they had to use them, they had all the information.
Speaker 2: They had the vibrations monitored and recorded, so that you know,
Speaker 2: they knew what exploses is to use. So that was
Speaker 2: all happening. Everything that were received came in a Mount
Speaker 2: Franklin water bottle which was six hundred mili strapped to
Speaker 2: probably four lengths of electrical conjuct. It's fed up and
Speaker 2: down like a pull through on a rifle. Now I've
Speaker 2: got a telephone. One of the things I wanted to do,
Speaker 2: but they wouldn't allow it. I wanted to ring home
Speaker 2: because they had they had, you know, the ways of
Speaker 2: doing it. But what they're worried about is because of
Speaker 2: the media contingency, and that is tapping lines, trying to
Speaker 2: get information, to get a story, and all that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. So what they started to do. Every day,
Speaker 2: you know, about three or four o'clock, someone had come
Speaker 2: down up the huot in Mount Franklin water bottle. You'd
Speaker 2: open it up, there be your mail. There'd be letters
Speaker 2: written from home. There was letters that we were writing
Speaker 2: writing back, and each time that we were writing to
Speaker 2: our family or anything that was coming in. It was
Speaker 2: all being monitored by a psychologist because the last thing
Speaker 2: I want to do seend things through that we're going
Speaker 2: to upsetting it. But one of the things that I
Speaker 2: asked for from Carolyn I mentioned to you earlier when
Speaker 2: I closed my eyes and that image appeared. One of
Speaker 2: the things that I asked from her was that photo.
Speaker 2: And it was only a small photo, about two inches square,
Speaker 2: but the psychologists wouldn't allow me to have it because
Speaker 2: they believed it was upsetting. To me.
Speaker 1: That's what kept you alive, That's what that was, the
Speaker 1: image that gave you. That why that reason to still fight,
Speaker 1: to still be alive.
Speaker 2: Every couple of days we got fresh clothing. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: this day, I remember, I got a pair of flat
Speaker 2: lined track pants I made of mine Dean mackerel, who
Speaker 2: still is a very good friend of mine. He was
Speaker 2: one of the mine's rescue guys that was in charge
Speaker 2: of talking to us because if I wasn't talking, brand
Speaker 2: had to be, so one of us had to be
Speaker 2: talking at all times. And the phone rang and I
Speaker 2: picked it up, and it's Mac and he said, hey,
Speaker 2: big fellow. He said, just check your trousers pocket. So
Speaker 2: once I got into the into the track pants and
Speaker 2: was comfortable again, I put my hand in my pocket
Speaker 2: and yeah, that that photo was in the pocket of
Speaker 2: my track pants. And I took that photo and I
Speaker 2: sat it on the rock. You know, three hundred mil
Speaker 2: from my face. And when I got down, I looked
Speaker 2: at that photo and yeah, I thought, that's that's the
Speaker 2: reason I'm fighting, that's the reason why I need to
Speaker 2: go home. And you know, I lost a lot of
Speaker 2: tears over that, that particular fado, and throughout the course
Speaker 2: of the fourteen days, I shed a lot of tears.
Speaker 2: And for people that know me, I don't I don't cry,
Speaker 2: I don't show emotions.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, your emotions saved your life and Brandt's.
Speaker 2: Life pretty much. And yeah, it's powerful now, yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2: And the way I said it, and this, unless you're
Speaker 2: put in a position where you have to survive, you
Speaker 2: don't know what your mindset and your body is capable
Speaker 2: of doing.
Speaker 1: Exactly. I always say that to people when you're left
Speaker 1: with one option in life, you'll be absolutely surprised of
Speaker 1: what you're capable of, of what the human mind's capable of,
Speaker 1: the body is capable of, and ultimately the soul, your emotions,
Speaker 1: ye ca the emotional the emotional connection that you have.
