Helicopter pilot Frank Hoare is lucky to be alive after his helicopter crashed at a remote cattle station near Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Frank was mustering cattle from the air when his chopper struck a power line and plummeted 12 metres to the ground.

“It was a straightforward day, and we were about an hour or so off finishing the job,” Frank said.

“I’d been aware of power lines all day, but I had my eye out of the door on the animals, and lost sight of them.

“The next thing I knew, I hit the lines, my tail ripped off, and my chopper started spinning out of control. Then I passed out.”

With the power lines down and no cell reception available, one of the cattle musterers who witnessed the crash raced back to the station on his motorbike to contact the Flying Doctor.

In under an hour, the RFDS Mount Isa aeromedical team landed at the nearest airstrip, loaded a Ute with medical equipment, and drove to retrieve Frank from the crash site at Neumayer Valley.

“I don’t know how long I was out for, but when I woke up, Richard, the Station Manager, was with me,” Frank said.

“I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move my leg.”

RFDS Nurse Manager – Aeromedical Jamie-Lee McCall was tasked to retrieve Frank and remembers him lying on the ground in excruciating pain amongst debris.

“We were concerned that Frank was still in the cockpit because there was a danger of the helicopter igniting or the paddock setting alight from the fallen power lines,” Jamie-Lee said.

“The angle of his leg indicated it was badly broken, and we thought head, spinal and leg injuries were likely too.

“We needed to stabilise him before we could move him to safety.”

Jamie-Lee said the team was able to use a portable ultrasound to scan Frank’s leg and identify the exact spot to inject a nerve-blocker to numb the pain.

A pelvic binder was used to support his body to try and prevent internal bleeding.

This was the first accident Frank had faced in his 23 years of flying.

The news shook his wife Sarah and the local community when it first broke on social media.

“When Frank crashed, I was working for a small animal clinic in Charters Towers, and a colleague asked me, ‘Where’s Frank at today?’” Sarah said.

“When I told her that it was near Normanton, her face dropped and she said, ‘There’s been a helicopter accident up there’.”

Sarah immediately thought to herself, ‘it couldn’t be Frank,’ but when she saw the Facebook post with the pin drop on Neumayer Valley, she began to worry.

Sarah tried Frank’s mobile, and there was no answer due to the power outage from the accident.

She tried his colleagues’ mobiles, and no answer.

She finally got through to someone at the cattle station, who confirmed her worst fears.

It was Frank, and although they didn’t know much more, he’d survived.

“For me, not knowing if he was going to live or die was the worst thing,” Sarah said.

After Frank was stable, the RFDS gave him a mobile phone so that he could speak to Sarah and his three children to reassure them he was okay.

“I could tell by his voice he was very shaken up about it,” Sarah said.

“It was such a relief to speak to the RFDS Nurse and know he was with the Flying Doctor.”

Frank was transported to Townsville for emergency surgery on his broken femur.

After nine weeks of recovery, Frank is now back at work, mustering from the air again.

“We are forever grateful for the RFDS,” Sarah said.

“Having medical professionals able to turn up to a crash scene in the middle of nowhere is vital.

“If we won the lottery, we would donate millions of dollars to the RFDS if we could.”

Source: Royal Flying Doctor Service. For more information on how to make a tax deductible donation to help the RFDS this tax time click here