Chopper pilot rescued multiple people from flooded areas

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Stories of survival are emerging from far north Queensland as floodwaters begin to recede. Helicopter pilot 'Magoo' helped airlift residents trapped by floodwaters.

Transcript

00:00 I did a lift off a roof at Melsonby Station for two rangers, two indigenous rangers.

00:07 But the local Laura Copper, he rang me and yeah, then I went to, I was going to lift

00:16 two more out of Kings Plains and Cooktown Police rang me and said there was a potential

00:24 drowning and I had to come here and pick up a policeman.

00:27 I had to fly over the top of it so I wasn't going to come here and then go back.

00:31 So when I seen them all there I just put them on high ground.

00:35 So you didn't actually get a call over the radio about this, you just saw them with your

00:39 own eyes out of the chopper when you were going on another job?

00:41 Yeah, I was going to Cooktown to pick up a policeman.

00:45 And what did you think when you saw what was happening there?

00:47 I'd never seen anything like it.

00:50 Describe it for us.

00:51 Well it's a bit hard.

00:52 Have you been to the lines then yet?

00:56 Yeah I have, I was there about 35 years ago.

00:59 Oh mate, you haven't been there.

01:00 There's tractors arse over head.

01:02 Mate, Dong was all the accommodations washed up against the pub.

01:06 It's like the cold rooms out of the lines down in trees.

01:11 And so describe for us what it was like coming in on that first run to actually pick someone

01:16 up.

01:17 Oh I landed, they were all on another roof so I landed and talked to one fella, old

01:22 Pickles, and he organised everybody to go from that roof to that roof.

01:28 And how were you actually getting them off the roof?

01:30 Just land on the roof, whole power, because you don't know the conditions of the roof.

01:35 So you hover there, they get in, take them to high ground.

01:39 And that was one at a time?

01:40 One at a time.

01:43 And what was the waters like around the pub at that stage?

01:47 Oh probably, mate, yeah, four foot from going over the roof.

01:55 And they were pretty happy to see you?

01:57 Very.

01:58 And so how long did that whole process take?

02:02 Oh I reckon two and a half hours.

02:06 And in pretty dangerous conditions?

02:08 Very.

02:09 And it wasn't that bad, but like the 22s, they're a small machine, they've got aluminium

02:15 tailrater blades, they don't like heavy rain.

02:18 But yeah, it did it.

02:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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