Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with Cameron Hardiman.
Speaker 1: In part one, we spoke about Cameron's early career in policing. Now,
Speaker 1: in part two, Cameron tells us about the high risk
Speaker 1: helicopter rescue in bass Strait that made him realize couldn't
Speaker 1: keep rolling the dice. Cameron then joined the AFP, which
Speaker 1: took him to the Solomon Islands on a peacekeeping operation
Speaker 1: and a humanitarian operation in christ Church after the devastating earthquakes.
Speaker 1: He also investigated international drug dealers and human trafficking. Cameron's
Speaker 1: job finally caught up with him. He was diagnosed with PTSD.
Speaker 1: This ended his career in the police. I've enjoyed this
Speaker 1: talk with Cameron and his reflection on bravery and resilience.
Speaker 1: Cameron Hardiman, welcome back to part two If I Catch Killers.
Speaker 1: Well one that operation that I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: and I'll let you tell the story because it's fascinating
Speaker 1: the whole scenario of what took place. But that was
Speaker 1: the rescue you did in bass Strait. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us about tell us about that because that particular rescue
Speaker 1: has played a big part in your life. It had
Speaker 1: a bigger impact on you than you probably thought that would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was fairly intense what happened. So I suppose
Speaker 1: best way let you just tell the story. What it
Speaker 1: was about that day.
Speaker 2: I was rousted on the police helicop, you know. So
Speaker 2: I walked into work and looked at the roster and
Speaker 2: said that I'm on the police helicop. I've got my
Speaker 2: gear ready as usual. But it was one of those
Speaker 2: days when you drive to work and you think, boy,
Speaker 2: that this weather is terrible, and I remember seeing his
Speaker 2: dark cloud on their eyes, and you know they had
Speaker 2: on the news that there was a storm out straight
Speaker 2: The Spirit of Tasmania. The big news story to that
Speaker 2: morning was the Spirit of Tasmania. It started across straight
Speaker 2: and the waves so big a start of the first
Speaker 2: portholes smashed portholes on upper decks and move furniture, and
Speaker 2: people were vomiting and had to turn back. And I thought, well,
Speaker 2: that's somewhere I'd rather stay away from as I'm driving
Speaker 2: to work. But obviously it didn't happen that way, and
Speaker 2: we started the morning. The first job of the morning
Speaker 2: was someone that had seen or believe they saw someone
Speaker 2: fall off the bridge at a swollen creek out of
Speaker 2: the West and suburbs because there was floods everywhere. So
Speaker 2: someone had seen this driven past seating someone standing on
Speaker 2: the side of this bridge looking at the swollen ribbon
Speaker 2: underneath them of the creek, and when they looked back,
Speaker 2: the person was in there, so they assumed they either
Speaker 2: fell or jumped. So we got called down to there,
Speaker 2: and usually when you're looking for someone like that, we
Speaker 2: flew down to about three hundred feet and we started
Speaker 2: tracking up and down the river looking all the flood waters.
Speaker 2: I had the back door slid open and the harness one.
Speaker 2: I was sitting on the ledge looking out, and we
Speaker 2: couldn't find it. Usually we could if someone had fallen
Speaker 2: over you, that'd either report back that they'd found them,
Speaker 2: or someone will be recorded missing. And there was none
Speaker 2: of that. And we expected that if we're going to
Speaker 2: find this person, they're going to be flooded face down
Speaker 2: and stuck them into eddy or against grass, up against
Speaker 2: the tree. But we never feund anyone. And as we
Speaker 2: were doing that, a call came in through the office
Speaker 2: to say that there was a guy in a yacht
Speaker 2: in the middle of us Straight that got hit by
Speaker 2: the storm, was being bashed around. He had no mast
Speaker 2: and the water place were asking if we can go
Speaker 2: and winch him off his boat. And I remember looking
Speaker 2: out to the south of Bass Straight and that massive
Speaker 2: gray cloud was still there. And I had effectively volunteered
Speaker 2: to be the winch crewman that day. All the down
Speaker 2: the wire man it was. It was too late to
Speaker 2: get out of it then, so we headed back to
Speaker 2: s and And Airport to refuel on there EGS helicopter come
Speaker 2: out and continue to search for the person. And we
Speaker 2: got ready and we got the position. We got out
Speaker 2: of our maps and saw that it was about sixty
Speaker 2: five miles off the coast of Sail, which is where
Speaker 2: the rough blass and the pilot who worked out he
Speaker 2: had enough fuel to fill up the tanks and enough
Speaker 2: fuel to get there, get us ten minutes over the
Speaker 2: top of the yacht to winch him off, and then
Speaker 2: enough fuel to get back to the nearest airport, which
Speaker 2: was a bat out thirty minute flight back. So we thought, well,
Speaker 2: let's go and do it. And I remember we got
Speaker 2: we're heading there, and I was getting what was called
Speaker 2: a survival suit on, so because it was cold winter
Speaker 2: and wet and straight on. Instead of using a normal
Speaker 2: wet so he used to what was called survival suit.
Speaker 2: So I got stuck out in the water. I've got
Speaker 2: about six hours rather than one hour before we get hold.
Speaker 2: I remember it. Get stuck at these hills. We had
Speaker 2: to sort of sneak around the cloud low level to
Speaker 2: get out there. You know, it took a fair while
Speaker 2: to get sixty five miles out the closest thing on
Speaker 2: there was no land visible from there, I could see
Speaker 2: a major oil rig on the horizon just as we
Speaker 2: sort of hit the ocean and wandered away that the
Speaker 2: search and rescue people in Canberra sent down a fixed
Speaker 2: wing aircraft. They sent one from a rabit And airport
Speaker 2: to sit over the top of us just to maintain
Speaker 2: communications with US and aviation traffic radio to say that yep,
Speaker 2: we're still there and still operating and all right. So
Speaker 2: it was like a bit of top cover for us.
Speaker 2: So we finally got in the area, so we knew
Speaker 2: we had enough fuel for ten minutes to find him
Speaker 2: and get him off the yacht, and enough you're to
Speaker 2: get back to them. There is fire only dipper. The
Speaker 2: water police that wanted this this sailor to scuttle his
Speaker 2: yacht before he got win stopped. So they wanted him
Speaker 2: to pull what's called seacock founs, the big bowers in
Speaker 2: the back. Once you paull them, it starts flooding in
Speaker 2: the Boatle sent within about ten to fifteen minutes. And
Speaker 2: the reason they wanted him to do that is that
Speaker 2: they didn't want an unman yacht floating around in shipping channels.
Speaker 2: So they get people that if you winch him off
Speaker 2: the yacht.
Speaker 1: You've got to scuttle it, right, Okay, didn't realize that.
Speaker 2: Unless it's knowing, but they don't leave it. There's enough
Speaker 2: crap out there floating in the ocean damaging boats without
Speaker 2: having extra yachts floating around with no one in them,
Speaker 2: especially by straight major shipping channel. So we had to
Speaker 2: ask our water police to contact him on his radio
Speaker 2: and say the second because we only had ten minutes.
Speaker 2: We said the second we get overhead. We need him
Speaker 2: as soon as he sees the helicopter to pull those
Speaker 2: valves and get up to the deck because we've only
Speaker 2: got a few seconds to get him off the off.
