User:BR Fairbairn

Ancient History
Born in Sydney, Australia, I am of Scots-English-Irish descent. The oldest child of a Northern Territory police officer, I was raised in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. My family moved to Darwin in late 1974 just before Cyclone Tracy in which our house was destroyed. My mother, sister and I were evacuated to Sydney. We stayed with relatives for a few months before returning to Darwin. I completed high school and began a business degree.

Dark Ages
One evening in early December 1984 I was walking across a Darwin car park and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital bed. Looking out the window I realised I was no longer in Darwin. I then discovered I was at the Royal Adelaide Hospital - some 3,200 km (2,000 miles) from Darwin, and it was January 1985.

It turned out I had been in a serious motorcycle accident three days after the last moment I could recall. Apparently a car cut across an intersection and I collided with it. Fortunately in a car close behind was a school nurse, who quickly came to my aid. Coincidentally the accident happened outside the home of the nursing sister in charge of the intensive care unit in which I was to spend some time.

After being released from intensive care at the Royal Darwin Hospital I was evacuated to Adelaide for specialised treatment aboard an RAAF C-130 Hercules flown up from Canberra. In the accident I had received numerous injuries, and afterwards underwent a number of operations including facial plastic surgery by the head of the Australian Craniofacial Unit, Dr David David.

Middle Ages
After months of hospital and rehabilitation (I was unable to read a book for 20 months) I returned to study. One night during the final semester of the degree I was walking across campus when suddenly I realised I was falling (it was a cloudy night and the car park lights were off). It turned out that during the day a 4.6 metre (15') deep trench had been dug, and that when digging it the builders had cut through electricity cables leading to nearby lights. A single-wire fence had been placed on one side of the trench but not on the side I approached from. After falling all the way to the bottom I tried to get out of the trench but was unable to do so due to a fractured right femur. It was 9:00pm and there was nobody around.

It then started drizzling. After exploring the limited options available I sat at one end of the trench and yelled out now and then in the hope that a security guard who patrolled the grounds would hear me. After about half-an-hour he did, but he had difficulty understanding that I needed help. Fortunately some students turned up and reacted immediately, contacting emergency services.

An ambulance and a fire engine soon arrived. I was hauled out of the trench and placed in the ambulance. The ambulance staff then spent what seemed like hours arguing with the security guard over who was going to pay for the ambulance service!

Later that night an orthopaedic surgeon (Dr Incoll) made an incision in the top of my thigh and drilled a hole down the centre of the femur, before inserting a rod and four screws to hold it in place. The rod has since been removed but I continue to set off metal detectors due to the plates, screws and pieces of wire inserted after the first accident.

Renaissance
I returned to study and the following year finally graduated with a Bachelor of Business degree from Northern Territory University, with a major in Information Systems and a minor in Management.

Modern Times
I now live and work in Brisbane as a software developer, and neither ride motorcycles nor walk across unlit areas at night!!