There was an emotional reunion between Gold Coast Surfing champion, Mark Richardson, and the LifeFlight Air Ambulance Jet crew who saved his life yesterday.
The Australian surfing champion was holidaying in Bali two months ago when he became critically ill from internal bleeding, struggled to get A negative blood supplies and almost died.
“Definitely without LifeFlight I wouldn’t be here,” Mark said. “They definitely saved my life.”
A LifeFlight Australia aeromedical team flew from Townsville Airport to Denpasar Airport in Bali on Wednesday, 27 September to fly Mark back to Australia.
When our LifeFlight Air Ambulance medical team arrived in his hospital room, he needed general anesthesia, intubation and life support to keep him alive.
Yesterday, Mark shook hands with Captain Adam Minutello, Critical Care Doctor Louis Snellgrove and Flight Nurse Natasha Grieve to thank the flying ICU team for saving his life and bringing him home.
“That was amazing, it was one of the final pieces of my healing journey. I’ve thanked a lot of people and I really needed to thank these guys,” Mark said.
LifeFlight Rescue Air Ambulance Jet Captain Adam Minutello said every minute mattered in Mark’s repatriation.
“We’re fortunate to be well supported by our operations coordination centre, C3, and they work tirelessly behind the scenes to organise all the approvals and landing permits when we fly to a foreign country at short notice,” Captain Minutello said.
“I know what we do every day makes a difference to people’s lives, but it’s wonderful to have the opportunity to see for myself just how much of a difference we make.“
Mark initially thought he had a bad case of Bali Belly and struggled in a hotel for three days before going to a local hospital where he was in intensive care for just under two weeks.
“I had an ulcer that was bleeding internally, I lost a lot of blood,” Mark said.
“And I was having problems getting blood. I thought I was going to die. I was giving myself hour-by-hour goals to stay alive. I was scared I wasn’t going to make it. When someone told me LifeFlight was on its way, I knew I just had to hang on until they got to me.”
When LifeFlight Flight Nurse Natasha Grieve walked into Mark’s Bali hospital room, she was shocked at just how terribly anaemic he was.
“We took one look at him, he was as white as a ghost and badly needed blood,” Ms Grieve said.
“The first thing I did for Mark was start a bag of blood.”
In the four hours Mark was in LifeFlight’s care, he received 4 units of blood: one unit in his hospital room, another in the ambulance on the way to the LifeFlight jet and two more in the air.
“We also had to work quickly to get Mark started on the medicine he needed to save his life,” Natasha said, “Mark was super confused, he was mumbling random things, and he wasn’t making any sense.”
Natasha worked alongside LifeFlight Critical Care Doctor Louis Snellgrove who sedated and then intubated Mark before they loaded him onto a stretcher.
The LifeFlight aeromedical team was in and out of the hospital in less than one hour.
“We intubated Mark – sedated him so he was sleeping and our machines were breathing for him – and got him onto a stretcher and into an ambulance and on our way back to the jet,” Dr Snellgrove said.
“It was quite challenging to find a suitable vein in order to put a drip in and because we were giving him multiple units of blood, we needed extra cannulas so I used an ultrasound midflight in order to get access and then once I got the access we used our blood analysers in order to determine how anaemic Mark still was and that could guide further treatment. We are incredibly fortunate to have the very best medical equipment in our Challenger 604s.”
Mark doesn’t remember being loaded into the ambulance but says he briefly became aware of his surroundings in the air.
“The first thing I heard was the jet engines and I knew that beautiful sound meant I was going home,” Mark said.
“I could hear the doctor and nurse checking all the machines I was hooked up to and I knew I was in good hands.”
“Meeting the crew who saved me today was incredible. Without LifeFlight I wouldn’t be here.”
This month Mark got back in the Gold Coast surf.
LifeFlight Australia worked with insurance company nib – and its travel arm Travel Insurance Direct (TID) to bring Mark home.
nib Chief Medical Officer Rob McGrath said both teams worked around the clock to get Mark home safely and to a hospital for surgery.
“It quickly became apparent that due to the complexity of Mark’s case and that local health care options had been exhausted, evacuation to Australia became the safest option for Mark.”
“Working with LifeFlight has been incredible and our partnerships are very important to us.”
“With our combined expertise, we were able to give Mark the care he needed and deliver him home safely.”
