00:00:05
Speaker 1: Approache production.
00:00:17
Speaker 2: I woke up at seven in the morning.
00:00:19
Speaker 1: I went to work for a normal day, unlock the park, a dream world set up all the staff. At around three ten pm on the sixteenth of October twenty sixteen, we got a call on the two way radio saying it was a Code gray, which was pretty much all hands on deck. Bear in mind we hadn't been trained for anything like this. When I got to the Thunder River Rapids ride, sadly four people had lost their life and it wasn't a very graceful way to exit, and the injuries they incurred were fatal. And I'm going to leave it at MESSI Its images you don't don't see every day, thank God. And again I don't want to see him again. But you know when when you see a young lady who you welcomed into the park because it's a quiet day with her three friends, and I tell them, you know, you're going to have a wonderful day. It's quiet, You're gonna have a great day. And you know, six hours later, I'm watching her eyes from under the water gaze up at me, vacant and rousy. A gay god addressed his soul. Anyway, there were there were people missing ahead and body. It was messy and they were caught in the conveyor belt. I dealt with the partner on the day and did what I could with the paramedics and the police, and also that day and my man I I people don't understand. They try and bring the memory back. I can tell you now what color clothes they were wearing, the helicopter above the smell of the rubbish spin I can tell you what they were wearing. The kids, it's the husband. I can tell you absolutely every minute detail of it. Not that I think about it a lot, but it never leaves my head.
00:02:14
Speaker 2: So I.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: Rallied, and my manager at the time actually said Clancy, I can't cope with his I sent her to my office.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: I sectioned off.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: The area with my security guards, sent the kids of one of the fatalities to the ice cream shop with my staff to get them out of the scene. The partner of one of the fatalities ripped a rubbish bin off a post and threw it, and he was furious. I totally get why he was, and as much as I tried to calm him down, in the end, I just said let him go. He's just got to get it out. As a side note that the tragedy of that in itself two years ago, he couldn't come to terms still with the loss of his partner and he killed himself down the South coast, and it's it's a tragedy that keeps. People don't see the ripple effect that has caused a lot of children, and the children now are missing both parents because he couldn't cope without her. They were childhood sweethearts.
00:03:25
Speaker 3: And they had they had children as well. Three Yeah, goodness, and.
00:03:32
Speaker 1: It I was there that night till around I think one point thirty two am the following day when we finally when forensics arrived and the coroner.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: Sorry, can I just and please don't I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just trying to process that time frame between the incident occurring, yep, what you had to endure, see and everybody else who was there, the emergency services, and two then how many hours later before forensics.
00:04:04
Speaker 2: So nothing at the crime scene.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: As well as it would have been called at that stage, nothing could be moved or touched. Everything had to have just stayed paused. Yep, as it was as you just described, and beyond. Excuse me, I'm just trying to be very gentle in my words, but I'm a little bit fathomed at how many hours that scene was there and how that must play in yours and everybody else's minds constantly. I mean, it's bad enough when we experience something bang and flash, you know, or an accident bangs. It's the after math, we get that. But this is like that horror scene is literally paused as it was at its worst part.
00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was made straight up.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: I'd like to say I recalled and put into place all the protocols, et cetera. But as true as I sit here now, all I did, buddy, was I went into this order pilot put a screen up, and it was tough, but someone had to do it, you know, And I had this shield, if you like. And the only time that broke there was a fireman in the raft that went down, and I was taking a statement from him at about seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night, and he said, mate, I was doing this, and then I could see it vicariously through his eyes, and I started to quiver, and I had to hand him to someone else to put a blanket around him. And take him because I had to get back to autopilot. And all I recalled was every die Hard movie, every Catastrophe movie. I'd seen what they do. They coughting it off, they section it off, they get the public away, and that's what came into play.
00:05:54
Speaker 2: That's truly what I did. And so for you, it was more fight or flight. Absolutely. I look I.
00:06:04
Speaker 1: For years, I kept asking why me. Now I say, I'm so stoked it was me, because we'll get to it later. But I don't know if anyone else would. I'm not saying they would have coped any differently, but I wouldn't wish this upon anyone else. And I'm glad I carried it.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: I just I see, I see.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: And go back to what we're saying at the start about chat about you as a human and a person. How relative is what we're talking about now about your personality, the way you've seen life and how you dealt with the traumas and negativities that were around you, to then be led years into your life to this horrific, extremely sad day.
