AMAZING TALE OF SURVIVAL
IN TODAY'S THE CAIRNS POST - STORY BY CAITLIN GUILFOYLE
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AFTER surviving almost four days lost in the bush, a Tableland man has proved he has more lives than a cat.
In his 55 years, Raymond ‘‘Butch’’ Beattie, of Irvinebank, has lost an arm, a leg and narrowly escaped paraplegia in separate accidents.
‘‘My arm was 1976 when I got hit by a drunk driver here in town when I was on my motorbike,’’ he said.
‘‘Then the leg, I was in a bus accident in Townsville and lost a leg after that one. Then I fell down my own steps and broke my neck.’’
But Mr Beattie’s biggest test yet came this week, when a quad bike accident left him alone in ‘‘burnt country’’ with nothing but a light, a pick, a small bottle of water and a bag of lollies.
‘‘My mate and I, we got separated and I was heading through where I though the track was but I’d gotten off it,’’ he said yesterday.
‘‘I realised I wasn’t on the right track so I reversed to go back and (the bike) just had me. It rolled on top of me and then bounced off me. I just lay on the ground and listened to it keep falling all the way down the mountain and it was a lot of air time.’’
The accident occurred after 4pm on Saturday and Mr Beattie stayed near the crash site until lunch time on Wednesday when a Queensland Emergency Service helicopter spotted him.
‘‘I heard the chopper so I stuck my little light out from the rock I was under to say ‘This is me’,’’ he said.
‘‘He saw me because I was flicking my torch. They were going round and round trying to find somewhere to land but they couldn’t land so they called the ground crews in.’’
Fifteen minutes after the chopper sighted him, Mr Beattie saw a man with a green VB T- shirt coming towards him on foot.
‘‘I was probably the happiest I’ve been to see any bloke,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m not sure if he was a local but he was with the Holloways Beach SES people.
‘‘I said, ‘Get us out of here mate. I’m not real flash on the old pins and I haven’t got any energy’.’’
While Mr Beattie’s rescue was uplifting, his time alone in the bush was a test of his emotional and physical strength, and ability to survive.
‘‘The bike was way down and I couldn’t walk to it. I started trying to walk down and I was digging my way with my pick,’’ he said.
‘‘I only had about 100ml of water and I didn’t think I could walk out on that much water. I didn’t have enough energy to walk out.
‘‘It was flaming hot. I had to keep moving because there’s not much shade. The girth of the tree was all I had.’’
After a restless sleep on the first night, Mr Beattie awoke on Sunday morning ‘‘stinking hot’’.
‘‘I’m in burnt country,’’ he said. ‘‘The leaves are off all the trees. The radiating heat off that black dirt is incredible.’’
His small water bottle lasted almost three days, and when that ran out Mr Beattie said he realised he was in ‘‘deep sh--’’.
‘‘I just had a rock in my mouth (to stimulate) saliva, otherwise you can’t talk,’’ he said.
To keep his skin hydrated, Mr Beattie resorted to using a urinesoaked sock as a wet rag.
‘‘I cut off the sock I wear over my leg and that was in my jocks,’’ he said.
‘‘It definitely kept me alive having that wet rag there. It stinks but you don’t care about stink.’’
Mr Beattie’s lowest point came the night before his was found, when the rescue chopper flew overhead but failed to spot him.
‘‘I just lost it; I was screaming and howling,’’ he said.
‘‘I thought, ‘Well that’s it; I’m buggered’. I screamed at the moon and screamed at everything. I thought, ‘That’s it; I’m dying tomorrow. I’ve got nothing left; I’m dying tomorrow’.’’
Thoughts of his wife Lou and daughters Bianca ‘‘Freddy’’ and Jodie carried him through his last difficult night in the bush, until the search party took him home.
‘‘They took me back up to where the cars were and it was unbelievable,’’ he said. ‘‘The amount of people that were up there was amazing. I wish I could thank everyone personally.’’
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