The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see aside of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome back to part two of my chat with Cameron Hardiman. In part one, we spoke about Cameron's early career in policing. Now, in part two, Cameron tells us about the high risk helicopter rescue in bass Strait that made him realize couldn't
keep rolling the dice. Cameron then joined the AFP, which took him to the Solomon Islands on a peacekeeping operation and a humanitarian operation in christ Church after the devastating earthquakes. He also investigated international drug dealers and human trafficking. Cameron's job finally caught up with him. He was diagnosed with PTSD. This ended his career in the police. I've enjoyed this talk with Cameron and his reflection on bravery and resilience.
Cameron Hardiman, welcome back to part two If I Catch Killers. Well one that operation that I want to talk about, and I'll let you tell the story because it's fascinating the whole scenario of what took place. But that was the rescue you did in bass Strait. Can you tell us about tell us about that because that particular rescue has played a big part in your life. It had a bigger impact on you than you probably thought that would. Yeah, and it was fairly intense what happened. So I suppose
best way let you just tell the story. What it was about that day.
I was rousted on the police helicop, you know. So I walked into work and looked at the roster and said that I'm on the police helicop. I've got my gear ready as usual. But it was one of those days when you drive to work and you think, boy, that this weather is terrible, and I remember seeing his dark cloud on their eyes, and you know they had on the news that there was a storm out straight The Spirit of Tasmania. The big news story to that
morning was the Spirit of Tasmania. It started across straight and the waves so big a start of the first portholes smashed portholes on upper decks and move furniture, and people were vomiting and had to turn back. And I thought, well, that's somewhere I'd rather stay away from as I'm driving to work. But obviously it didn't happen that way, and we started the morning. The first job of the morning was someone that had seen or believe they saw someone fall off the bridge at a swollen creek out of
the West and suburbs because there was floods everywhere. So someone had seen this driven past seating someone standing on the side of this bridge looking at the swollen ribbon underneath them of the creek, and when they looked back, the person was in there, so they assumed they either
fell or jumped. So we got called down to there, and usually when you're looking for someone like that, we flew down to about three hundred feet and we started tracking up and down the river looking all the flood waters. I had the back door slid open and the harness one. I was sitting on the ledge looking out, and we couldn't find it. Usually we could if someone had fallen over you, that'd either report back that they'd found them, or someone will be recorded missing. And there was none
of that. And we expected that if we're going to find this person, they're going to be flooded face down and stuck them into eddy or against grass, up against the tree. But we never feund anyone. And as we were doing that, a call came in through the office to say that there was a guy in a yacht in the middle of us Straight that got hit by the storm, was being bashed around. He had no mast and the water place were asking if we can go
and winch him off his boat. And I remember looking out to the south of Bass Straight and that massive gray cloud was still there. And I had effectively volunteered to be the winch crewman that day. All the down the wire man it was. It was too late to get out of it then, so we headed back to s and And Airport to refuel on there EGS helicopter come out and continue to search for the person. And we
got ready and we got the position. We got out of our maps and saw that it was about sixty five miles off the coast of Sail, which is where the rough blass and the pilot who worked out he had enough fuel to fill up the tanks and enough fuel to get there, get us ten minutes over the top of the yacht to winch him off, and then enough fuel to get back to the nearest airport, which was a bat out thirty minute flight back. So we thought, well,
let's go and do it. And I remember we got we're heading there, and I was getting what was called a survival suit on, so because it was cold winter and wet and straight on. Instead of using a normal wet so he used to what was called survival suit. So I got stuck out in the water. I've got about six hours rather than one hour before we get hold. I remember it. Get stuck at these hills. We had to sort of sneak around the cloud low level to
get out there. You know, it took a fair while to get sixty five miles out the closest thing on there was no land visible from there, I could see a major oil rig on the horizon just as we sort of hit the ocean and wandered away that the search and rescue people in Canberra sent down a fixed wing aircraft. They sent one from a rabit And airport to sit over the top of us just to maintain communications with US and aviation traffic radio to say that yep,
we're still there and still operating and all right. So it was like a bit of top cover for us. So we finally got in the area, so we knew we had enough fuel for ten minutes to find him and get him off the yacht, and enough you're to get back to them. There is fire only dipper. The water police that wanted this this sailor to scuttle his yacht before he got win stopped. So they wanted him to pull what's called seacock founs, the big bowers in the back. Once you paull them, it starts flooding in
the Boatle sent within about ten to fifteen minutes. And the reason they wanted him to do that is that they didn't want an unman yacht floating around in shipping channels. So they get people that if you winch him off the yacht.