Speaker 1: So when you're talking that the fuel is that that tight?
Speaker 1: When you're talking the time time restraints there, you haven't
Speaker 1: got time to muck around. You're basically going to be
Speaker 1: running on fumes by the time you get back.
Speaker 2: Helicopters don't have endless fuel ballot, but bladders, and the
Speaker 2: more fuel you put on, the more weight you have.
Speaker 2: So therefore, the less you can carry, the less you
Speaker 2: can fly. Okay, Now, if you fill the helicopter, our
Speaker 2: helicopter up with the two tanks and what we call nine.
Speaker 2: At the boot tank, you've probably got about two hours endurance.
Speaker 2: But if you start adding equipment and then three people,
Speaker 2: you've got to reduce fuel. So now we've got say
Speaker 2: we've got our full tanks, we've got to make the
Speaker 2: pile's going to make sure that he's got enough fuel
Speaker 2: to get there. He puts an extra person, so extra
Speaker 2: hundred kilos on board, So therefore he's going to make
Speaker 2: sure that fuel Bunce is right. He's got enough to
Speaker 2: get back. Now. Unfortunately, you hear this all the time,
Speaker 2: the rescues that they were low on fuel. Well, that's
Speaker 2: always the case. You leave with a certain a man
Speaker 2: of fuel and the second you get off the ground
Speaker 2: you start running out. So there is a time when
Speaker 2: you have to head back. The further year go. The
Speaker 2: less time you got on task lot stupid diving the
Speaker 2: dpe go, the less time you could stay there. Now,
Speaker 2: we believe that that message was passed on that he
Speaker 2: was going to scuddle the ship, the boat and then
Speaker 2: make his.
Speaker 1: Way to the deck the moment he saw you, the moment.
Speaker 2: He saw us, yea. And it took us a while
Speaker 2: to find him because you can imagine that there's five
Speaker 2: to seven meter waves and seas and bass strikes like
Speaker 2: a washing machine. It's quite shallow, so you get waves
Speaker 2: and a swell out there a small part of bats
Speaker 2: straights like this, they start to bend out of a
Speaker 2: white cap. So we're in the right spot. We just
Speaker 2: couldn't just couldn't see it because the white caps everywhere,
Speaker 2: and the pilot we were almost thinking we're going to
Speaker 2: have to refuel, go back, refuel, come back and have
Speaker 2: another crack. And the pilot spotted it. And the reason
Speaker 2: was so hard is because he was the same size
Speaker 2: with his white caps. He's in a white yacht and
Speaker 2: he's been rolled over, so he just looked like another
Speaker 2: white cap. So the pilot had said that he's ready
Speaker 2: to winch. He was in a harbor, and I jumped
Speaker 2: in the back, hooked onto the wire. The winch operator
Speaker 2: put me out the door. I remember first opening that
Speaker 2: door and there was this war and you get this
Speaker 2: a lot of wind gusts because of the downdraft of
Speaker 2: the helicopter and the engines making noise. But on top
Speaker 2: of that there was this war from waves and wind
Speaker 2: as well, and I remember thinking, I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to think about getting a transfer out of there, because
Speaker 2: I don't think you'll be doing this one again. I
Speaker 2: remember yelling because you can't talk. I remember yelling over
Speaker 2: the noise to the wind operator saying, you know, do
Speaker 2: your best to put me on the deck. He can't
Speaker 2: get me on the deck, stick me in the water
Speaker 2: and I'll drag him in and lo and behold. I
Speaker 2: cannot believe the wind shopper Brennan. I don't know how
Speaker 2: he did it because the bag. You got to remember
Speaker 2: the helicopters sitting there at harbor. He's verbally guiding the
Speaker 2: pilot and around while he's controlling my height, and the
Speaker 2: boat is just getting thrown around. And he manages to
Speaker 2: land me on the deck of the yacht right where
Speaker 2: the cabin entry to the cabin is, with half a
Speaker 2: meter of the guy standing there. And I thought, I
Speaker 2: cannot believe he's done this. I thought I'm cashing in
Speaker 2: on there. So I went to stick the strop over
Speaker 2: his head and then under his arms, and I was
Speaker 2: going to give the crom a wind job, rode a
Speaker 2: thumb saying get me out of here. I reckon. I
Speaker 2: could have spent about three seconds on that yacht, and
Speaker 2: I get him off, but he just looked at me.
Speaker 2: Stune turned around and went back into the cabin, and
Speaker 2: I thought, well, this is turned into shit. Hurry, So
Speaker 2: I turned around and look at the helicopter, and you know,
Speaker 2: I've got lots of cables, lots of cable. Something happens
Speaker 2: and it should have been sitting just behind me and
Speaker 2: holed it was actually moving forward flying. Look, it was
Speaker 2: flying off. And what had happened was the aircraft and
Speaker 2: the wind on its nose had shifted, so it started
Speaker 2: to drift forward, and the boat had started to drift
Speaker 2: al So the slack cable that had come down that
Speaker 2: was in the water was slowly getting pulled out. I
Speaker 2: remember seeing it.
Speaker 1: The cable you're connected to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still connected to the cable of the harness,
Speaker 2: and you know, I had about maybe twenty feet of
Speaker 2: slack that was slowly going and I remember going, it's
Speaker 2: going to go in tight any minute. And I remember
Speaker 2: flicking it over this sort of wind generator the back
Speaker 2: of the yacht, and I turned to face a helicopter
Speaker 2: that was meting away quite rapidly, and the why went
Speaker 2: tight and I took a step just to protect myself
Speaker 2: and shot off the boat, dragged me off the boat
Speaker 2: and I landed. I remember flying through the air, thinking
Speaker 2: this is not good, and I braced myself to hit
Speaker 2: the side of a wave, which I did, and I
Speaker 2: went under and a wave come over the top. I
Speaker 2: remember being underwater and quite disorientated because I think I
Speaker 2: winded myself and I embraced myself and thinking I got
Speaker 2: to get out of the water, but I didn't know
Speaker 2: which way I was up, and it's quite turbulent.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, camera, sorry to win it up. But
Speaker 1: these waves we're talking is what I've got pictured in
Speaker 1: my mind. I've you've seen sea rescues or when the
Speaker 1: waves of just if they're breaking windows on the ship
Speaker 1: that goes between Bass Strait, the spirit of Tasmania. You're
Speaker 1: looking at very this is a scary place. You don't
Speaker 1: want to be.
Speaker 2: Oh look, you know. I mean I remember looking at
Speaker 2: thinking they huge. I mean, they're probably they're higher than
Speaker 2: probably around about house height five to seven meters.
Speaker 1: I mean, love the water.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of water. There was no rhythm to
Speaker 2: them anywhere. It's a lot cushing into each other. It's
Speaker 2: just like a washing show.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're you've been you've been dragged off the boat,
Speaker 1: you've hooked up to the helicopter. Helicopters heading in one direction,
Speaker 1: boats in another. You get the jerk and you find
Speaker 1: yourself in the water. You're under the water.