Speaker 1: And then you realize, actually, this is what got me
Speaker 1: through is phenomenal, right, it kept your life without a
Speaker 1: shadow of a doubt. But the rescue mission. You know,
Speaker 1: and I think people oversee this. This is such an
Speaker 1: important point that I'm going to raise here the communication
Speaker 1: between yourself and the rescue party, because they're using explosives
Speaker 1: over your head, any wrong passages of information or you're
Speaker 1: not being switched on and you're not being psychologically and
Speaker 1: physically aware of your surroundings. You've got that long and
Speaker 1: they could have done an explosion, they could have drilled
Speaker 1: in the wrong place, they could have done How how
Speaker 1: psychologically draining was that? And did you share the load?
Speaker 2: It had to be draining. And the thing is that
Speaker 2: it wasn't just a single decision, because there was two
Speaker 2: of us. We discussed everything. What we couldn't understand is
Speaker 2: in the final final stages of that rescue that we
Speaker 2: could hear the rock shattering in the tunnel. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: one mode of last some two minutes passes in soligram.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't be able to hear that. But they're so
Speaker 2: precise were they're drilling and they're surveying and they're blasting.
Speaker 2: And I remember looking outside the basket. I looked down,
Speaker 2: I said this hole and Dan block, I can say, kaplan.
Speaker 1: Wow. So that's the first time that you've seen movement
Speaker 1: outside of where you've been yep, first time.
Speaker 2: Wow. So now, over the next five to thirty minutes,
Speaker 2: that hole has now become big enough for both Brandt
Speaker 2: and I to be extracted from inside the basket. So
Speaker 2: here we are for fourteen days on a whole big enough.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously Pat Ball, who was the underground
Speaker 2: my manager at the time, he come back down and
Speaker 2: he crawled on his hands and he's fifteen meters up
Speaker 2: the tunnel and stood up inside the whole looking into
Speaker 2: where both Brent nowhere, and he turned around and said, Okay, Brent,
Speaker 2: we've got the green light. You're going to come out first.
Speaker 2: But what I can tell you, Aunt, is the next
Speaker 2: seven or eight minutes that I spent inside that basket alone,
Speaker 2: after Brand's had been taken, He's gone to freedom, he's
Speaker 2: gone home to his family. I'm now inside this entoment alone,
Speaker 2: and if it goes pear shape, now I don't get
Speaker 2: to go home to my family. But it was probably
Speaker 2: the longest seven or eight minutes out of the entire
Speaker 2: three hundred and twenty one.
Speaker 1: Hours, one hundred and twenty one hours, yep.
Speaker 2: Three hundred and twenty one. There is what we've spent
Speaker 2: undergrad fourteen ducks.
Speaker 1: And those seven eight minutes. And how did you move?
Speaker 1: Because you were in pain when you did you just
Speaker 1: like that at this stage, just mustle up the strength
Speaker 1: to drag myself out? How did they? Was it literally
Speaker 1: a hole and you did it to drag yourself through it?
Speaker 2: Pretty much? It was a whole big enough. I then
Speaker 2: swung around and dropped my legs outside the basket and
Speaker 2: then dropped down a meter a to a stretcher that
Speaker 2: was waiting. I then turned around. I looked back inside
Speaker 2: the basket, looking straight back into it. In one corner,
Speaker 2: there's a plastic bag with every letter that have been
Speaker 2: written to me in there. I reached up and I
Speaker 2: took that fight out of myself, Carolyn and the kids,
Speaker 2: put it in my pocket. I then grabbed the letters
Speaker 2: and everything in that plastic bag, put them on my chest,
Speaker 2: laid in a stretcher, and I'll scroll dragged fifteen meters
Speaker 2: to paramedics, mind's rescue personnel, where we hugged and we cried,
Speaker 2: and we talked and jeered, and just just the elation
Speaker 2: of now knowing that I'm going home.
