As 22-year-old Rory Smith's lungs filled with blood, an expert crew from Adult Retrieval Victoria worked to organise a complex, fast-paced mission to save his life.
Rory had been experiencing some joint pain for a month and when he woke up in a sweat his girlfriend took him on the last ferry from their isolated home on Raymond Island in the Gippsland Lakes to Bairnsdale Hospital.But it sparked the beginning of an incredible 20-person, almost 14-hour operation by Adult Retrieval Victoria, one of the longest they've done, to save Rory and bring him from Bairnsdale Hospital on life support to The Alfred in Melbourne.
It was 3.50am on May 8 when Rory's case was referred to Adult Retrieval Victoria, Dr John Daly was the third coordinator in a long chain who began working to organise that crew.
It keeps him on his toes, Dr Daly says. After nine years with ARV he's been to most - if not all - of the hospitals, landing strips and ambulance bays in Victoria.COVID-19 has brought its own complexity to ARV jobs. When Dr Burrell got to Rory, he already had a breathing tube in his mouth, was in a coma in deep sedation, and despite that, his respiratory function was still severely impaired.
Rory remained in a coma for two-and-a-half weeks, during that time his 23rd birthday passed without fuss. “I was sedated so I wasn’t aware it was my 23rd birthday and no one could be there, not that I would have known anyway. I think I was in isolation.”
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