Speaker 2: Yep, amount of breath there was. There was a split
Speaker 2: second where I thought the next one was going to
Speaker 2: be a lung full of water. But I don't know
Speaker 2: how it happened, But talking to the wind shop ery
Speaker 2: later later, he said he lost sight of me because
Speaker 2: I'd gone underneath the aircraft, so he didn't know where
Speaker 2: I was, and he just pulled in the cable, which
Speaker 2: in the cable because I would have been like pulling
Speaker 2: in the fish. I suppose I was on the end
Speaker 2: of it, and then I appeared. So I got dragged
Speaker 2: out of the water, got my breath back. And the
Speaker 2: plan was that I had said to the wind shop rider,
Speaker 2: and he agreed that if we couldn't get back on
Speaker 2: the boat, that would go on the water. Right, So
Speaker 2: I knew he was going to have another attent, but
Speaker 2: not on the boat. He was going to put it
Speaker 2: back in the water next to the yacht. So and
Speaker 2: that's what he did. So by that time By the
Speaker 2: time I was going back in the water, right next
Speaker 2: to the back of the boat, the sailor had come out.
Speaker 2: And what had happened is he didn't get the message
Speaker 2: to us pulled the vowels when he saw us, so
Speaker 2: he actually returned into the yacht to pull the vowels.
Speaker 2: And that's what the delay.
Speaker 1: Was, right, Okay.
Speaker 2: So I was next to the yacht sort of making
Speaker 2: sure that it wasn't going to smack me in the head,
Speaker 2: but it was thrown around by waves and had to
Speaker 2: call him in. And the look on his face when
Speaker 2: I said he was seventy two years old, it's like
Speaker 2: he was a ship's captain on supertankers. He built the
Speaker 2: yacht and sailed the soil around the world and this
Speaker 2: is his last stop. And the look on his face
Speaker 2: was pure terror. I said, you got to get in there.
Speaker 2: I yelled at it him get in the water, and
Speaker 2: he didn't want to go. And I remember seeing him
Speaker 2: just holding onto the railing, shaken, so he didn't want
Speaker 2: to get on the water, and I said, you got
Speaker 2: to get a woman now because I'm gone, and he did,
Speaker 2: thank god. We very quickly with the waves drifted back
Speaker 2: around behind the boat, so I put the strap iron
Speaker 2: kept him up and put the stop and put his
Speaker 2: arms under it, grabbed it, and right then we got
Speaker 2: hit by another wave that forced us both under. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: that's a chest strap that we do up to make
Speaker 2: sure that they don't slip out, and I hadn't got
Speaker 2: a chance to do that up. Wy've come through and
Speaker 2: we sort of although we're tied together, I lost hold
Speaker 2: of him just as that happened. The wave went and
Speaker 2: the helicopter move and we got pulled out of the water.
Speaker 2: You know, he under normal conditions, his head should be
Speaker 2: sitting at my chest typed because the arrival the people
Speaker 2: reaching it lower. But for some reason he was higher
Speaker 2: than me. And what happened strop had slipped down under
Speaker 2: his bum and he was sitting on it like a swing.
Speaker 2: And then he was holding onto the wire, which is
Speaker 2: the first situation slipped and falling backwards. His leg had
Speaker 2: kicked me under the arm and I grabbed hold of it.
Speaker 2: So he was hanging outside down in his harness. And
Speaker 2: the normal procedure would be there to signal to the
Speaker 2: wind chopper I put you back in the water, but
Speaker 2: I couldn't because of my hands full. It took a while.
Speaker 2: The wind shopper I realized what was going on and
Speaker 2: he put me back in the water, which is not
Speaker 2: really really what I wanted to do, but it did it.
Speaker 2: And they put me back in the water, and I
Speaker 2: managed to get the harness back on him and the
Speaker 2: chest strap and then give the wind CHOPPERO signal to
Speaker 2: get us out of here, and they pulled us up,
Speaker 2: and I was I remember talking filminch operator about this
Speaker 2: that I reunion that long ao and he said that
Speaker 2: trip back was the quietest time I've ever had a
Speaker 2: helicopter because no one saying a word. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm taking a job somewhere else.
Speaker 1: That was the catalyst for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it funny. I thought I got away
Speaker 2: with that, and I thought, well, you know, maybe the
Speaker 2: next one I won't be so lucky. And it was
Speaker 2: that pretty much that job that maybe decide to take
Speaker 2: the job at Federal Boys.
Speaker 1: I that just unpacking that for a bit, like I
Speaker 1: suppose the longer and I know people that have been
Speaker 1: in dangerous professions, whether the forces all different things, and
Speaker 1: they wonder if they've rolled the dice too many times,
Speaker 1: almost like an epiphany for you at that point in time. Well,
Speaker 1: I got to escape that one, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be lucky the next time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember getting home and my partner said, what
Speaker 2: do you do today? I said, I had this job. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're setting a message now. Apparently I can't remember doing this,
Speaker 2: but I've been center a message on a fine saying
Speaker 2: heading out their backs straight to winch this idiot off
Speaker 2: the yacht, something like don't hurry, I'll contact you service.
Speaker 2: No I did that. Yeah, I must have seen the weather.
Speaker 2: I thought I was better say something, and I told
Speaker 2: her that night. I said I'd already applied for the
Speaker 2: ob and they was snipping around. But I never accepted
Speaker 2: any roles for them because I made a transfer joined
Speaker 2: there and said you should try it, and I did,
Speaker 2: but they never had any roles that I like. And
Speaker 2: I actually discussed it with my partner and said, whatever
Speaker 2: the next door there is, I'm taking.
Speaker 1: And you just thought after that that rescue, that that
Speaker 1: was enough for you.
Speaker 2: In the Yeah, it was, ugh. I think you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think so's you know, you can go
Speaker 2: through your police aviation career without ever doing something like that,
Speaker 2: And you know I've had I had some reasonably dangerous
Speaker 2: ones over the years, but that one just took the cake.
Speaker 1: When you said that trip back in the helicopter was
Speaker 1: one of the most silent. Did the person who rescued
Speaker 1: thank you? Or was he he said thanks for the left?
Speaker 2: Poor bugger was soaken wet I tell this story book.
Speaker 2: Funny thing was we got him a shower, and I
Speaker 2: knew the crewman because we pulled up at another private helicopter
Speaker 2: base and I knew the guys the helicopter. So can
Speaker 2: you get this guy some clothes and underwear and dry
Speaker 2: clothes so they could pull all his clothes together, and
Speaker 2: all we could find this poor yacht was lacy underwear.
Speaker 2: The poor guy had walked away from the helicopter base
Speaker 2: at Essenon with his poor tite between his legs. I
Speaker 2: sort of felt sorry for him in a way. The
Speaker 2: poor bugger had lost his life savings, all his retirement
Speaker 2: money in his yacht.
Speaker 1: What what you had seen and done? And we'll talk
Speaker 1: the AFP then delve deeper into the PTSD. But at
Speaker 1: that point in time, were you you thinking you'll find
Speaker 1: with this? It was sort of well physically, I mean,
Speaker 1: in one piece like this hasn't taken a toll on me.
Speaker 2: Look, I remember this. It was six months before I
Speaker 2: resigned and took up the position the under that job,
Speaker 2: and in that six months I just did not want
Speaker 2: to fly. I lost all motivation to fly. I didn't
Speaker 2: think that was abnormal. Yeah, that's probably a normal response.
