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Clip description
Gayle Shann may not have survived her horrific injuries if her neighbour Robyn Newbury had not been a trained nurse. Robyn took instruction from the Flying Doctor service that was not able to reach the property for two hours. It was her courage and resourcefulness that won the day, with help from Gayle who never lost the will to live.
Curator’s notes
This is great filming. A remarkable and moving interview with Gayle’s neighbour, Robyn Newbury, as she relives those terrible hours until the Flying Doctor service arrived. Sensitive and dramatic recreations, using the actual recording of the ambulance service from that emergency, heighten the sense that we’re actually living through what Robyn is recalling.
We are shown the reality of life in the outback where professional help in a crisis may be hours away, and come to realise it is the remarkable resilience and resourcefulness of neighbours helping each other when they can, that makes their world so unique. A Big Country, the documentary series made by the ABC’s Rural department about the lives of people in the bush, told many such stories of resilience and resourcefulness to a largely urban audience in its twenty years on the air.