You've got to scuttle it, right, Okay, didn't realize that.
Unless it's knowing, but they don't leave it. There's enough crap out there floating in the ocean damaging boats without having extra yachts floating around with no one in them, especially by straight major shipping channel. So we had to ask our water police to contact him on his radio and say the second because we only had ten minutes.
We said the second we get overhead. We need him as soon as he sees the helicopter to pull those valves and get up to the deck because we've only got a few seconds to get him off the off.
So when you're talking that the fuel is that that tight? When you're talking the time time restraints there, you haven't got time to muck around. You're basically going to be running on fumes by the time you get back.
Helicopters don't have endless fuel ballot, but bladders, and the more fuel you put on, the more weight you have. So therefore, the less you can carry, the less you can fly. Okay, Now, if you fill the helicopter, our helicopter up with the two tanks and what we call nine. At the boot tank, you've probably got about two hours endurance. But if you start adding equipment and then three people,
you've got to reduce fuel. So now we've got say we've got our full tanks, we've got to make the pile's going to make sure that he's got enough fuel to get there. He puts an extra person, so extra hundred kilos on board, So therefore he's going to make sure that fuel Bunce is right. He's got enough to get back. Now. Unfortunately, you hear this all the time, the rescues that they were low on fuel. Well, that's
always the case. You leave with a certain a man of fuel and the second you get off the ground you start running out. So there is a time when you have to head back. The further year go. The less time you got on task lot stupid diving the dpe go, the less time you could stay there. Now, we believe that that message was passed on that he was going to scuddle the ship, the boat and then make his.
Way to the deck the moment he saw you, the moment.
He saw us, yea. And it took us a while to find him because you can imagine that there's five to seven meter waves and seas and bass strikes like a washing machine. It's quite shallow, so you get waves and a swell out there a small part of bats straights like this, they start to bend out of a
white cap. So we're in the right spot. We just couldn't just couldn't see it because the white caps everywhere, and the pilot we were almost thinking we're going to have to refuel, go back, refuel, come back and have another crack. And the pilot spotted it. And the reason was so hard is because he was the same size with his white caps. He's in a white yacht and he's been rolled over, so he just looked like another white cap. So the pilot had said that he's ready
to winch. He was in a harbor, and I jumped in the back, hooked onto the wire. The winch operator put me out the door. I remember first opening that door and there was this war and you get this a lot of wind gusts because of the downdraft of the helicopter and the engines making noise. But on top of that there was this war from waves and wind as well, and I remember thinking, I'm going to have to think about getting a transfer out of there, because I don't think you'll be doing this one again. I
remember yelling because you can't talk. I remember yelling over the noise to the wind operator saying, you know, do your best to put me on the deck. He can't get me on the deck, stick me in the water and I'll drag him in and lo and behold. I cannot believe the wind shopper Brennan. I don't know how he did it because the bag. You got to remember the helicopters sitting there at harbor. He's verbally guiding the pilot and around while he's controlling my height, and the
boat is just getting thrown around. And he manages to land me on the deck of the yacht right where the cabin entry to the cabin is, with half a meter of the guy standing there. And I thought, I cannot believe he's done this. I thought I'm cashing in on there. So I went to stick the strop over his head and then under his arms, and I was going to give the crom a wind job, rode a
thumb saying get me out of here. I reckon. I could have spent about three seconds on that yacht, and I get him off, but he just looked at me. Stune turned around and went back into the cabin, and I thought, well, this is turned into shit. Hurry, So I turned around and look at the helicopter, and you know, I've got lots of cables, lots of cable. Something happens and it should have been sitting just behind me and holed it was actually moving forward flying. Look, it was
flying off. And what had happened was the aircraft and the wind on its nose had shifted, so it started to drift forward, and the boat had started to drift al So the slack cable that had come down that was in the water was slowly getting pulled out. I remember seeing it.