Speaker 2: I made the decision I was going to go, that's
Speaker 2: where do you want to fly? But in hindsight, losing
Speaker 2: total motivation for what you've been doing for fourteen years
Speaker 2: is definitely a symptom of PTSD. But I certainly didn't
Speaker 2: know that at the time. But then again, I have
Speaker 2: had symptoms of PTSD prior to doing that job. I
Speaker 2: used to blame my insomnia on working shiftwork. But if
Speaker 2: I look back in hindsight, the first five or six
Speaker 2: years or eight years of shiftwork, I slept like a lot.
Speaker 2: Now it's only towards fifteen twenty years in the job
Speaker 2: that I couldn't sleep at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, the AFP, you've gone across to the AFP. What
Speaker 1: roles were you doing in the AFP? So to explain
Speaker 1: the people that are not for me with the policing
Speaker 1: organizations you've had to resign from Victoria Police apply for
Speaker 1: the AFP, you get excit in there. Do you have
Speaker 1: to go through the academy, start basic training and all that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to do the whole riguma role. So
Speaker 2: there was an interview. Back then, there wasn't a lot
Speaker 2: of lateral entry police going over within any police force,
Speaker 2: so a lot of the people had to actually go
Speaker 2: back to the academy. They didn't sort of have any
Speaker 2: recognition for prior learning, and I suppose they can't because
Speaker 2: procedurally it's totally different. Police work never changes no matter
Speaker 2: who you work for, but procedurally it's different. So they
Speaker 2: had made us an offer that I sign up for
Speaker 2: a minimum of two years that within that two years
Speaker 2: they were going to train us. Because the whole squad
Speaker 2: went over. They picked about two squads of thirty or
Speaker 2: twenty five or thirty from around the country, and I
Speaker 2: was included in that.
Speaker 1: When you say go over, is this for the.
Speaker 2: Going over to the AFP, we had to go to camera.
Speaker 2: We had to do a abbreviated academy course a nine
Speaker 2: week period and that was a combination of what they
Speaker 2: call their Federal Police Program, which is for national investigations,
Speaker 2: and their policing program for ACPT Policing or uniform Policing CANbus,
Speaker 2: so we did an amalgamation of both. They also in
Speaker 2: that training program send us to peacekeeping school so we
Speaker 2: can deploy overseas, and part of that agreement was that
Speaker 2: once we graduated, we would spend three months in Canberra
Speaker 2: uniform and then we're overseas for two years. The various
Speaker 2: deployments around around the world, and that appealed to me
Speaker 2: having a father that was first in the military in
Speaker 2: Malaya and then the Air Force and moving around. I
Speaker 2: thought I wouldn't do it with the kids, but I'll
Speaker 2: certainly do it what I don't have kids, So yeah,
Speaker 2: I took the job. And the first deployment was well
Speaker 2: after three months in Camber, which is probably the longest
Speaker 2: three months of my work, going back to uniform after
Speaker 2: lying around in other coppers, especially in Canberra, probably rather
Speaker 2: have my tens pulled down. I suffered through that and
Speaker 2: the gift at the end was I got deployed to
Speaker 2: Solomon Islands.
Speaker 1: And what was the role there in Solomon Islands and
Speaker 1: what was the situation there?
Speaker 2: It was rebuilding their police force and what happened in
Speaker 2: the Solomon Islands. There was a lot of tribal fighting
Speaker 2: between gangs, tribal gangs in the north of the island
Speaker 2: and lighter with tribal gangs on the island of guadal Canal,
Speaker 2: which is the main island. They were fighting. They're actually
Speaker 2: killing each other their salt weapons and shotguns and knives
Speaker 2: and machetes, and there was a heap of islands and
Speaker 2: a heap of people dying. Unfortunately, the police force over
Speaker 2: there was ineffective because they too had in fighting between
Speaker 2: people that were enlightened and people that they called GUARDI.
Speaker 2: So the Australian government set a contingent of police over
Speaker 2: there in two thousand and three. I think I don't
Speaker 2: know how they did it, but the commanding Office the
Speaker 2: AFP managed most of them to give up their guns
Speaker 2: right and then it was a slow rebuilding process to
Speaker 2: retrain their police and rebuild it and also to hunt
Speaker 2: down the people responsible for some of the violence over
Speaker 2: the when they had the warfare.
Speaker 1: How long were you over there for look?
Speaker 2: I was in and out of the Solomon Islands regularly
Speaker 2: from two thousand and six to twenty eleven. The longest
Speaker 2: deployment was four months. The shortest was two weeks.
Speaker 1: And what sort of conditions were you living in over there?
Speaker 2: We had a base at the base was we called
Speaker 2: it the guadal Canal Beach Resort. It's not a resort.
Speaker 2: It was near Henderson Field, the old World War two
Speaker 2: airfield that Japanese occupied for years in World War two.
Speaker 2: So it was about fifteen minute drive out of town.
Speaker 2: And we had what we lived in what were called itses.
Speaker 2: So there was a mate of like a insulated aluminium
Speaker 2: with home between it just very simply riveted together. Had
Speaker 2: an incondition of two beds, power socket and we lived there,
Speaker 2: shared shared rooms and what we do most of the
Speaker 2: day depending on what job you had, because everyone got
Speaker 2: a different job. Like the police force, you don't necessarily
Speaker 2: do uniform policing. You might be doing HR you might
Speaker 2: be training in the academy, and each day you're go
Speaker 2: and do your job. And that was for me for
Speaker 2: the first stint four months, I was shadowing staff officer
Speaker 2: to the Commissioner in charge of Special Operations for the
Speaker 2: simmon On's Police. So I was his mentor and my boss,
Speaker 2: my feed boss, was mentoring his boss, the commissioner.
Speaker 1: How did you get caught up in the riots there.
Speaker 2: There was really no choice, I suppose. I mean, what
Speaker 2: happened was, it was two thousand and six. It was
Speaker 2: accusations that I think of the Prime Minister at the
Speaker 2: time of Snyder Renny or something, and there was accuvidations
Speaker 2: that he was funded by the Chinese, he was corrupt.
Speaker 2: And what happened was the locals weren't happy with that,
Speaker 2: so they stormed Parliament House and a riot started. It
Speaker 2: was all hands on deck, so every sworn member the
Speaker 2: contingent there, which also included New Zealand compers as well,
Speaker 2: had to dress up and right gear and had out
Speaker 2: and tackle the rioters. They locked the base down and
Speaker 2: we were given the cars and some very archaic right
Speaker 2: gear told to go and fix the issue. And what
Speaker 2: happened was that the gangs had started burning police cars
Speaker 2: and burning shops up near the Parliament House. They wanted
Speaker 2: their way down the hill about three o'clock there in
Speaker 2: the main town, cutting that blooting shops. They worked their
Speaker 2: way down. When we got there, there was I got
Speaker 2: there was cars on fire and thins on fire, crap
Speaker 2: everywhere and breaken windows, and they worked their way into Chinatown,
Speaker 2: which is a small section in Honiara and play back
Speaker 2: to Chinese. So they bought burnt down basically every Chinese
Speaker 2: building in Chinatown.
Speaker 1: And that that got fairly intensive. Police being injured and
Speaker 1: your right shield being cracked and we.