Speaker 1: Take me back to that feeling, take me back. What
Speaker 1: was going through your head? What was running through what's
Speaker 1: the first thing that obviously you've got a photo in
Speaker 1: your pocket, your letters, and you're just like, take me home.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The thing is I just wanted to get back,
Speaker 2: you know, for me. You know, my family are very
Speaker 2: very close knit, and you know the thing is, I'll
Speaker 2: never understand what they went through, and they'll never understand
Speaker 2: what I went through. I talked earlier about the emotional
Speaker 2: roller coaster. Yeah, you know, they kept SCIENTI us, we're
Speaker 2: going to have you out in forty eight hours. So
Speaker 2: every for eight days, forty eight hours, we got this
Speaker 2: forty eight hours, we're going to have you out. We're
Speaker 2: going to have you out. We have you. But now
Speaker 2: we have now come out. We know that we are safe.
Speaker 2: We know there's nothing that can hurt us. We weren't
Speaker 2: aware of our injuries, but there was conversations between us
Speaker 2: and paramedics where they didn't want us walking. But the
Speaker 2: way Brent and I looked at it, an that day
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, we walked into the mind. Fourteen
Speaker 2: days later, the ninth of May two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: we're going to walk out of there with or without them.
Speaker 2: So when that cage reached the surface at five point
Speaker 2: fifty nine am on the ninth of May two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, we walked out of there with our arms
Speaker 2: in the air. We walked out of there on pure adrenaline,
Speaker 2: only for that cage to come up, and as it
Speaker 2: broke from this from below the surface to finally come up,
Speaker 2: you know, you're getting glimpses as it's come up because
Speaker 2: of the mess in the cage, and to look straight
Speaker 2: across and there's my family sitting and standing there waiting
Speaker 2: for me to come out. And it was just pure elation,
Speaker 2: you know. And yeah you've I don't really seen the footage.
Speaker 2: But we come out front ground Australia and take our
Speaker 2: tag off the board and people say, why what would
Speaker 2: you just run straight to your love. Well, every time
Speaker 2: we come out from underground, you removed your tag. You know.
Speaker 2: It was to let people know that we're home.
Speaker 1: Our job is done, we're alive, we're here.
Speaker 2: So when we went underground, there were sevent een men
Speaker 2: win underground, there were seventeen names on the tag board
Speaker 2: on the inside. When the rock fall happened, fourteen men
Speaker 2: exited the mine all bar three tags. One was Todd Russell,
Speaker 2: one was Brent Webb, the other one was Larry Knight.
Speaker 2: That were the three missing miners. So when we come
Speaker 2: out from underground, it was to tell everybody, Hey, we're out,
Speaker 2: we're home.
Speaker 1: We started this job and we're now finished it.
Speaker 2: So then I turned and I went straight put the
Speaker 2: arms around Carolyn and just just that feeling I'm honestly
Speaker 2: going to sit here and I can't explain it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that one tag that was left Larry. You say,
Speaker 1: seventeen went down and he sixteen went home.
Speaker 2: And that's that's one of the hardest things that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a bit of pilled swalle because it should never
Speaker 2: have happened.
Speaker 1: How you survive that? I will never know to talk
Speaker 1: about having the strongest head game when it comes to
Speaker 1: controlling your emotions through coust and phobia of being in
Speaker 1: a situation like that, you know, psychologically being switched on,
Speaker 1: because any one wrong move would have killed you. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if they if you've established the communications. It's
Speaker 1: like everything has to be to the point, everything has
Speaker 1: to be pin pointed accuracy in order to keep us alive.