The cable you're connected to.
Yeah, I'm still connected to the cable of the harness, and you know, I had about maybe twenty feet of slack that was slowly going and I remember going, it's going to go in tight any minute. And I remember flicking it over this sort of wind generator the back of the yacht, and I turned to face a helicopter that was meting away quite rapidly, and the why went tight and I took a step just to protect myself and shot off the boat, dragged me off the boat
and I landed. I remember flying through the air, thinking this is not good, and I braced myself to hit the side of a wave, which I did, and I went under and a wave come over the top. I remember being underwater and quite disorientated because I think I winded myself and I embraced myself and thinking I got to get out of the water, but I didn't know which way I was up, and it's quite turbulent.
I remember thinking, camera, sorry to win it up. But these waves we're talking is what I've got pictured in my mind. I've you've seen sea rescues or when the waves of just if they're breaking windows on the ship that goes between Bass Strait, the spirit of Tasmania. You're looking at very this is a scary place. You don't want to be.
Oh look, you know. I mean I remember looking at thinking they huge. I mean, they're probably they're higher than probably around about house height five to seven meters.
I mean, love the water.
That's a lot of water. There was no rhythm to them anywhere. It's a lot cushing into each other. It's just like a washing show.
Okay, so you're you've been you've been dragged off the boat, you've hooked up to the helicopter. Helicopters heading in one direction, boats in another. You get the jerk and you find yourself in the water. You're under the water.
Yep, amount of breath there was. There was a split second where I thought the next one was going to be a lung full of water. But I don't know how it happened, But talking to the wind shop ery later later, he said he lost sight of me because I'd gone underneath the aircraft, so he didn't know where I was, and he just pulled in the cable, which in the cable because I would have been like pulling in the fish. I suppose I was on the end of it, and then I appeared. So I got dragged
out of the water, got my breath back. And the plan was that I had said to the wind shop rider, and he agreed that if we couldn't get back on the boat, that would go on the water. Right, So I knew he was going to have another attent, but not on the boat. He was going to put it back in the water next to the yacht. So and that's what he did. So by that time By the time I was going back in the water, right next to the back of the boat, the sailor had come out.
And what had happened is he didn't get the message to us pulled the vowels when he saw us, so he actually returned into the yacht to pull the vowels. And that's what the delay.
Was, right, Okay.
So I was next to the yacht sort of making sure that it wasn't going to smack me in the head, but it was thrown around by waves and had to call him in. And the look on his face when I said he was seventy two years old, it's like he was a ship's captain on supertankers. He built the yacht and sailed the soil around the world and this is his last stop. And the look on his face was pure terror. I said, you got to get in there. I yelled at it him get in the water, and
he didn't want to go. And I remember seeing him just holding onto the railing, shaken, so he didn't want to get on the water, and I said, you got to get a woman now because I'm gone, and he did, thank god. We very quickly with the waves drifted back around behind the boat, so I put the strap iron kept him up and put the stop and put his arms under it, grabbed it, and right then we got
hit by another wave that forced us both under. Unfortunately, that's a chest strap that we do up to make sure that they don't slip out, and I hadn't got a chance to do that up. Wy've come through and we sort of although we're tied together, I lost hold of him just as that happened. The wave went and the helicopter move and we got pulled out of the water. You know, he under normal conditions, his head should be sitting at my chest typed because the arrival the people
reaching it lower. But for some reason he was higher than me. And what happened strop had slipped down under his bum and he was sitting on it like a swing. And then he was holding onto the wire, which is the first situation slipped and falling backwards. His leg had kicked me under the arm and I grabbed hold of it. So he was hanging outside down in his harness. And the normal procedure would be there to signal to the wind chopper I put you back in the water, but
I couldn't because of my hands full. It took a while. The wind shopper I realized what was going on and he put me back in the water, which is not really really what I wanted to do, but it did it.