Speaker 2: Have nine seventies right shields that they've been in the
Speaker 2: sun too long and shadow when a rock hit Him've
Speaker 2: got to give credit to the people that writing they
Speaker 2: were really good rock throwers. Just remember the amount of
Speaker 2: rocks beIN throwner. So I remember our car. The first
Speaker 2: car I had the first day. One was brand new
Speaker 2: Toyota ball drive and that ended up on the main hole.
Speaker 2: I burned to the crown and I think it had
Speaker 2: eight thousand k's on it. The second one was also
Speaker 2: brand new, and that didn't have a panel or window
Speaker 2: left handed eight hours later.
Speaker 1: It's another of joined the police, see the world, all
Speaker 1: the different experiences you can get. You you've also found
Speaker 1: yourself over in christ Church after the earthquakes, a humanitarian operation.
Speaker 1: What was your role there?
Speaker 2: That was just to restore the policing in christ Church
Speaker 2: because after that massive earthquake that killed I think it
Speaker 2: killed like two hundred people, Yeah, and it devastated christ Church,
Speaker 2: and I think the report was that eighty percent of
Speaker 2: the police ice force had been had either lost someone
Speaker 2: or lost a house or been affected by the earthquake.
Speaker 2: So the police force was struggling and they had sent
Speaker 2: other coppers from the Northern Ireland and the South Island
Speaker 2: to christ Church to help, but it wasn't enough. So
Speaker 2: I think there was about a total of two hundred
Speaker 2: Australian ployees that landed there within a couple of days.
Speaker 2: I was there within about ten days and it was
Speaker 2: really to augbouent the police force. I don't think most
Speaker 2: people realized the sergifican damage of that earthquake. They had
Speaker 2: an earthquake a couple either year or a couple of
Speaker 2: years before, and they learned their lesson because people were
Speaker 2: running right, they had media everywhere, getting themselves in trouble
Speaker 2: around buildings and the places where they shouldn't be. So
Speaker 2: during after this earthquake, being well experienced in it, they
Speaker 2: completely fenced off the whole Central Business District block and
Speaker 2: they only allowed the media in three or four spots.
Speaker 2: When sitting in Australia and you're watching this devastation of
Speaker 2: this earthquake, you only got to see three buildings. There
Speaker 2: was a major building in town, and I think they
Speaker 2: included a television broadcast. But you know, to be honest,
Speaker 2: I thought it wasn't that bad. You know, three buildings damage,
Speaker 2: what's the problem. But when I got there and saw it,
Speaker 2: the whole town was flat. I've got an aerial photo
Speaker 2: of it somewhere, and really the TV coverage was very,
Speaker 2: very limited. This place was you know, there was a
Speaker 2: tram there. The tram tracks were buckled in the middle
Speaker 2: of the city. I remembered seeing car. They had this
Speaker 2: with an called liquor faction. The liquor faction is like
Speaker 2: if you know where you're getting set in concrete and
Speaker 2: the water starts fighting the top of the sediment sits
Speaker 2: on the top. That's what liquor faction is. So the
Speaker 2: vibration of the land during the earthquake, of the land
Speaker 2: that christ Shirts was built on was an old river bed,
Speaker 2: so all the liquid had come to the surface, and
Speaker 2: this liquid faction was like gray sludge that it actually
Speaker 2: broken through the slabs of houses and swallowed cars. Right,
Speaker 2: So you drive down the road in christ Church and
Speaker 2: there's a major crack in the ground and the car
Speaker 2: consumed by this gray, messive looking faction. There were whole
Speaker 2: suburbs that were clientless because houses had significant structural damage
Speaker 2: and could we lived in. There was a whole ghost suburb.
Speaker 2: It's just an amazing the amount of damage that we
Speaker 2: didn't know about.
Speaker 1: What you what you're describing talking your career, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've taken you from scary alcol It, scary rescue in
Speaker 1: bas Strait, You've Solomon Islands and an experience there and
Speaker 1: understanding different issues in different places across the world, looking
Speaker 1: at natural disasters. It's like to me advertisement for policing,
Speaker 1: and then we can throw in the mix that with
Speaker 1: the AFP, you were doing some investigation work drugs, international
Speaker 1: drug import and different things like that.
Speaker 2: Twenty eleven, I transferred out of the section that I
Speaker 2: was working in that did overseas deployments, peacekeeping and also
Speaker 2: the humanitarian stuff, and I went into investigations. It was
Speaker 2: not really by choice, It's just that the office that
Speaker 2: I was working was moving to camera and I didn't
Speaker 2: move the camera. And it sort of reset my career
Speaker 2: a bit because it sort of went back about twenty
Speaker 2: five years to when I was almost considering becoming a
Speaker 2: detective at it's play station, but a major career move
Speaker 2: and reinventing, to say the least, going from a career
Speaker 2: that was out of investigations or police work since nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two and in twenty eleven found myself an investigations team.
Speaker 1: How do you enjoy that?
Speaker 2: Look? To start, I didn't. I was a fish out
Speaker 2: of water. Like I said before, when I last did
Speaker 2: an investigation shop with a plane closing unit. We had typewriters,
Speaker 2: no photocopies. We used to use carbon paper and paper
Speaker 2: we get more or phones.
Speaker 1: I can imagine, and looking at the diversity of your career,
Speaker 1: especially your time in the air wing. No, we don't fly.
Speaker 1: You've got to drive. That would have been hard for
Speaker 1: you to come to terms with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to drive.
Speaker 1: A car, which destination that I go into overseas? Now
Speaker 1: you're working working here in Australia, so there would have
Speaker 1: been a few adjustments. And then those things that they
Speaker 1: call computers that you never thought they'd catch on a
Speaker 1: front and center in your office.
Speaker 2: Amazing things. And a photo copy that can runs many
Speaker 2: copies as you want any color.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can tell an old cop if I speak
Speaker 1: to them if they complain about the phaeo copies. You know,
Speaker 1: when we used to type up those documents, like the
Speaker 1: fact sheets or whatever with the carbon paper. If you
Speaker 1: made a mistake, you had to go through with the
Speaker 1: tip X and correct it all on the manual typewriters
Speaker 1: and then the fade out copier in the police station.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was one police station in Australia
Speaker 1: that the fade out copier wasn't continually broken.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you remember getting the old typewriter and had
Speaker 2: to smash down the He's so hard to get through
Speaker 2: five layers of carbon paper. Yeah, amazing. And then when
Speaker 2: you got this and I remember thinking, you know, I
Speaker 2: remember getting to my first investigations team. There was this
Speaker 2: young guy there'd just been a few years out of
Speaker 2: the academy and I thought, boy, when I joined the
Speaker 2: job and wear a uniform, I think he was a
Speaker 2: nappies But he was on this computer tapping out this
Speaker 2: AFFI David, and I thought, what have I done?
Speaker 1: It would have would have been hard for it, but
Speaker 1: you got yourself in some interesting jobs. You were what
Speaker 1: was that drug case where the drugs have been swapped
Speaker 1: by the police and you're driving the driving the truck
Speaker 1: and delivering it to the bad guys? What was that
Speaker 1: one about?
Speaker 2: So I was working on a team that just did
Speaker 2: whatever drug importations come in or the job we're investigating.
