ST JOHN AND CYCLONE TRACY - 50 years of St John as the Ambulance provider in the Northern Territory

ST JOHN AND CYCLONE TRACY - 50 years of St John as the Ambulance provider in the Northern Territory

Phone calls come and crews are out. Rain, rain and wind. Uncertainty. Apprehension. Wind intensifies, ambulances still out. Phones continue to ring with reports of injuries and needing help. Need to remember first aid and explain over the phone. Ambulances need to come back to the centre, wind too strong, to dangerous. A heart attack just across the road, can we help?

In her story Pat describes horrific sounds, constant rain and wind, banding together with the crew on duty and their families and narrowly avoiding an air conditioned as it blown across the watch room upstairs. In the aftermath, day and night they worked catching small snatches of sleep on anything that wasn’t waterlogged including on tables or in cars, treating countless injured and sick.

It is 6.00am and the wind has died down, we wait for a short while then venture outside. Are we the only ones to survive this night from hell? The huge tree that was on my car has gone. The roads are all blocked the derbis is thick, people start to arrive, both the injured and sick. We check all the vehicles are safe and ready to go. No radio, no phone. Those trips to the hospital, there were so many … Exhausted, fell asleep on the table in the crew room. Others asleep, but not for long. Back on the road. Blood, at Casuarina Square, triage the injured, keep the families together, no linen or equipment, just assurance and hope. What were their injuries, I don’t remember, there are so many. No linen for stretchers, bare covers that’s all. Disinfect and go again.

Pat King
St John Volunteer ― Ambulance Nurse

Pat King was one of several St John Volunteers scheduled for duty on Christmas Eve 1974.

Pat was an Ambulance Nurse and had arrived diligently for her duty as radio operator. She arrived at the station at 6pm that evening and didn’t return home until three days later.

Pat King
In their words
Other St John Volunteer hero stories
Rod Bramley, Alan Bromwich, Phil Langdon with the Bromwich Cup

Rod Bramley, Transport Officer
When a call came through from Emergency Services, he knocked off his day job as a mechanic at the Motor Vehicle Registry and headed to the ambulance centre to make preparations.

Grant Keetly
Grant Keetley who had come on duty as Officer in Charge with his family at midnight led the way.

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