It was late one sunny afternoon, and we were at the station, cleaning the ambulance after the previous couple of jobs, when a call came in for someone who had fallen off of a roof. Hearing this report, we were expecting there to be the potential for some serious injury. We were advised that the Intensive Care car was being responded from Parramatta station, so even the Coordination centre were expecting something serious.

We drove out of the station and headed west through the afternoon traffic, cutting across intersections, lights and sirens activated. The location for the industrial complex was one known to us both, as we had done a job there only a fortnight before, when someone had gotten a quantity of cement powder in their eyes.

The location was to a cement manufacturing and distribution site, located towards the rear of the estate. Upon arrival, we were directed to an area where there were cement trucks parked along an area bound by a high wire fence, topped with barbed wire. The fence easily stood at least 8 feet tall, made of chain link wire, and was quite rusty in places. What was peculiar about the fence, was that there seemed to be someone climbing on it at the time.

We were directed towards the guy climbing on the fence, as the person we were there for, and we considered that he couldn’t be that badly injured if he’s climbing the fence.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The guys on site, told us that he’d climbed up onto the roof of the carport, which was at least 4 metres in height, and had fallen off the edge, landing head first into the concrete slab below. It was a witnessed fall, and they said he landed head first, with a sickening crack, and was lying in a heap for about 30 seconds. They had run over to him, and they all thought he was dead.

After about 30 seconds, he started to stir, and tried to stand up. There was a pool of blood on the ground as he got up, and he seemed really dazed and confused.

That was when he apparently ran to the fence and started to climb it, screaming out as he did so. They said it was just loud screaming, no words, just screaming. He apparently was screaming at the top of his lungs. By the time we had arrived on scene, the screams were intermittent. What he was doing however, was climbing over the top of the fence, barbed wire and all, then climbing back into the compound, lacerating his arms and gut in the process.

As we approached him, he was about a metre off the ground, hanging onto the wire like a chimpanzee, bobbing up and down, and grunting. The thing that took our attention was his head.

Not only was there a lot of blood in his long, matted hair, but part of his skull was missing.

There was a hole, with a piece of skull about the size of a fifty cent piece, missing, and we could actually see his brain through the hole.

This poor guy, was not well.

I must admit, that up until that point that I had never seen a live human brain. I’d seen some as the result of some fatal head trauma, but not on someone still alive. Woah, this was a first.

This guy, was apparently a really easy going, peace, love and mung beans kind of guy, but was now acting like a confused and aggravated gorilla.

So, we decided that the first thing to do was get him off the fence, as he was only doing more damage. We called his name, but were getting no response to that, so we decided to manually handle him from the fence.

His response to that was not as expected.

As we took hold of his bloodied shirt, he tried to get away from us by climbing higher onto the wire. Fortunately, I had a really good hold of his shirt, preventing him from climbing much higher than he already was.

It was at his point, he launched himself from the fence towards the ground, lashing out with one of his feet, collecting with the side of my knee. I still believe to this day, that it was a reactive response, not a targeted response personally at me, however, the foot caught me right at the side of my knee, making it buckle sideways in a direction it was not meant to hinge. Shit! The pain was intense, and I went down like a sack of spuds. I noticed swelling start to form almost straight away. At least it was sort of in the correct position. At that point, my partners attention shifted to me, but I told her to look after him if she could and keep him from going up the fence again. She grabbed his shirt again to hold him away from the fence, just as the I.C .(Intensive Care) crew arrived on scene.

As they came towards us, I hopped over to them, and gave them a brief run down up till then. What I also wasn’t expecting was for the police to turn up on scene at that moment as well.

Well I gave them a run down as well, as my partner and the IC crew were now trying to coax the patient onto the stretcher which the I.C. guys had gotten out of our ambulance, and they asked me what happened to my leg. I said he kicked it in, but I didn’t think he actually knew what he was doing at the time. They walked over to help my workmates, as they were having a really difficult time getting him onto the stretcher. He was completely uncooperative. I hopped over to the back of our ambulance, and got some Entonox (pain relief gas) in to me, so I could at least assess my knee. It wasn’t great to say the least. It was starting to swell badly, and I couldn’t bend it without some serious discomfort.

In the meantime, the police, my partner and the I.C. crew had managed to tackle the patient onto the stretcher, and were in the process of trying to restrain him. The I.C. guys decided that he would require sedation, which wasn’t the most desired route of treatment, owing to the head injury, but if they could sedate him enough to stop fighting the restraints, it would be better for him.

After some treatment on scene, and assessment, the I.C. crew were able to transport the patient in their vehicle, under lights and siren to the local trauma hospital at Westmead, for the level of care that he required. He had a stay of a couple of weeks apparently at the hospital after having an artificial plate put over the damaged area, as the missing bone was unusable.

Me on the other hand, ended up with a ruptured Anterior Cruciate Ligament, and torn cartilage in the knee, requiring a surgical repair a week later. This was one of many injuries sustained in the role of my employment, but while it was one of the worst, I held no bitter feelings towards the poor guy, as he honestly had no recollection of the event, let alone the fact of kicking me.

I had gained a very healthy respect for head injury sufferers from that point onwards, realising that there can in some circumstances, be quite a change in their mood and recognition of what is going on around them.