Speaker 2: And because I was such a fishient out of the water,
Speaker 2: I volunteered for the stuff that wasn't process driven because
Speaker 2: I didn't know the process. What happened was a chipping
Speaker 2: camplainer came in. They had some information and they looked
Speaker 2: at the container and found that it had eight ride
Speaker 2: on wal mars In crates and hid none of the
Speaker 2: crates was packs in a total of two hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy something kilos of compressed cocaine. Usually what happened would
Speaker 2: happen is they'd follow the drugs and find out who's
Speaker 2: bringing it in. But you can't obviously let two hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy kilos of real cocaine hit the streets, so
Speaker 2: they replace it with a substitute, and then we do
Speaker 2: our investigation and we follow the shipment to see where
Speaker 2: it goes. So I live it through. They needed someone
Speaker 2: to volunteer to sit at the bonding yard where they
Speaker 2: hold the container off site from customs. In a bonding yard,
Speaker 2: customs gear on it, a lock on it until it's
Speaker 2: cleared and allowed to go over the person that's bringing in.
Speaker 2: So I said, look, I'll volunteer. So I had to
Speaker 2: go get myself a brand new fluo worker's shirt, mess
Speaker 2: it up in the car to make it look like
Speaker 2: I've been doing it for years. And I would sit
Speaker 2: there in the coffee room of this bonding warehouse waiting
Speaker 2: for some contact from the person bringing it in. And
Speaker 2: I've been there for three days. I was board ships,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, I get my phone
Speaker 2: call and it's the couples my boys sing, all the
Speaker 2: guys ap currently coming in today and lunchtime in rolls
Speaker 2: this this young kid who wants to check on his
Speaker 2: shipping container that's arrived. So I go and deal with
Speaker 2: him and saw a strike up a conversation again Nami
Speaker 2: and said, look, I think it's going to be clear,
Speaker 2: so you know when you need it delivered, to just
Speaker 2: give us a call once it's clear, and I'll come
Speaker 2: and bring it to you. And he said, you know
Speaker 2: how to use a full clift and use a full
Speaker 2: c lift, I'll call you'll call me. So a couple
Speaker 2: of days later we arranged for it to be cleared
Speaker 2: through customs, and he called. I got on the phone
Speaker 2: and he said he wanted to delivered to a storage
Speaker 2: facility PORTLM. So I said, yep, I'll bring a truck
Speaker 2: and i'll bring it. I'll flad it. So we laded
Speaker 2: the containers into a truck that I hired, and off
Speaker 2: we went. I had these eight long I was a
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy one KO cocaine in it, doing
Speaker 2: my first drug delivery. Funny thing is, and we had
Speaker 2: checked about this previously. I was. I took a wrong
Speaker 2: turn in this truck while I was heading to the
Speaker 2: storage facility to see this kid, and I had to
Speaker 2: do a U turn back around to come out go
Speaker 2: the right way, and I backed into a powerpole and
Speaker 2: there was this massive bang of just that, an accident
Speaker 2: and a lot. I can't call the coppers because I'm
Speaker 2: supposed to be delivering cocaine, so I had a quick check.
Speaker 2: There was no damage. So I left the scene of
Speaker 2: an accident, as all good drug deliveries do. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Only got to the delivery yard and he was there.
Speaker 2: He was nervous as buggery, this kid, excepting his drug
Speaker 2: delivery and nearly dropped one of the with the fort
Speaker 2: nearly dropped one of the ride on malors and the
Speaker 2: bottom of the shipping container crack AhR, shit, they're going
Speaker 2: to see it. And his eyes just went, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: my drug is going to fall out. It's all right.
Speaker 2: I was all right, and I delivered it for him
Speaker 2: and I thought, you know, in about six hours, this
Speaker 2: kid's going to get locked up and he's probably going
Speaker 2: to do you know, fifteen twenty years when drugs in
Speaker 2: Australia and the little bugger gave me a tip fifty bucks. Well, behold,
Speaker 2: you got to rest alone of that night after he
Speaker 2: had cut it up and divided and he was delivering
Speaker 2: it to his.
Speaker 1: Heels again things like that. I'm hearing the story and
Speaker 1: it's well say fun and they don't want people to
Speaker 1: misinterpret it, but it is fun, isn't it. Being involved
Speaker 1: in operation. The adrenaline's going, you know, the pressure's on.
Speaker 1: You can't make a mistake. There's something something to be
Speaker 1: said from that. You did a little bit, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much you can talk about it, but
Speaker 1: human trafficking as well, like this is a crime that
Speaker 1: we don't don't hear much about in Australia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a crime type that I never knew about.
Speaker 2: And back then, you know, in two thousand and probably
Speaker 2: would have been twelve and thirteen. Now there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people have been smuggling in the country illegally by
Speaker 2: boats into Christmas. I understand there are arrivals daily and
Speaker 2: you know, public people smugglers were making an absolute killer
Speaker 2: of a cash putting those people in. So I was
Speaker 2: hunting on a strike team that tracked down people smugglers,
Speaker 2: totally interested in crime type that I had no idea
Speaker 2: of the process of people smuggling.
Speaker 1: No, well, it's something that it seems archaic that it
Speaker 1: wouldn't go on, you know, it seems like a crime,
Speaker 1: but clear it does now when you're at Christmas Island.
Speaker 1: That was where you started to see changes in yourself
Speaker 1: at Christmas at Christmas Island a bit withdrawn or different things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Again, I didn't I didn't want to work. I didn't
Speaker 2: actually want to get out of bed. It was quite
Speaker 2: difficult to get out of a room and go to
Speaker 2: work each day. I just totally lost motivation, almost identical
Speaker 2: to ten years prior. In two thousand and five when
Speaker 2: I finished at a helicopter job and I was not
Speaker 2: motivated to come to work or fly at all. It
Speaker 2: was exactly the same thing, but just later, you know,
Speaker 2: and there was no specific reason in Christmas Island not
Speaker 2: to go to work. It wasn't difficult work. We spent
Speaker 2: most of our time interviewing illegal immigrants to find out
Speaker 2: who the snuggler was. It wasn't difficult work. The conditions
Speaker 2: were okay, the room's okay, the food was good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We used to have a full drive and two around
Speaker 2: the island around days off. But I was just not
Speaker 2: motivated to any absolutely nothing. I think what didn't help
Speaker 2: was the fly. I didn't It's terrible, yeah, really rough weather.
Speaker 2: I remember it took us all day and we never
Speaker 2: got in there, landing back at Perth eight hours later.
Speaker 1: The flying is that triggering from your.
Speaker 2: I suggest I suggest so, because so you know, I
Speaker 2: remember landing going shit, this is not good. And that's
Speaker 2: nowball to the point where I just didn't want to
Speaker 2: do a Christmas all.
Speaker 1: I know that it's hard for any any cop to
Speaker 1: sort of put your hand up and say say you're
Speaker 1: not not coping, But it came came to a head
Speaker 1: for you after Christmas Island, the incident on the train.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell us that?
Speaker 2: So it was just a normal shift. I remember I
Speaker 2: had caught a couple of people have been sentenced that
Speaker 2: I was the informant for a couple of drug importers.