Speaker 1: To back and forth morale I talk about morale all
Speaker 1: the time, how important it is, and you mentioned it
Speaker 1: as well, the you know, humor in the face of adversity,
Speaker 1: singing along and you know, just finding the humor aside
Speaker 1: to life when everything is against you is it's a
Speaker 1: phenomenal trait to have, and you don't realize you have
Speaker 1: it until you're put in that situation. The family, how's
Speaker 1: family life? How did they react to it? And I
Speaker 1: can imagine family life is now as precious as anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, you know my family are well. Unfortunately this
Speaker 2: through you know, the illness of PTSD and depression and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, is I became a person that I
Speaker 2: probably shouldn't have done. But unfortunately, it's an illness and
Speaker 2: it's something that you know, we can't control, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's sort of tarnished my relationship with my children in
Speaker 2: the early years. And you know, I'm still still trying
Speaker 2: to build that relationship back with my children and the
Speaker 2: father to them where I wasn't, you know, because of
Speaker 2: it through the PTSD. It also costomer of a marriage,
Speaker 2: so Caroly and I separated, but you know, she's moved
Speaker 2: on there, she's she's very happy and where she hears and.
Speaker 1: You know, Todd, are you happy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I am, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm looking for happiness,
Speaker 2: which you know, it's it's out there. But I've also
Speaker 2: got to look after myself in a way where I've
Speaker 2: got to get myself right to And you know, I
Speaker 2: went down a road probably eight months ago where I
Speaker 2: was in a real good, real good space and I
Speaker 2: didn't want to be here and I went to do
Speaker 2: something silly. But fortunately, because of what I've been through,
Speaker 2: I understand how important life is. I'm probably now in
Speaker 2: the best best space I've been in police so many years.
Speaker 1: Good. Well, what you've got to realize as well, is
Speaker 1: the story that you have, you know, will inspire someone.
Speaker 1: If you inspire one person, if you give someone one
Speaker 1: little glimmer of hope from what you've been through for
Speaker 1: the mindset that you had to adapt in order to
Speaker 1: get yourself out of that situation, you know, then you're
Speaker 1: giving back. You're doing something as a purpose for you.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what I've said to people. And you know,
Speaker 2: I look, I look back on Baconsfield and I look
Speaker 2: at the circumstances and a hundred recently, I shouldn't be here,
Speaker 2: but you are. I am, and you know, as I said,
Speaker 2: the people, I don't understand why. But if I and
Speaker 2: as you just said, then if I can help one
Speaker 2: person and save someone's life, I've done a job that
Speaker 2: by helping somebody else. And if that's what it is,
Speaker 2: well I'm pretty sure that I've helped a lot of
Speaker 2: people along.
Speaker 1: The way exactly. And also what the coping mechanisms that
Speaker 1: you used to get through Everyone's going through struggle. Everyone's
Speaker 1: got a story. Everyone's going through these hard times. And
Speaker 1: you say about you know, you don't understand why you're
Speaker 1: still here. There's some things that you don't need to understand.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that before that you can never understand. But
Speaker 1: the why behind it, you'll hear why you still here? Well, listen,
Speaker 1: if you can save one life, then you're doing your job.
Speaker 1: That's that's the why, that's the purpose, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: that's understandably why you are still here.
Speaker 2: And you know, I am, I'm very passionate and I
Speaker 2: I tell I tell a story with great passion. You know,
Speaker 2: if I just have an opportunity to help someone, and
Speaker 2: that's that's what I'm here for.
Speaker 1: This podcast will certainly help many of that. I'm sure mate.
Speaker 1: Between us, we've got this. It's been amazing talking to you, Todd.
Speaker 1: You're an amazing individual. Keep being you, don't ask too
Speaker 1: many questions, just know the why, keep doing what you're
Speaker 1: doing and listen. Ultimately, you and Brent helped each other
Speaker 1: save your lives. Now as the roles are reverse. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you're going to be saving lives, especially
Speaker 1: with the motivational talking that you're doing and the stories
Speaker 1: that you have.
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on, mate, mctually appreciated. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to read more about Todd Russell's harrowing experience,
Speaker 1: you can read Bad Ground inside the beacons Field Mind
Speaker 1: Rescue by Tony Wright, Todd Russell and Brandt's Web. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining me on head Game. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so you don't
Speaker 1: miss any of our incredible stories and leave me a
Speaker 1: review wherever you're listening. I'm at Middleton. Catch you again
Speaker 1: next time