by Matt Wright
To my astonishment, Chas leapt up and showed no sign of injury. I pulled myself up, taking a quick step towards him when my right leg gave way and I collapsed in a heap. I looked down, my mind taking a couple of seconds to register what I was seeing. My right pant leg was stained cherry red and my right foot was bent the wrong way. Chas wasn’t hanging around. He bolted away, disappearing behind a hill. I was left sprawled out across the bitumen. I managed to get upright and hopped on my good leg across the road. Each time I landed, the force jolted through my body and made me wince in agony.
Once off the road, I lowered myself to the ground and carefully hitched my pants to reveal the extent of the injury. It looked like a compound fracture – my tibia had broken through the skin and the wound was haemorrhaging. My foot was also badly injured and was sticking out at a right angle.
Initially, the pain was manageable, but it was a different story when I tried to move. One minute I wanted to spew, the next I was seeing stars. I needed a tourniquet. The best I could come up with was my belt. I fumbled it off my trousers and tied it around the point where the bone stuck out of my leg. I looked around for a stick or a branch to use as a splint.
It was at that point I heard the first car. I whipped my head around and saw a sedan whiz past. I needed to get to higher ground so the driver of the next car saw me. Back first, I dragged myself along the side of the road using my arms to lever my arse off the ground. I managed to move about 40 metres in 10 minutes. I shimmied under a gum tree and lent against the trunk. I was still slightly lower than the road, but it was the best I could do.
The day was getting seriously hot, easily nudging 40 degrees. My blood was drawing the flies and the pain was getting steadily worse. After about an hour of being under the tree, another car came past. I shouted at the top of my voice and waved my arms, but the driver kept going. The same thing happened 10 minutes later and another 10 minutes after that. Nobody could see me.
After the last car drove past, I was beginning to think that my best hope was Chas. Presumably, he would head back home. When Mum saw him saddled up on the day I was due to arrive, she would put two and two together. I took another deep breath, steeling myself against the ever-worsening pain. The lower right side of my body felt like it was on fire. But I knew I couldn’t panic. That was a sure way of making a bad situation much worse. Luckily, I didn’t have that much longer to wait. An old woman who lived on the farm next to where I was sitting, had heard me calling out for help. She came down to inspect what was happening.
‘Hello?’ she said, in a heavy German accent
‘I need water,’ I said, moving my arm to my mouth to signal what I meant.
She nodded and quickly walked off. She returned a few minutes later with a full bottle of water.
‘Thank you,’ I said, relieved that she had understood my meaning.
All I wanted was to down as much water as possible. The lady had other ideas. She’d seen my leg more closely and started shaking her head. She then said something in German, unscrewed the cap of the bottle and filled it with water, handing me a cap of water. I swallowed it in one gulp but she wouldn’t give me the whole bottle. I was frustrated and had no idea, at that point, why she didn’t give me the bottle.
After two more capfuls of water, she screwed the cap onto the bottle and said something with an apologetic look on her face. I was absolutely parched. I pleaded with her to give me more. If she didn’t understand the words, she would have understood the look on my face. The woman shrugged and sat down alongside me. It turned out she had some medical knowledge. After taking one look at my leg, she correctly concluded that I would need surgery. The last thing you want to do before surgery is load up on water.
It took 20 minutes for the ambulance to turn up. By that point, I was in a lot of pain. I swore my head off when I was lifted onto the gurney. They wheeled me into the ambulance and then one of the ambos injected me with some strong painkillers. I can’t remember much from that point. They took me to the hospital and sent me straight into the operating theatre.
The surgeon told me the next day that Chas had done a proper job on my leg. I had a hairline fracture to my foot, five shattered toes, a broken ankle, broken tibia and broken fibula. Sitting in that hospital bed, waiting for the cast to properly set, I started to take stock. When I tallied up the injuries I had suffered in my life, I realised I had come out extremely well. The busted leg in Hahndorf was a reminder of how lucky I’d been.
* * *
For me, catching crocs, flying choppers, collecting croc eggs and mustering animals is like driving a car at night. You can observe the speed limits, stop at the red lights and make sure your headlights are switched on. But that doesn’t mean a truck isn’t going to come out and sideswipe you. No matter what you do, sometimes things go wrong. There’s no way of safeguarding against every possible disaster or misfortune.
We all have the choice in life of whether we want to live inside our comfort zone or take risks. Before the launch of the first season of Outback Wrangler, right when I started to get some traction in the mainstream media, television host Mike Munro asked me a question about the risks involved in what I do.
‘Do you think about how Steve Irwin ended up?’ Mike asked.
‘Yeah, I do,’ I said. ‘That’s part of working with wildlife.’
‘And (you’re) prepared for that?’
‘Yep, definitely.’
Some people were surprised to hear me answer that way, but it’s not like I have a death wish. I just believe in taking life head on.
The way I see it, life is tough and challenging. Sometimes we feel happy and sometimes we feel sad. The reality is that we all die one day so we may as well give it a good old crack. For me, the only way to do that is to fill it with adventure, learn new things, share ideas, take risks, make mistakes, have pride in what I do, give to others, be kind, work hard and operate outside of my comfort zone. If I can throw in the towel at the end of it all knowing I’ve done this, then I’ll be stoked.
About the Author
Chopper pilot and dangerous animal expert Matt Wright has spent his life in the great outdoors drawn to creatures that most of us would run away from. He has spent time as an outback musterer (horse wrangler), oil rig worker, soldier in the Australian Army, crocodile egg collector and chopper pilot. Matt’s passions and unique skill set have turned into a career as a wildlife re-locator; tracking down, capturing and transporting a diverse range of dangerous animals. His objective is the preservation of wildlife: to remove and relocate problem animals rather than kill.
Matt works in the junction between the world of the wild and the world of humans. As a chopper pilot he is able to access areas that would otherwise be impossible to reach; as a conservationist he brings a unique perspective based on hands-on experience and genuine compassion. Matt’s motto is: any animal, anywhere, any time.
About the Co-Author
Tom Trumble has worked in journalism, policy development and book retailing. He graduated with honours in history, and has also studied music and journalism. He is the author of Unholy Pilgrims (2011), Rescue at 2100 Hours (2013) and Tomorrow We Escape (2014), all published by Penguin Random House. He lives in Melbourne.
MICHAEL JOSEPH
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa | China
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, 2016
Text copyright © Matt Wright 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without
the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover design by Adam Laszczuk © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Front cover art photographed by Dan Walkington (National Geographic Australia), designed by Gavin Barnett (National Geographic Australia)
All internal photographs courtesy Matt Wright unless otherwise credited
Text design by Samantha Jayaweera © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
penguin.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-76014-191-2
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin...
Follow the Penguin Twitter
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at penguin.com.au