And they put me back in the water, and I managed to get the harness back on him and the chest strap and then give the wind CHOPPERO signal to get us out of here, and they pulled us up, and I was I remember talking filminch operator about this that I reunion that long ao and he said that trip back was the quietest time I've ever had a helicopter because no one saying a word. And I remember thinking, I'm taking a job somewhere else.
That was the catalyst for.
Yeah, that was it funny. I thought I got away with that, and I thought, well, you know, maybe the next one I won't be so lucky. And it was that pretty much that job that maybe decide to take the job at Federal Boys.
I that just unpacking that for a bit, like I suppose the longer and I know people that have been in dangerous professions, whether the forces all different things, and they wonder if they've rolled the dice too many times, almost like an epiphany for you at that point in time. Well, I got to escape that one, and I'm going to be lucky the next time.
Yeah. I remember getting home and my partner said, what do you do today? I said, I had this job. Yeah, yeah, you're setting a message now. Apparently I can't remember doing this, but I've been center a message on a fine saying heading out their backs straight to winch this idiot off the yacht, something like don't hurry, I'll contact you service. No I did that. Yeah, I must have seen the weather. I thought I was better say something, and I told her that night. I said I'd already applied for the
ob and they was snipping around. But I never accepted any roles for them because I made a transfer joined there and said you should try it, and I did, but they never had any roles that I like. And I actually discussed it with my partner and said, whatever the next door there is, I'm taking.
And you just thought after that that rescue, that that was enough for you.
In the Yeah, it was, ugh. I think you know, I mean, I think so's you know, you can go through your police aviation career without ever doing something like that, And you know I've had I had some reasonably dangerous ones over the years, but that one just took the cake.
When you said that trip back in the helicopter was one of the most silent. Did the person who rescued thank you? Or was he he said thanks for the left?
Poor bugger was soaken wet I tell this story book. Funny thing was we got him a shower, and I knew the crewman because we pulled up at another private helicopter base and I knew the guys the helicopter. So can you get this guy some clothes and underwear and dry clothes so they could pull all his clothes together, and all we could find this poor yacht was lacy underwear. The poor guy had walked away from the helicopter base at Essenon with his poor tite between his legs. I
sort of felt sorry for him in a way. The poor bugger had lost his life savings, all his retirement money in his yacht.
What what you had seen and done? And we'll talk the AFP then delve deeper into the PTSD. But at that point in time, were you you thinking you'll find with this? It was sort of well physically, I mean, in one piece like this hasn't taken a toll on me.
Look, I remember this. It was six months before I resigned and took up the position the under that job, and in that six months I just did not want to fly. I lost all motivation to fly. I didn't think that was abnormal. Yeah, that's probably a normal response. I made the decision I was going to go, that's where do you want to fly? But in hindsight, losing total motivation for what you've been doing for fourteen years is definitely a symptom of PTSD. But I certainly didn't
know that at the time. But then again, I have had symptoms of PTSD prior to doing that job. I used to blame my insomnia on working shiftwork. But if I look back in hindsight, the first five or six years or eight years of shiftwork, I slept like a lot. Now it's only towards fifteen twenty years in the job that I couldn't sleep at all.
Okay, the AFP, you've gone across to the AFP. What roles were you doing in the AFP? So to explain the people that are not for me with the policing organizations you've had to resign from Victoria Police apply for the AFP, you get excit in there. Do you have to go through the academy, start basic training and all that?
Yeah, I had to do the whole riguma role. So there was an interview. Back then, there wasn't a lot of lateral entry police going over within any police force, so a lot of the people had to actually go back to the academy. They didn't sort of have any recognition for prior learning, and I suppose they can't because procedurally it's totally different. Police work never changes no matter
who you work for, but procedurally it's different. So they had made us an offer that I sign up for a minimum of two years that within that two years they were going to train us. Because the whole squad went over. They picked about two squads of thirty or twenty five or thirty from around the country, and I was included in that.
When you say go over, is this for the.
