In good hands - Rod McMeeken's Rescue

It was a wintery, overcast Sunday like any other in August 2021 and Rod was in the middle of his routine backyard chores.

One minute he was chain-sawing a tree branch and the next he was catapulted to the ground by a wayward branch.

He fell more than five metres off the ladder, the impact puncturing his lung and breaking his ribs on the left side, multiple vertebrae and collar bone.

Rod took all the right safety precautions, but his story is proof that accidents can happen anytime, anywhere.

“I thought we had everything covered – I had cut most of the way through the branch when it moved unexpectedly and knocked me off the ladder,” he said.

Conscious but unable to move, his partner quickly called the ambulance who rushed to the house in Margaret River.

“It’s pretty intense and racing through your mind is ‘what have I done’ and then you see the spinal boards and neck braces and you’re thinking ‘what’s going to happen now’,” Rod said.

The high risk of spinal damage combined with the other fractures and major injuries meant RAC Rescue was needed to provide critical medical care and rapid transport to Royal Perth Hospital.

The local football oval was the closest place for the helicopter to land, and the weekend’s footy game came to a halt with police ushering players off the field.

“The ambulance crews got me sorted out and comfortable and then you are transferred into the next good set of hands with the helicopter crew,” he said.

While most memories of the day are blurry, he remembers the sense of relief seeing the waiting helicopter and RAC Rescue Critical Care Paramedic Maddelyn Coertzen explaining the situation and talking him through what she was doing on the one-hour flight to Perth.

“I felt like I was in really safe hands and people knew what they were doing so I could relax a little bit more,” he said.

“When you're the patient in that helicopter, you just really feel like you're being looked after by one, coordinated team.”

Rod spent a week at Royal Perth Hospital and underwent surgery on his shoulder.He reunited with the RAC Rescue crew a little over a year after his accident and said the experience made him see how stressful situations can bring out the best in people.

“It was great reconnecting with the crew as it was an opportunity to reflect on the fantastic work that they do and the huge impact that they have on people’s lives,” he said.

RAC Rescue is a free service to the community, providing vital search and rescue and critical aeromedical services 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Patients can be stabilised on-scene and transported directly to hospital when every minute counts, resulting in improved patient outcomes and more lives saved.

The RAC Rescue helicopters provide vital search and rescue critical care medical services to the WA community. They are funded by the State Government, managed by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and sponsored by RAC.