Graphic: Emma Jackson
Flying Doctor Podcast #69
Emma lives with her family at Wolverton Station in the Archer River region of Cape York. She is the founder of Conquer the Corrugations – an initiative that aims to raise awareness for mental health and suicide prevention in the remote region – and is also a dedicated sustainability advocate. Wolverton Station, located in the heart of central Cape York Peninsula, is a hidden gem that offers a unique and authentic Australian outback experience. Owned and operated by the Wolverton family, this 300 square mile cattle station boasts a stunning landscape, complete with hills, mountains, ridges, and valleys that turn green for six to seven months of the year before going brown for the rest.
In this latest episode of the Flying Doctor Podcast, we will hear the story of when Emma and her husband Neville heard their neighbors Karen and Peter come back from an adventure at around 5 or 6 pm, which was less than a kilometer away, and they heard them leave again around 6:30 pm, but they never heard them come back. They heard a motorbike at around 8 pm, and it was speeding up. When the motorbike arrived, they saw that Karen was unconscious on the back of the bike and quickly got the defibrillator and started CPR. Emma and her partner were not trained in CPR and defibrillator usage, and it was their first time doing it on a real person. They continued performing CPR on Karen for about an hour and a half until the ambulance arrived. During this time, Karen's body started to respond, and they could feel the circulation increasing. They continued until Karen was stable enough to be transported to the hospital.
Emma also describes a story about her son, Ryan, who was bitten repeatedly by a three-meter scrub python when he was 13 or 14 years old. Emma explains how she was asleep when Ryan woke her up, saying that a snake was eating him. She went to check on him and found the snake wrapped around his arm and starting to constrict. The snake's head was over Ryan's hand, and it was opening its jaw to take Ryan's hand into its body. Find out what happened to Ryan's arm and how a brave mother like Emma saved her son. Emma also got awarded the Cairns region Local Hero, as the Queensland Hero for 2022 from the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