Going over to the AFP, we had to go to camera. We had to do a abbreviated academy course a nine week period and that was a combination of what they call their Federal Police Program, which is for national investigations, and their policing program for ACPT Policing or uniform Policing CANbus,
so we did an amalgamation of both. They also in that training program send us to peacekeeping school so we can deploy overseas, and part of that agreement was that once we graduated, we would spend three months in Canberra uniform and then we're overseas for two years. The various deployments around around the world, and that appealed to me having a father that was first in the military in
Malaya and then the Air Force and moving around. I thought I wouldn't do it with the kids, but I'll certainly do it what I don't have kids, So yeah, I took the job. And the first deployment was well after three months in Camber, which is probably the longest three months of my work, going back to uniform after lying around in other coppers, especially in Canberra, probably rather have my tens pulled down. I suffered through that and the gift at the end was I got deployed to Solomon Islands.
And what was the role there in Solomon Islands and what was the situation there?
It was rebuilding their police force and what happened in the Solomon Islands. There was a lot of tribal fighting between gangs, tribal gangs in the north of the island and lighter with tribal gangs on the island of guadal Canal, which is the main island. They were fighting. They're actually killing each other their salt weapons and shotguns and knives and machetes, and there was a heap of islands and
a heap of people dying. Unfortunately, the police force over there was ineffective because they too had in fighting between people that were enlightened and people that they called GUARDI. So the Australian government set a contingent of police over
there in two thousand and three. I think I don't know how they did it, but the commanding Office the AFP managed most of them to give up their guns right and then it was a slow rebuilding process to retrain their police and rebuild it and also to hunt down the people responsible for some of the violence over the when they had the warfare.
How long were you over there for look?
I was in and out of the Solomon Islands regularly from two thousand and six to twenty eleven. The longest deployment was four months. The shortest was two weeks.
And what sort of conditions were you living in over there?
We had a base at the base was we called it the guadal Canal Beach Resort. It's not a resort. It was near Henderson Field, the old World War two airfield that Japanese occupied for years in World War two. So it was about fifteen minute drive out of town. And we had what we lived in what were called itses. So there was a mate of like a insulated aluminium
with home between it just very simply riveted together. Had an incondition of two beds, power socket and we lived there, shared shared rooms and what we do most of the day depending on what job you had, because everyone got a different job. Like the police force, you don't necessarily do uniform policing. You might be doing HR you might be training in the academy, and each day you're go
and do your job. And that was for me for the first stint four months, I was shadowing staff officer to the Commissioner in charge of Special Operations for the simmon On's Police. So I was his mentor and my boss, my feed boss, was mentoring his boss, the commissioner.
How did you get caught up in the riots there.
There was really no choice, I suppose. I mean, what happened was, it was two thousand and six. It was accusations that I think of the Prime Minister at the time of Snyder Renny or something, and there was accuvidations that he was funded by the Chinese, he was corrupt. And what happened was the locals weren't happy with that,
so they stormed Parliament House and a riot started. It was all hands on deck, so every sworn member the contingent there, which also included New Zealand compers as well, had to dress up and right gear and had out and tackle the rioters. They locked the base down and we were given the cars and some very archaic right gear told to go and fix the issue. And what happened was that the gangs had started burning police cars
and burning shops up near the Parliament House. They wanted their way down the hill about three o'clock there in the main town, cutting that blooting shops. They worked their way down. When we got there, there was I got there was cars on fire and thins on fire, crap everywhere and breaken windows, and they worked their way into Chinatown, which is a small section in Honiara and play back to Chinese. So they bought burnt down basically every Chinese building in Chinatown.
And that that got fairly intensive. Police being injured and your right shield being cracked and we.
Have nine seventies right shields that they've been in the sun too long and shadow when a rock hit Him've got to give credit to the people that writing they were really good rock throwers. Just remember the amount of rocks beIN throwner. So I remember our car. The first car I had the first day. One was brand new Toyota ball drive and that ended up on the main hole. I burned to the crown and I think it had
eight thousand k's on it. The second one was also brand new, and that didn't have a panel or window left handed eight hours later.
It's another of joined the police, see the world, all the different experiences you can get. You you've also found yourself over in christ Church after the earthquakes, a humanitarian operation. What was your role there?