Speaker 2: Good thing is one got nine one years, one got
Speaker 2: twenty one years. You know. I had a couple of
Speaker 2: beers after work and then court train home and had
Speaker 2: a massive just breakdown. I sort of blacked out for
Speaker 2: a minute, and then I couldn't stop shaking. A respiratory
Speaker 2: right went through the roof. I could film or pulse
Speaker 2: some heart beating through my neck. I had no idea
Speaker 2: where I was and freaked out. I had no idea
Speaker 2: what was going on, absolutely none. And I remember the
Speaker 2: kids and my wife were sitting outside the station waking
Speaker 2: to pick me up, and I was just an absolute
Speaker 2: blubbering mess. I don't know how to go off the train.
Speaker 2: But usually the kids are sitting with the window open.
Speaker 2: They're sitting on the seal and waving that dad coming down,
Speaker 2: because it's a great thing to see the dad get
Speaker 2: off the train. They're only six and eight, and the
Speaker 2: look on their face when they saw me was just
Speaker 2: pure beer. And I couldn't. I couldn't even manage to
Speaker 2: open the door handle. And my wife had said, what's
Speaker 2: going on? So I got no idea, absolutely no idea.
Speaker 2: So managed to get me home, drop the kids off somewhere,
Speaker 2: and I just sat in the bedroom. You know, my heart,
Speaker 2: I was still through the river. And she called police welfare,
Speaker 2: Victoria police welfare, but you know they couldn't touch me
Speaker 2: at that time. It wasn't with Victoria Police. Unfortunately. When
Speaker 2: she rang a p wed for welfare and Canberra was
Speaker 2: in Melbourne, so I was lucky that my wife, you're
Speaker 2: a psyched nurse and she just have lunch with her
Speaker 2: that day. So they rang her and she come around
Speaker 2: and she said, I actually said to this poor lady,
Speaker 2: there's no one'tgoing to hospital, leaves the house. She says, okay,
Speaker 2: I want to send your hospital if you can calm down.
Speaker 2: So you managed to calm again. Nadia, her name is,
Speaker 2: I can't forget her name, looked after me so well.
Speaker 2: Since she managed to calm me down, I got to bed.
Speaker 2: The next day, I managed to get him to see
Speaker 2: my doctor and she took one look at me when
Speaker 2: I walked in and said, I know exactly what's wrong.
Speaker 2: That's it's the last day I ever worked.
Speaker 1: I've heard other people tell similar stories. A place I'm
Speaker 1: talking about where hits real sudden and it's almost like
Speaker 1: as police or and I'm not sure whether it's a
Speaker 1: career that happens or the type of person you become
Speaker 1: working in the police. So many people choose to ignore
Speaker 1: it until it gets to that point where you just
Speaker 1: can't ignore it. You're just not functioning, so you can't
Speaker 1: hide it anymore. What was going through your mind was
Speaker 1: hard for you to come to terms with, Like you're
Speaker 1: a block that's done all these things and never taken
Speaker 1: a backward step, never put your hand up for help.
Speaker 1: You're helping other people, and all of a sudden you're
Speaker 1: going to go, hey, I can't go. How was it
Speaker 1: personally for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hit then ail on the head. I mean,
Speaker 2: your self worth takes a massive dive. No, you have
Speaker 2: this really great career, You've done some exciting stuff, just
Speaker 2: like you said, and you think you're ten for tall bulletproof.
Speaker 2: I think you're made for the job. You do it
Speaker 2: really well. And then all of a sudden something happens
Speaker 2: to you that they call a mental health issue that
Speaker 2: ends your police career. So suddenly you think, well, maybe
Speaker 2: I wasn't as good as I thought, Maybe I wasn't
Speaker 2: as strong as what I thought. You should never done
Speaker 2: that job in the first place, so your self worth
Speaker 2: takes a massive beating. I think it's one of the
Speaker 2: symptoms of PTSD that is incredibly dangerous but underrated. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of bad shit happens because of your self worth. Problems,
Speaker 2: re licenships, alcohol, drugs, suicide, depression, all can come from
Speaker 2: self worth and there's nothing worse. And yeah, it's very
Speaker 2: difficult when you've got self low self worth to get
Speaker 2: over yourself requires a totally different mind change, and not
Speaker 2: everyone can do it by themself.
Speaker 1: I reference in part one we're talking about. You know,
Speaker 1: in policing, you're meant to be able to do this,
Speaker 1: you're meant to be able to do that, and you're
Speaker 1: weak if you can't. That's it's a culture that plays
Speaker 1: in part and I don't think it's just the organization's fault.
Speaker 1: I think it's a type of people that sign up
Speaker 1: for policing generally, what they're driven by someone like you
Speaker 1: that have done so many things and it catches you.
Speaker 1: I've had someone else on the podcast, a good cop,
Speaker 1: a hard cop that was really at the front to
Speaker 1: front end of everything. It hit him that quickly when
Speaker 1: he got got help and it had to put his
Speaker 1: hand up, and he felt like he was letting down
Speaker 1: his mates. He felt like he was an embarrassment to
Speaker 1: his family and his kids and all that shit. And
Speaker 1: he's come back now. And basically the lesson he learned
Speaker 1: that if he addressed it earlier, perhaps he still could
Speaker 1: have been in the cops. What's your what's your take
Speaker 1: on your journey?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, exactly. I mean, one, you need to address
Speaker 2: it earlier. But if you're not aware of what the
Speaker 2: symptoms are, and like I said, I thought insomnia was
Speaker 2: just for night night shift. Lack of inulance is just
Speaker 2: pile of the parcel of doing something too. I suppose
Speaker 2: if I had to name what the symptoms are PTS Two,
Speaker 2: I would have noticed that I probably started suffering those
Speaker 2: symptoms back in the mid nineties and may have avoided
Speaker 2: the end of the police Carrier of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: When I finally, what are the symptoms? You look at
Speaker 1: that you've said in some there what the other things is.
Speaker 2: The other way is there was a bit of biness, drinking,
Speaker 2: you know, there was memory loss, depression. There's about I
Speaker 2: think there's about twenty odd symptoms. But to be diagnosed
Speaker 2: with PTSD you have to have a certain number of them.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't know. To have PTSD, full
Speaker 2: blown PTSD, you have to have depression or anxiety. It's
Speaker 2: part of the diagnosis. And I didn't know that either.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know what the signs were. Depression just
Speaker 2: sometimes I thought it was too lazy to get out
Speaker 2: of bed, and just having a bad day. Socially, withdrawn
Speaker 2: is another big one. You start withdrawing from your friends.
Speaker 2: You don't want to go out anymore. You are to
Speaker 2: be seen in public, you don't want to associate with
Speaker 2: more than one person at a time. I had a
Speaker 2: lot of hyper vigilance issues. As I was a cafe,
Speaker 2: someone dropped the spoon, I'd hit the roof because your
Speaker 2: brain doesn't pick up. But that's not a threat that
Speaker 2: thinks everything's a threat. It's hyper vigilance when you're waiting
Speaker 2: for something to happen. I had a lot of that
Speaker 2: towards the end. And again, if I hadn't known that
Speaker 2: that was part of PTUs too, then you know, I
Speaker 2: would have sought help. Hopefully, I think I would have
Speaker 2: been smart enough to seek help. A lot of people
Speaker 2: just ignore it or just ride off as something else,
Speaker 2: and no one's immune to it. I don't think. You know,
Speaker 2: they can recruit people that are into it. They recruit
Speaker 2: people that want to get out there and do this job.