00:06:50
Speaker 2: Yeah it was.
00:06:51
Speaker 1: It was a tough one. I don't know the words that say it. However, I'll give it a shot what we saw that day. I know you people on here with fantastic stories, and I love them right, and I know some of them are pretty violent and things like that. But I think for me, I'd never seen a body. I'd never witnessed carnage like that. I'd never been in that environment. And I challenged most people to say they have in that in the fun theme.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: Park, to have four fatalities.
00:07:30
Speaker 3: A family fun theme park where lots of happy kids and mums and dads. Yeah, save lots of money to come and experience that. A Georgia the dream that may never get to dream will but that was close enough for them.
00:07:42
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And so look like I say, I drove home. My wife was waiting up for me, God bless her, and she said, do you want to talk about it? And I remember us sitting on the bed and I looked at her at three in the morning and I said, sweetheart, all I can say is, don't ever tell me you had a bad day at work, because I've had the mother of the mare. I jumped in shower, washed it off. Next day, I was back there at seven point thirty, and I'll tell you something I couldn't in an instant, despite advice, I had one hundred and ten staff. There is no way I could not be there for those guys.
00:08:23
Speaker 3: And be that leader and be camp there to care and show your compassion and be you.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: You know, mate, they imagine you work there twenty years. I didn't, but some of them did. This has happened. It's all over the news. It's like media city out the front of dream World. There's tens for Channel seven and ten.
00:08:43
Speaker 2: And I personally think it was disgusting the way that it all went down.
00:08:47
Speaker 3: It was horrific the outside looking in, just the lack of respect for those lives lost and the families and loved ones, and.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: Just the whole media scrum around.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: It and what was being put out and what was being said and how it was worded.
00:09:00
Speaker 2: Yep, it was putrid, mate unnecessary.
00:09:03
Speaker 3: Completely the media has to take and we're not going to get off track here, but just there is ownership, and the ownership lays with them, you know, because there's a lot of words, things and pain that they'll never take away that people had to experience and go through due to the ill informed Or let's let's grab a headline and make it as we see fit like they love to do well.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: I learned very fast, mate. If the media kick off a news update and it says there are unconfirmed reports, it's bullshit.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: That's what I learned.
00:09:36
Speaker 1: Every time they lead in with unconfirmed it's their making it up. The stories that came out of that were unbelievable. We couldn't walk from our cars to the entrance without mobs of media and some of the stuff. Found that pretty horrific and very intimidate.
00:09:52
Speaker 3: How did you find that? Honestly, I mean, in your mind, you know that you're going to be confronted with this scrum. You know that you're turning up there to lead your team, to be there to show that as much as internally you're.
00:10:04
Speaker 2: Just absolutely in pieces.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: You've accepted the responsibility of your task, your leadership, your job. But you then, before you even get into that gate to time and put that smile on your face or show that compassion, you've got to deal with a bunch of fucking idiots in your face, wanting answers, demanding questions, ten people just yelling at you left rights.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: What how did you deal with that moment?
00:10:30
Speaker 3: Because honestly, I couldn't imagine seeing you become aggressive of violent, but I'm sure that there was a burning fire within you that wanted to just go fuck off.
00:10:39
Speaker 2: I don't recall feeling that.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: What I recall is again for that I worked there three months after, But I remember walking in and I put my head down and it was like there was no one else that I was in a bubble, like my own little world, and I didn't care who spoke to me, who tapped me on the shoulder, what microphone was shoved in. I just kept walking, and I thought, all I have to do, I'd focus on the door or the gate and head down straight in. What I've learned too, Mate, is the template they used for dream World when the fatalities occurred. They used for every tragedy. It's the same template on TV, on the news, and they just put different photos in. When the helicopter crash happened on Yes over a sea World, I.
00:11:29
Speaker 3: Have another friend who was actually there in his boat and pieces of the chopper fell upon him and his family.
00:11:34
Speaker 2: Yep, and see that triggers me.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: But Mate, I was driving home two months after it down the end one at nine point thirty at night because it was summer trading in the park was back open and I locked up the park, walked out and I held a post.
00:11:50
Speaker 2: I thought, shit, I'm dying. I started sweating, it starts shaking, couldn't breathe.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Shit.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: So I made it to the car phone, phoned animal wife and I said, mate, I think I'm dying.
00:12:06
Speaker 2: Plahla chl
Speaker 1: Approache production.
00:00:17
Speaker 2: I woke up at seven in the morning.