That was just to restore the policing in christ Church because after that massive earthquake that killed I think it killed like two hundred people, Yeah, and it devastated christ Church, and I think the report was that eighty percent of the police ice force had been had either lost someone or lost a house or been affected by the earthquake. So the police force was struggling and they had sent other coppers from the Northern Ireland and the South Island
to christ Church to help, but it wasn't enough. So I think there was about a total of two hundred Australian ployees that landed there within a couple of days. I was there within about ten days and it was really to augbouent the police force. I don't think most
people realized the sergifican damage of that earthquake. They had an earthquake a couple either year or a couple of years before, and they learned their lesson because people were running right, they had media everywhere, getting themselves in trouble around buildings and the places where they shouldn't be. So during after this earthquake, being well experienced in it, they completely fenced off the whole Central Business District block and they only allowed the media in three or four spots.
When sitting in Australia and you're watching this devastation of this earthquake, you only got to see three buildings. There was a major building in town, and I think they included a television broadcast. But you know, to be honest, I thought it wasn't that bad. You know, three buildings damage, what's the problem. But when I got there and saw it, the whole town was flat. I've got an aerial photo of it somewhere, and really the TV coverage was very,
very limited. This place was you know, there was a tram there. The tram tracks were buckled in the middle of the city. I remembered seeing car. They had this with an called liquor faction. The liquor faction is like if you know where you're getting set in concrete and the water starts fighting the top of the sediment sits
on the top. That's what liquor faction is. So the vibration of the land during the earthquake, of the land that christ Shirts was built on was an old river bed, so all the liquid had come to the surface, and this liquid faction was like gray sludge that it actually broken through the slabs of houses and swallowed cars. Right, So you drive down the road in christ Church and there's a major crack in the ground and the car
consumed by this gray, messive looking faction. There were whole suburbs that were clientless because houses had significant structural damage and could we lived in. There was a whole ghost suburb. It's just an amazing the amount of damage that we didn't know about.
What you what you're describing talking your career, and you know, we've taken you from scary alcol It, scary rescue in bas Strait, You've Solomon Islands and an experience there and understanding different issues in different places across the world, looking at natural disasters. It's like to me advertisement for policing, and then we can throw in the mix that with the AFP, you were doing some investigation work drugs, international drug import and different things like that.
Twenty eleven, I transferred out of the section that I was working in that did overseas deployments, peacekeeping and also the humanitarian stuff, and I went into investigations. It was not really by choice, It's just that the office that I was working was moving to camera and I didn't
move the camera. And it sort of reset my career a bit because it sort of went back about twenty five years to when I was almost considering becoming a detective at it's play station, but a major career move and reinventing, to say the least, going from a career that was out of investigations or police work since nineteen ninety two and in twenty eleven found myself an investigations team.
How do you enjoy that?
Look? To start, I didn't. I was a fish out of water. Like I said before, when I last did an investigation shop with a plane closing unit. We had typewriters, no photocopies. We used to use carbon paper and paper we get more or phones.
I can imagine, and looking at the diversity of your career, especially your time in the air wing. No, we don't fly. You've got to drive. That would have been hard for you to come to terms with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got to drive.
A car, which destination that I go into overseas? Now you're working working here in Australia, so there would have been a few adjustments. And then those things that they call computers that you never thought they'd catch on a front and center in your office.
Amazing things. And a photo copy that can runs many copies as you want any color.
Yeah, I can tell an old cop if I speak to them if they complain about the phaeo copies. You know, when we used to type up those documents, like the fact sheets or whatever with the carbon paper. If you made a mistake, you had to go through with the tip X and correct it all on the manual typewriters and then the fade out copier in the police station. I don't think there was one police station in Australia that the fade out copier wasn't continually broken.
Yeah. Do you remember getting the old typewriter and had to smash down the He's so hard to get through five layers of carbon paper. Yeah, amazing. And then when you got this and I remember thinking, you know, I
remember getting to my first investigations team. There was this young guy there'd just been a few years out of the academy and I thought, boy, when I joined the job and wear a uniform, I think he was a nappies But he was on this computer tapping out this AFFI David, and I thought, what have I done?