Speaker 2: That's why they're toppers. Some people will make good coppers. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: it's a byproduct. I don't know what they're going to
Speaker 2: do about it, apart from changing coppers about the symptoms
Speaker 2: and what they are and how to recognize it, manage
Speaker 2: counseling and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Your journey, how have you many to navigate your way
Speaker 1: through from that low point to where you are now?
Speaker 1: Has it been a tough journey? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It has. I mean, you know, we've got to you've
Speaker 2: got to go through the workhover process and the tom
Speaker 2: care process, and that's never a good one. And I
Speaker 2: went through that process, which is yeah, it just makes
Speaker 2: recovery so much worse. I had to prove to the
Speaker 2: insurance company that it was police work that caused my PTSD,
Speaker 2: even though I'd only ever had two jobs in my life,
Speaker 2: both of the policing, and that took about three years.
Speaker 2: So you know, eventually they'll bring in the reverse onus,
Speaker 2: and I think they need to do that as soon
Speaker 2: as possible. I think in Canada nowadays, and I think
Speaker 2: in Queensland. I'm not one under posential that if you
Speaker 2: die police officer emergency services and you're diagnosed with PTSD,
Speaker 2: that's automatically attributed to work, and the insurance company have
Speaker 2: to prove.
Speaker 1: That it isn't right, so the owners goes back on them. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other side is the police forces are way better
Speaker 2: at recognizing it and they're boosting numbers for psychologists and
Speaker 2: all say mandatory debrief. I mean my whole police career,
Speaker 2: I never had a critical incident debrief.
Speaker 1: Well, we're becoming more aware of it.
Speaker 2: I think nowadays to you that they don't expect the
Speaker 2: average cop and to do a lifetime service. When you
Speaker 2: and I joined, it was a career and they expected
Speaker 2: it to retire at sixty five. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they virtually mapped it out for you, didn't they.
Speaker 2: Now I think if they get five to ten years
Speaker 2: service out of police officers. They are happy.
Speaker 1: Well, and both you and I know. The trouble is
Speaker 1: if you only get that much, you're only coming into
Speaker 1: hitting your straps after about ten years with the experience
Speaker 1: and the ability to manage it. But I'm sad and
Speaker 1: the fact that it's so hard to attract police across
Speaker 1: the country and everyone's under resourced in policing. And I
Speaker 1: think it is a great job. Yeah, you pay a
Speaker 1: price to a degree and the things that you see.
Speaker 1: But for a young blake like yourself that joined the
Speaker 1: cops wasn't concentrating when he was meant to be studying
Speaker 1: at school and trying to look for a life, how
Speaker 1: do you look back at your career?
Speaker 2: Well, great memories now, I mean I had, you know,
Speaker 2: second thoughts early on when i'd finished work because of
Speaker 2: the BTSD. As coppers, like you said before, we never
Speaker 2: go to jobs where people are happy and safe. They're
Speaker 2: always really shit, you know. When what we do is
Speaker 2: as coppers, we focus on the bad stuff because that's
Speaker 2: what we talk about when we have a ber. We
Speaker 2: talk about the bad ship and the bad stories. And
Speaker 2: I think when your career ends, it's a bit bitter,
Speaker 2: you know, you start to concentrate on how much you
Speaker 2: hated your bosses and how much we paying the us well,
Speaker 2: and they're really bad jobs that you went to, and
Speaker 2: that sort of defines your whole career. But I think
Speaker 2: what we need to do is concentrate about the people
Speaker 2: that we actually helped, and there's many of them, and
Speaker 2: you would know yourself to concentrate on the really shit
Speaker 2: murders and the bad homicide scenes, nearly concentrate is the
Speaker 2: fact that throughout your career there's far more people that
Speaker 2: you helped and better life because of your input. We
Speaker 2: tend to forget.
Speaker 1: About that one. You've got Bravery awards, and I know
Speaker 1: that even came as for the bats strait and other things.
Speaker 1: I know that even came back to cause conflict in
Speaker 1: your in your mind that yeah, I don't deserve that.
Speaker 1: I was just doing my job type thing. There was
Speaker 1: nothing brave about what I was doing. But I think
Speaker 1: if we take on your advice, you know, look at
Speaker 1: the people you help, Like, I don't know, if I
Speaker 1: was drowning in the water and you turned up, you'd
Speaker 1: be my favorite person in the world for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. And the people in the accidents that
Speaker 1: you've helped. So I hope you can hang on to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do now, but at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't, don't think about that and the fun times
Speaker 2: you had. I mean, I still say policing is the
Speaker 2: best job you can have with your pants one.
Speaker 1: Well, that's right, what are you what are you doing
Speaker 1: with yourself now?
Speaker 2: I've got a teenage son to look after and a
Speaker 2: teenage daughter to get the school.
Speaker 1: That's a full time job in itself.
Speaker 2: You want to come at a full time job and
Speaker 2: when they're not there, I gather it like a local
Speaker 2: cafe and have a coffee and I'm amazed at how
Speaker 2: quick the days go.
Speaker 1: Your book, I've had had a read of it, as
Speaker 1: I've said, read it cover to cover, and I think
Speaker 1: it was a great book and it really gave me
Speaker 1: an insight into the things that you do as a
Speaker 1: police and it's not sort of I don't think people
Speaker 1: realize the type of trauma that police see in their career,
Speaker 1: in most police officers' career, and it's quite confronting when
Speaker 1: you put it put it down in writing. Did that
Speaker 1: help you in any way writing the book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely did. I mean It took me three
Speaker 2: years to write it, so it was a long process.
Speaker 1: Were you doing that on the manual typewriter? No?
Speaker 2: I had a computer, all right, I bought You know,
Speaker 2: it was a long process. For the most part therapeutic,
Speaker 2: but you know, there are times where you start going
Speaker 2: down a rabbit hole and start I open up a
Speaker 2: can of worms that probably should have been left closed.
Speaker 2: So you're going to go down that path of writing
Speaker 2: about trauma and your experience, you know, to be prepared
Speaker 2: for that. I thought of wasn't but sort of accepted it,
Speaker 2: and then of course it's good for your family. I
Speaker 2: realized towards the end of the process that this might
Speaker 2: be the only way that my kids are going to
Speaker 2: find out exactly what happened to dad and why it's
Speaker 2: such a grumpy prick and didn't want to go out
Speaker 2: with the family or didn't want to go to these functions.
Speaker 2: But it's got a reason why. I understand it. My
Speaker 2: kids do understand it. My son's read the book, he
Speaker 2: gets it well.
Speaker 1: It does help because quite often they have no idea
Speaker 1: what you're going through and they probably look at you differently. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll wrap it up here. I just want to say
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the podcast and thanks for the
Speaker 1: service that you've done. And I don't think you should
Speaker 1: ever underestimate. Yeah, we see these blokes. I've never actually
Speaker 1: thought about, who is that person being dangled from the
Speaker 1: helicopter that we watch on the nightly news, rescuing people
Speaker 1: and the other stuff that you've done in policing. Says
Speaker 1: you'd walk away, walk away very proud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look I do. And then at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, if I had my time over again,
Speaker 2: I'll do it exactly the same way. Cheers, Thank you,