00:00:19
Speaker 1: I went to work for a normal day, unlock the park, a dream world set up all the staff. At around three ten pm on the sixteenth of October twenty sixteen, we got a call on the two way radio saying it was a Code gray, which was pretty much all hands on deck. Bear in mind we hadn't been trained for anything like this. When I got to the Thunder River Rapids ride, sadly four people had lost their life and it wasn't a very graceful way to exit, and the injuries they incurred were fatal. And I'm going to leave it at MESSI Its images you don't don't see every day, thank God. And again I don't want to see him again. But you know when when you see a young lady who you welcomed into the park because it's a quiet day with her three friends, and I tell them, you know, you're going to have a wonderful day. It's quiet, You're gonna have a great day. And you know, six hours later, I'm watching her eyes from under the water gaze up at me, vacant and rousy. A gay god addressed his soul. Anyway, there were there were people missing ahead and body. It was messy and they were caught in the conveyor belt. I dealt with the partner on the day and did what I could with the paramedics and the police, and also that day and my man I I people don't understand. They try and bring the memory back. I can tell you now what color clothes they were wearing, the helicopter above the smell of the rubbish spin I can tell you what they were wearing. The kids, it's the husband. I can tell you absolutely every minute detail of it. Not that I think about it a lot, but it never leaves my head.
00:02:14
Speaker 2: So I.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: Rallied, and my manager at the time actually said Clancy, I can't cope with his I sent her to my office.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: I sectioned off.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: The area with my security guards, sent the kids of one of the fatalities to the ice cream shop with my staff to get them out of the scene. The partner of one of the fatalities ripped a rubbish bin off a post and threw it, and he was furious. I totally get why he was, and as much as I tried to calm him down, in the end, I just said let him go. He's just got to get it out. As a side note that the tragedy of that in itself two years ago, he couldn't come to terms still with the loss of his partner and he killed himself down the South coast, and it's it's a tragedy that keeps. People don't see the ripple effect that has caused a lot of children, and the children now are missing both parents because he couldn't cope without her. They were childhood sweethearts.
00:03:25
Speaker 3: And they had they had children as well. Three Yeah, goodness, and.
00:03:32
Speaker 1: It I was there that night till around I think one point thirty two am the following day when we finally when forensics arrived and the coroner.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: Sorry, can I just and please don't I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just trying to process that time frame between the incident occurring, yep, what you had to endure, see and everybody else who was there, the emergency services, and two then how many hours later before forensics.
00:04:04
Speaker 2: So nothing at the crime scene.
00:04:06
Speaker 3: As well as it would have been called at that stage, nothing could be moved or touched. Everything had to have just stayed paused. Yep, as it was as you just described, and beyond. Excuse me, I'm just trying to be very gentle in my words, but I'm a little bit fathomed at how many hours that scene was there and how that must play in yours and everybody else's minds constantly. I mean, it's bad enough when we experience something bang and flash, you know, or an accident bangs. It's the after math, we get that. But this is like that horror scene is literally paused as it was at its worst part.
00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was made straight up.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: I'd like to say I recalled and put into place all the protocols, et cetera. But as true as I sit here now, all I did, buddy, was I went into this order pilot put a screen up, and it was tough, but someone had to do it, you know, And I had this shield, if you like. And the only time that broke there was a fireman in the raft that went down, and I was taking a statement from him at about seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night, and he said, mate, I was doing this, and then I could see it vicariously through his eyes, and I started to quiver, and I had to hand him to someone else to put a blanket around him. And take him because I had to get back to autopilot. And all I recalled was every die Hard movie, every Catastrophe movie. I'd seen what they do. They coughting it off, they section it off, they get the public away, and that's what came into play.
00:05:54
Speaker 2: That's truly what I did. And so for you, it was more fight or flight. Absolutely. I look I.
00:06:04
Speaker 1: For years, I kept asking why me. Now I say, I'm so stoked it was me, because we'll get to it later. But I don't know if anyone else would. I'm not saying they would have coped any differently, but I wouldn't wish this upon anyone else. And I'm glad I carried it.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: I just I see, I see.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: And go back to what we're saying at the start about chat about you as a human and a person. How relative is what we're talking about now about your personality, the way you've seen life and how you dealt with the traumas and negativities that were around you, to then be led years into your life to this horrific, extremely sad day.
00:06:50
Speaker 2: Yeah it was.
