Emery's recovery and return to work story

Video transcript

DESCRIPTION:

A galvanised steel windmill spins beneath a blue sky filled with white clouds. Black lettering on the rear fin of the windmill reads ‘Varcoe’ and ‘Mt Gambier’.

EMERY:

It was the 21st of June 2017, doing what I normally do with Dad, we'd go and feed the cattle on another block on a Wednesday morning.

DESCRIPTION:

A white ute filled with bales of hay drives across a grassy field.

Later, a few cows loiter at the back of the parked ute.

Inside a residential kitchen, a man sits in a wheelchair. He has short grey hair and wears a blue polo shirt and shorts.

TEXT: Emery – Farm Owner – Mt Gambier

EMERY:

I was on the back and dad took off, probably a little bit quicker than normal maybe, lost my footing and had to make a decision whether to jump or try and hang. As the bale went, part of the bale went, I went with it.

DESCRIPTION:

A red and brown cattle dog looks around as it places its front paws up on a metal tool box on the back of the white ute.

EMERY:

Hit the deck pretty hard, broke my right ankle, both bones protruding through the skin.

DESCRIPTION:

An ambulance drives down a country road, sirens blaring.

EMERY:

We rang the ambulance. That seemed to take forever. They ended up having to get one from Millicent, which was 0.75 hour, into the Mount Hospital.

DESCRIPTION:

A blonde woman stands near a sideboard lined with framed photos.

TEXT: Loretta – Emery’s Wife

LORETTA:

I received a phone call from the emergency department at the hospital to say Emery was down there, everything was OK. And I thought, “Oh, he's feeding out hay today with his dad. Something must have happened to his dad.”

DESCRIPTION:

People walk along a bright window-filled hospital corridor.

A pair of crutches rest alongside an empty hospital bed.

LORETTA:

When I walked into the room, his knee was pointing one way and his foot was pointing the other way and there was a big pad that had some blood on it. I'm thinking, this is not what I'd imagined in my head that I was gonna be faced with when I walked into the room.

DESCRIPTION:

A team of surgeons operate on a patient inside an operating theatre.

Elsewhere, two nurses stand in a corridor outside some ward rooms.

EMERY:

Operation late that afternoon, told very bad break. I was there for close to two weeks. And I started to get a bit of discolouration in my foot. And Saturday, 8th of July, we were airlifted to Adelaide.

DESCRIPTION:

A light plane’s propellers whirl as it taxis down a runway.

A large silver and teal sign reads ‘Flinders Medical Centre – Main Entrance’.

EMERY:

And what had happened because of the bone where it had come through, there'd been quite a few veins knocked around and the circulation in the foot wasn't good. Retta and I spoke about it. We said if they get in there and it is no good, let's take the leg off and go down the path of recovery a lot quicker. And that was a pretty hard week.

You think about your business and everything else. A lot of things going through your mind.

DESCRIPTION:

Emery sits at the kitchen table. Loretta stands next to him alongside a teenage girl.

EMERY:

And with the family and everything else, we started to get better and better day by day.

DESCRIPTION:

Emery stands at the side of the ute and pats the brown and red cattle dog.

LORETTA:

And then when he went back up for his rehab, we were up there that first week cause we all wanted to see him walk again, so getting out of the wheelchair and walking again.

DESCRIPTION:

Outside on the farm, Emery stands near a low stone wall with two teenage girls. He wears a prosthesis on his right leg and the girls look at other prosthetic legs in front of them.

Later, Emery kicks a football to the two girls with his prosthetic leg.

LORETTA:

Which we knew that he could do it, but until you're actually up and it's like, oh, how's that actually hold you up? And then you stop and think, oh, well, the pirates got around with just a peg leg back in the day and they managed to walk and get around. So, these days with modern technology, just getting up and getting going and it was another step closer to getting back to a normal life, I suppose.

EMERY:

It was the best feeling to come out of there walking, and on crutches but walking. Getting on with it myself and having a go, that was the main thing.

DESCRIPTION:

Emery walks alongside a steel cattle pen as another man moves the cattle around inside.

Later, the other man crouches inside a combine harvester while Emery supervises.

EMERY:

The one thing I learned, if you're prepared to help yourself a bit and people really help you. When it first happened that first week, you think, geez, you just, you're gonna be useless. Let's sell up. But here I am pretty well doing, nearly doing what I used to do,

DESCRIPTION:

A herd of cattle watches as Emery walks from the parked white ute across some lush green grass.

EMERY:

Working normal hours, enjoying what I do, and that's farming.

DESCRIPTION:

People walk through a hospital foyer.

Two people shake hands.

LORETTA:

Met the first claims manager because he visited Emery in the hospital before he come back from Adelaide. That was probably the hard part. You know, you gotta go to Adelaide and find some accommodation and we don't have any family up there. So, it's, you know, finding somewhere to stay and more out-of-pocket expenses all the time. So, like, where's that money gonna come from?

DESCRIPTION:

Emery uses his wheelchair to go to the fridge and pour himself a glass of water.

Inside a shower cubicle, a white bench seat sits beneath a metal hand rail.

LORETTA:

And that was quite difficult, but we were lucky in the fact that even if Emery wasn't staying with us, lucky we could get some of that reimbursed, particularly in the early days. We were there as Emery's support. We weren't there having a holiday, like, our days were spent either at the rehab or at the hospital.

EMERY:

Once I got my car licence back, well, then I started poking around doing a bit. We started liaising with my case manager. And I did stuff that I knew I could do, simple stuff, driving around, checking stock.

DESCRIPTION:

Emery stands alongside some cattle.

Later, he climbs into the cab of a large red combine harvester.

EMERY:

Every now and again, I'd jump in the harvester for the boys to give them a break. And then eventually I got to the end where I went back full-time doing what I do. Having to go through all that stuff to get your licence back was pretty hard work. I think the whole system's too hard. I'd only lost my leg, not my head and my arms. But overall, you might as well write off a year to get all those licences back.

DESCRIPTION:

Emery drives a red tractor across a grassy field. A trailer behind the tractor is filled with hay.

The two teenage girls sit in the back of the white ute with the cattle dog and watch as Emery slowly drops hay for the cattle to feed on.

EMERY:

I drive every vehicle that I've got, every tractor with no modifications at all, and very confident that I can drive good with my leg. I know you haven't got any feeling there, but you can feel what's going on. So, I had no trouble whatsoever with that.

LORETTA:

Emery's a very positive person and he just gets on with it. And that's the way it is. I suppose we were always at the mindset that there's always someone worse off. And a lot of people say, “Yeah, but that doesn't affect you.” Well, no, it doesn't. But if someone else can do it, well, you can do it too.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

DESCRIPTION:

On a white background a grey and red logo reads ‘Return to Work SA’. The SA lettering is coloured red and has a logo above it that features a red line above a lime green line that curve into each other to form a stadium shape. Further grey text below reads ‘Return to work. Return to life.’

(END OF RECORDING)