It would have would have been hard for it, but you got yourself in some interesting jobs. You were what was that drug case where the drugs have been swapped by the police and you're driving the driving the truck and delivering it to the bad guys? What was that one about?
So I was working on a team that just did whatever drug importations come in or the job we're investigating. And because I was such a fishient out of the water, I volunteered for the stuff that wasn't process driven because I didn't know the process. What happened was a chipping camplainer came in. They had some information and they looked at the container and found that it had eight ride on wal mars In crates and hid none of the crates was packs in a total of two hundred and
seventy something kilos of compressed cocaine. Usually what happened would happen is they'd follow the drugs and find out who's bringing it in. But you can't obviously let two hundred and seventy kilos of real cocaine hit the streets, so they replace it with a substitute, and then we do our investigation and we follow the shipment to see where it goes. So I live it through. They needed someone to volunteer to sit at the bonding yard where they
hold the container off site from customs. In a bonding yard, customs gear on it, a lock on it until it's cleared and allowed to go over the person that's bringing in. So I said, look, I'll volunteer. So I had to go get myself a brand new fluo worker's shirt, mess it up in the car to make it look like I've been doing it for years. And I would sit there in the coffee room of this bonding warehouse waiting for some contact from the person bringing it in. And
I've been there for three days. I was board ships, and then all of a sudden, I get my phone call and it's the couples my boys sing, all the guys ap currently coming in today and lunchtime in rolls this this young kid who wants to check on his shipping container that's arrived. So I go and deal with him and saw a strike up a conversation again Nami and said, look, I think it's going to be clear, so you know when you need it delivered, to just give us a call once it's clear, and I'll come
and bring it to you. And he said, you know how to use a full clift and use a full c lift, I'll call you'll call me. So a couple of days later we arranged for it to be cleared through customs, and he called. I got on the phone and he said he wanted to delivered to a storage facility PORTLM. So I said, yep, I'll bring a truck and i'll bring it. I'll flad it. So we laded the containers into a truck that I hired, and off
we went. I had these eight long I was a two hundred and seventy one KO cocaine in it, doing my first drug delivery. Funny thing is, and we had checked about this previously. I was. I took a wrong turn in this truck while I was heading to the storage facility to see this kid, and I had to do a U turn back around to come out go the right way, and I backed into a powerpole and there was this massive bang of just that, an accident
and a lot. I can't call the coppers because I'm supposed to be delivering cocaine, so I had a quick check. There was no damage. So I left the scene of an accident, as all good drug deliveries do. Yeah yeah. Only got to the delivery yard and he was there. He was nervous as buggery, this kid, excepting his drug delivery and nearly dropped one of the with the fort nearly dropped one of the ride on malors and the bottom of the shipping container crack AhR, shit, they're going
to see it. And his eyes just went, Oh my god, my drug is going to fall out. It's all right. I was all right, and I delivered it for him and I thought, you know, in about six hours, this kid's going to get locked up and he's probably going to do you know, fifteen twenty years when drugs in Australia and the little bugger gave me a tip fifty bucks. Well, behold, you got to rest alone of that night after he had cut it up and divided and he was delivering it to his.
Heels again things like that. I'm hearing the story and it's well say fun and they don't want people to misinterpret it, but it is fun, isn't it. Being involved in operation. The adrenaline's going, you know, the pressure's on. You can't make a mistake. There's something something to be said from that. You did a little bit, and I'm not sure how much you can talk about it, but human trafficking as well, like this is a crime that we don't don't hear much about in Australia.
Yeah, it's a crime type that I never knew about. And back then, you know, in two thousand and probably would have been twelve and thirteen. Now there's a lot of people have been smuggling in the country illegally by boats into Christmas. I understand there are arrivals daily and you know, public people smugglers were making an absolute killer
of a cash putting those people in. So I was hunting on a strike team that tracked down people smugglers, totally interested in crime type that I had no idea of the process of people smuggling.