00:06:51
Speaker 1: It was a tough one. I don't know the words that say it. However, I'll give it a shot what we saw that day. I know you people on here with fantastic stories, and I love them right, and I know some of them are pretty violent and things like that. But I think for me, I'd never seen a body. I'd never witnessed carnage like that. I'd never been in that environment. And I challenged most people to say they have in that in the fun theme.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: Park, to have four fatalities.
00:07:30
Speaker 3: A family fun theme park where lots of happy kids and mums and dads. Yeah, save lots of money to come and experience that. A Georgia the dream that may never get to dream will but that was close enough for them.
00:07:42
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And so look like I say, I drove home. My wife was waiting up for me, God bless her, and she said, do you want to talk about it? And I remember us sitting on the bed and I looked at her at three in the morning and I said, sweetheart, all I can say is, don't ever tell me you had a bad day at work, because I've had the mother of the mare. I jumped in shower, washed it off. Next day, I was back there at seven point thirty, and I'll tell you something I couldn't in an instant, despite advice, I had one hundred and ten staff. There is no way I could not be there for those guys.
00:08:23
Speaker 3: And be that leader and be camp there to care and show your compassion and be you.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: You know, mate, they imagine you work there twenty years. I didn't, but some of them did. This has happened. It's all over the news. It's like media city out the front of dream World. There's tens for Channel seven and ten.
00:08:43
Speaker 2: And I personally think it was disgusting the way that it all went down.
00:08:47
Speaker 3: It was horrific the outside looking in, just the lack of respect for those lives lost and the families and loved ones, and.
00:08:54
Speaker 2: Just the whole media scrum around.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: It and what was being put out and what was being said and how it was worded.
00:09:00
Speaker 2: Yep, it was putrid, mate unnecessary.
00:09:03
Speaker 3: Completely the media has to take and we're not going to get off track here, but just there is ownership, and the ownership lays with them, you know, because there's a lot of words, things and pain that they'll never take away that people had to experience and go through due to the ill informed Or let's let's grab a headline and make it as we see fit like they love to do well.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: I learned very fast, mate. If the media kick off a news update and it says there are unconfirmed reports, it's bullshit.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: That's what I learned.
00:09:36
Speaker 1: Every time they lead in with unconfirmed it's their making it up. The stories that came out of that were unbelievable. We couldn't walk from our cars to the entrance without mobs of media and some of the stuff. Found that pretty horrific and very intimidate.
00:09:52
Speaker 3: How did you find that? Honestly, I mean, in your mind, you know that you're going to be confronted with this scrum. You know that you're turning up there to lead your team, to be there to show that as much as internally you're.
00:10:04
Speaker 2: Just absolutely in pieces.
00:10:07
Speaker 3: You've accepted the responsibility of your task, your leadership, your job. But you then, before you even get into that gate to time and put that smile on your face or show that compassion, you've got to deal with a bunch of fucking idiots in your face, wanting answers, demanding questions, ten people just yelling at you left rights.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: What how did you deal with that moment?
00:10:30
Speaker 3: Because honestly, I couldn't imagine seeing you become aggressive of violent, but I'm sure that there was a burning fire within you that wanted to just go fuck off.
00:10:39
Speaker 2: I don't recall feeling that.
00:10:41
Speaker 1: What I recall is again for that I worked there three months after, But I remember walking in and I put my head down and it was like there was no one else that I was in a bubble, like my own little world, and I didn't care who spoke to me, who tapped me on the shoulder, what microphone was shoved in. I just kept walking, and I thought, all I have to do, I'd focus on the door or the gate and head down straight in. What I've learned too, Mate, is the template they used for dream World when the fatalities occurred. They used for every tragedy. It's the same template on TV, on the news, and they just put different photos in. When the helicopter crash happened on Yes over a sea World, I.
00:11:29
Speaker 3: Have another friend who was actually there in his boat and pieces of the chopper fell upon him and his family.
00:11:34
Speaker 2: Yep, and see that triggers me.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: But Mate, I was driving home two months after it down the end one at nine point thirty at night because it was summer trading in the park was back open and I locked up the park, walked out and I held a post.
00:11:50
Speaker 2: I thought, shit, I'm dying. I started sweating, it starts shaking, couldn't breathe.
00:11:56
Speaker 3: Shit.
00:11:57
Speaker 1: So I made it to the car phone, phoned animal wife and I said, mate, I think I'm dying.
00:12:06
Speaker 2: Plahla chl
