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A 69-year-old Lithuanian man has been praised for his “extraordinary resilience” after emergency service workers were forced to amputate his leg during a 20-hour rescue operation in remote south-west Tasmania.
The man, who remained in a critical condition in Royal Hobart hospital on Sunday evening, had been travelling with a group of 11 tourists on a multi-day rafting trip on the remote Franklin River.
He slipped on a rock while walking beside the river and became trapped, partially submerged, in a crevice for close to 20 hours.
Mitch Parkinson, an intensive care flight paramedic with Ambulance Tasmania, was among the first people on the scene. He said it was “the most challenging case that I have ever taken part in”.
“This was an exceptionally strong and resilient man and he maintained that throughout the night,” Parkinson said. “Our efforts were to keep him warm as best as possible, to keep him fed and watered as much as we could.”
Meanwhile, rescuers continued in their attempts to free him.
One of the two surf lifesavers who worked to free the man, Ace Petrie, said when he first reached the man, he was submerged from chest down in fast moving water.
“He had a little bit of broken English,” Petrie said. “When we tried to pull his leg out, he would say ‘oh, my leg is broken’. Apart from that, we couldn’t take his mind off the situation and talk to him about his family. That was really hard.
“He was wedged like an hourglass. He had his knee trapped in rocks in a deep section of that rapid. There were a number of hazards that we had to work around to gain access to the patient.”
The water level dropped as the operation continued, but not nearly as much as emergency services personnel hoped for.
Petrie said he did everything he possibly could to free the man.
This included using ropes and pulleys. Eventually, the team used airbags and hydraulic tools to try to shift the submerged rocks that were pinning him.
“These machines have a capacity of 50 tonnes, but we were not budging these rocks at all,” Petrie said. “This went on for about 10-12 hours of different scenarios.”
Const Callum Herbert from Tasmania police said: “This rescue was the worst case scenario of the worst case scenario.
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“He could not be physically removed and every available angle to try and manipulate him out, and every resource possible was used before the amputation,” Herman said.
Radio signal was so poor in the region that the Maritime Safety Authority needed to dispatch a jet from Canberra, which acted as an intermediary between the rescue staff on the ground and helicopters in the region.
“The focus of the entire evening was ensuring that [amputation] was the absolute last resort,” Parkinson said. “There was an understanding that every conceivable single effort had been made. This was not a discussion or decision that was made lightly.”
Parkinson said the man’s Lithuanian friends helped to supply him with hot drinks and meals during the entire time he was stuck.
One of the ten people who were rafting with the patient was a doctor in Lithuania, who was able to communicate with him as a translator. Through him, the trapped man was informed that amputation was the only option.
Petrie said those conducting the rescue, including himself, had put their own lives at risk during the rescue operation.
“We do train for these type of scenarios, but this one was out of the box,” Petrie said.
Emergency personnel have worked with diplomats to reach his family overseas, to keep them informed.
On Sunday evening the man remained in a critical condition in hospital.
