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For more than nine hours, Black Hawk 220’s aircrew battled the most arduous weather conditions they have ever flown in to help about 200 flood-stricken Forrest Hill, Laidley and Gatton residents on January 11.

Captain Tony Southwood, a Black Hawk pilot from the Oakey-based Army Aviation Training Centre, was on board Black Hawk 220 assisting its pilot. He said the weather became so bad that at one point they had to land for their own safety.

“Our average visibility was only about 2km. The rain was heavy and we had lightning and thunderstorms rolling on top of us, so we had to land and shut down until it was safe enough for us to continue our tasks,” Captain Southwood said.

He said that the most significant rescues he witnessed involved Laidley Hospital patients and a family of six trapped on the roof of their Laidley home.

“It was so hard to stop the tears from forming in my eyes. Aircrew were carrying tiny crying babies from the hospital onto the aircraft - it was very powerful stuff,” he said.

“Corporal Robert Nelson rescued four children, their mother and grandmother by individually hoisting them by sling about 25 metres from their verandah rooftop into the helicopter.”

Corporal Nelson, who has served in East Timor and is an aircrew instructor at the Army Aviation Training Centre, said these were the first real rescues he had conducted in his four-year career as an aircrewman.

He said that rescuing the family of six was particularly difficult because two of the children were very young and too small for the sling.

“The littlest girl, who was about three, was absolutely terrified, so I hoisted her teenage brother up first to show her that she would be OK,” Corporal Nelson said.

“When it was her turn, she still bawled her little eyes out the whole way up. However, her four-year-old sister was really brave and ended up enjoying the helicopter ride.”

He said he had to be particularly careful rescuing the grandmother because she was recovering from back surgery.

“Although I have trained a lot to do this, it’s nerve-racking picking up a real person from that height,” he said.

“For me, it was a tiring but rewarding day because I helped people who were stranded and had no other way of escaping the rising floodwaters.

“We got as many people as we could to the Gatton Evacuation Centre safely, but eventually command called it a night because we had been flying for so long and they didn’t want to risk endangering our lives.”