A healing hand

Leading Aircraftwoman Fiona Scholes and blast victim Sergeant Anthony McKay, 1st Battalion RAR, flank CDF General Peter Cosgrove at the memorial service. Photo by SGT William Guthrie.

SHE treated those who were injured and grieved with those who suffered loss.

Leading Aircraftwoman Fiona Scholes, among the first aeoromedics in Bali after the bombings, accompanied Chief of Defence Force General Peter Cosgrove to a memorial service in Parliament House's Great Hall in Canberra on October 24.

She joined family members and dignitaries at the public service to mourn the loss of lives in the terrorist attack.

LACW Scholes accompanied GEN Cosgrove as a representative of the aeromedical evacuation teams that played such an enormous role in bringing wounded back to Australia after the attack.

She was called to duty at RAAF Base Richmond at 6am on October 13 to prepare for an aeromedical evacuation in Bali.

It was not until a call to her father to wish him a happy birthday that she would begin to develop an understanding of what had happened a few short hours earlier in a tropical paradise to Australia's north.

"By 7.30 the AME had been confirmed and by 10am we were on our way to Darwin to pick up extra people and equipment. Everything moved very quickly. We were in Darwin just long enough to configure the aircraft and load the extra people and equipment before we were on the way to Bali," she said.

LACW Scholes said the sight confronting the first Australian service medical personnel to arrive at the hospital was overwhelming.

"People were running up to us to hug us saying 'We are so happy you are here, you can help us'.

"I knew there were more aircraft on the way but it was hard to look and think we were going to get them all out in time.

"We came to realise that this was what we were trained to do and that we were going to be able to achieve it. We started to move systematically and we began to get people out.
"I began treating them on the way [to the airport] so they could be transported straight on to the aircraft. Basically we were just doing medical aid treatment for them - both physically and mentally. One of my main jobs was dressings and medications, pain relief and drips."

By the time the first patients were reaching the airport a clearing station was being organised.

"It was hard with the language barrier - there were a lot of Indonesians wanting to help out but the main thing they could do for us at that stage was to carry litters," LACW Scholes said.

"Once I got back to the airport it was very quick. I got off the ambulance, got my patient out, got him ready for flight and transported him straight into the aircraft, strapped him in and basically the doors closed and from there it was get ready for take-off."

In the air it was a matter of treating patients and trying to keep them alive during the flight back to Australia.

"We had three seriously ill patients on that first flight and they were very demanding in time and people and there were only three of us on board to look after them. When we arrived in Darwin the civilian ambulances were waiting. Once the patients were off we started reconfiguring the aircraft to take off again."

LACW Scholes made two trips to Bali and one AME from Darwin to Sydney. By the time she had returned to Bali all casualties had been transported to the airport clearing station.

• By Paul Cross

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