INCIDENT REPORT
Tragedy In Gracetown
Rescue Attempt after Australian Cliff Collapse
by Jeremy Zakis
| Jeremy Zakis is a journalism student in Adelaide, South Australia, and a volunteer freelance correspondent for Emergency Net News Services. |
This article can be found on
page 48 of the Mar/Apr 1997
issue of 9-1-1 Magazine.
The community of Gracetown is located about 150 miles south of the Western Australian capital of Perth. With a population of only a few hundred, the community is accustomed to a quiet style of living. But on Friday, the 27th of September, 1996, this community became the center for a terrible tragedy which would cost the lives of nine people, five of whom were children, in a limestone cliff collapse.
The first call came into Margaret River Hospital at approximately 2:50pm from a child who had run home after the accident. 12-year old student Jacob Matau stated that a cliff had collapsed on ten to fifteen children who were watching the local school's surfing competition held in the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park. Since the boy called the hospital directly instead of dialing 0-0-0 (Australia's version of 9-1-1), the hospital relayed the emergency to the local volunteer Fire Brigade and State Emergency Services. The hospital also implemented their Disaster Plan, which included the calling of ambulance volunteers and the Western Australia Health Service. The hospital morning staff was held back and all off-duty staff members were placed on standby. It was expected that all the casualties would be taken to Margaret River as the next closest hospitals were Busselton, half an hour away, and Bunbury, an hour away.
The local police station at Margaret River responded at about 3:05pm and three officers, Senior Constables Robert Reynolds, Anne Hollands and Peter Staples, made their way to the fallen cliff face near Gracetown. Upon their arrival at 3:20pm, as many as 150 people were already digging at the fallen cliff face. As is typical in a lot of small semi-isolated communities, word-of-mouth often spreads quickly, especially when community members are in danger. Constable Reynolds remained at the top of the cliff to implement crowd control while Hollands and Staples descended to the beach below to set up a field Command Post from where rescue operations would be coordinated. Although heavy digging equipment was brought in the next day, the only equipment used at the time of the actual incident was one heavy excavating digger. All of the other digging was done manually.
The crowd atop the cliff was well behaved, most of them ordinary citizens from Gracetown and nearby Cowaramup wanting to help in the rescue effort. By the end of the incident, hundreds of people had arrived at the scene to offer their help. Frantic digging continued even an hour after the accident, in the hope that by some miracle, someone was still alive.
Their efforts were rewarded when, close to 4pm, ambulance officer Jim Swarbrick heard some faint cries for help. A 10-year-old school girl, Sarah Otto, was found alive under 30 tons of rock and sand. She had been caught in a small air pocket between two rocks, which allowed her to breathe. Her mother, who was only an arm's distance away, had died.
At around the same time the first casualties came through Margaret River Hospital's doors. All the children who had attended the carnival were taken by bus for routine examinations for physical injuries. Crisis Care counselors from Bunbury arrived at the hospital as well as counselors from the State's Education Department to help the children cope with the psychological trauma associated with the incident. A total of fifteen counselors had responded to the call.
At about 5pm many of the children who had been brought in by the first bus were released to go home with parents or guardians. Sarah Otto arrived at the Margaret River Hospital suffering only minor facial injuries. Throughout the night the hospital staff remained on duty as counselors comforted friends and relatives awaiting news of the fate of their loved ones.
There were no more miracles. By 7:45 PM all parties were accounted for. After the deceased were recovered and removed from the scene, the area was secured and evacuated because of the risk of further collapse throughout the night. The next morning the cliffs would be thoroughly collapsed by an explosive charge. At 1:00am the next morning, the bodies of the victims arrived at Margaret River hospital for identification by a coroner who had been brought in from Perth.
Most staff finished their extended shifts at about 4:30am the next morning; many of them having worked over twenty hours straight. Later that same morning, additional counselors who had responded to the tragedy set up a base in the Community Center to offer counseling support to the people affected by the tragedy - which included not only friends and relatives of the victims, but also many emergency workers and volunteers who suffered from critical incident stress from working at the scene.
In the days following, a memorial service was held in the carpark above the cliff in memory of those who died. About 5,000 people attended the morning service. The response of condolences from around the nation was overwhelming as many people and organizations sent messages of sympathy to the close-knit community of Margaret River. As Fran Temby, Director of Nursing at Margaret River Hospital who was on duty at the time of the accident stated, the tragedy had "brought everybody together."
Although lives were lost, the incident positively demonstrated how volunteer emergency workers, along with full-time emergency workers and other citizens can work together as a team when an emergency arises. Although nine people may have died, one life was saved due to the teamwork of all the people present at the beach on that day. This accident, if anything, demonstrates what is possible when emergency resources are not plentiful such as in many small communities like Gracetown. It proves that if a community comes together to work as a team, it is possible for miracles such as the survival of Sarah Otto to occur. And it also proves, that if a proper Disaster Plan is implemented an emergency situation will be much more organized.