No, well, it's something that it seems archaic that it wouldn't go on, you know, it seems like a crime, but clear it does now when you're at Christmas Island. That was where you started to see changes in yourself at Christmas at Christmas Island a bit withdrawn or different things. Yeah.
Again, I didn't I didn't want to work. I didn't actually want to get out of bed. It was quite difficult to get out of a room and go to work each day. I just totally lost motivation, almost identical to ten years prior. In two thousand and five when I finished at a helicopter job and I was not motivated to come to work or fly at all. It was exactly the same thing, but just later, you know, and there was no specific reason in Christmas Island not
to go to work. It wasn't difficult work. We spent most of our time interviewing illegal immigrants to find out who the snuggler was. It wasn't difficult work. The conditions were okay, the room's okay, the food was good.
You know.
We used to have a full drive and two around the island around days off. But I was just not motivated to any absolutely nothing. I think what didn't help was the fly. I didn't It's terrible, yeah, really rough weather. I remember it took us all day and we never got in there, landing back at Perth eight hours later.
The flying is that triggering from your.
I suggest I suggest so, because so you know, I remember landing going shit, this is not good. And that's nowball to the point where I just didn't want to do a Christmas all.
I know that it's hard for any any cop to sort of put your hand up and say say you're not not coping, But it came came to a head for you after Christmas Island, the incident on the train. Do you want to tell us that?
So it was just a normal shift. I remember I had caught a couple of people have been sentenced that I was the informant for a couple of drug importers. Good thing is one got nine one years, one got twenty one years. You know. I had a couple of beers after work and then court train home and had a massive just breakdown. I sort of blacked out for a minute, and then I couldn't stop shaking. A respiratory right went through the roof. I could film or pulse
some heart beating through my neck. I had no idea where I was and freaked out. I had no idea what was going on, absolutely none. And I remember the kids and my wife were sitting outside the station waking to pick me up, and I was just an absolute blubbering mess. I don't know how to go off the train. But usually the kids are sitting with the window open. They're sitting on the seal and waving that dad coming down, because it's a great thing to see the dad get
off the train. They're only six and eight, and the look on their face when they saw me was just pure beer. And I couldn't. I couldn't even manage to open the door handle. And my wife had said, what's going on? So I got no idea, absolutely no idea. So managed to get me home, drop the kids off somewhere, and I just sat in the bedroom. You know, my heart, I was still through the river. And she called police welfare, Victoria police welfare, but you know they couldn't touch me
at that time. It wasn't with Victoria Police. Unfortunately. When she rang a p wed for welfare and Canberra was in Melbourne, so I was lucky that my wife, you're a psyched nurse and she just have lunch with her that day. So they rang her and she come around and she said, I actually said to this poor lady, there's no one'tgoing to hospital, leaves the house. She says, okay, I want to send your hospital if you can calm down.
So you managed to calm again. Nadia, her name is, I can't forget her name, looked after me so well. Since she managed to calm me down, I got to bed. The next day, I managed to get him to see my doctor and she took one look at me when I walked in and said, I know exactly what's wrong. That's it's the last day I ever worked.
I've heard other people tell similar stories. A place I'm talking about where hits real sudden and it's almost like as police or and I'm not sure whether it's a career that happens or the type of person you become working in the police. So many people choose to ignore it until it gets to that point where you just can't ignore it. You're just not functioning, so you can't
hide it anymore. What was going through your mind was hard for you to come to terms with, Like you're a block that's done all these things and never taken a backward step, never put your hand up for help. You're helping other people, and all of a sudden you're going to go, hey, I can't go. How was it personally for you?
Yeah, you hit then ail on the head. I mean, your self worth takes a massive dive. No, you have this really great career, You've done some exciting stuff, just like you said, and you think you're ten for tall bulletproof. I think you're made for the job. You do it really well. And then all of a sudden something happens to you that they call a mental health issue that ends your police career. So suddenly you think, well, maybe I wasn't as good as I thought, Maybe I wasn't
as strong as what I thought. You should never done that job in the first place, so your self worth takes a massive beating. I think it's one of the symptoms of PTSD that is incredibly dangerous but underrated. You know, a lot of bad shit happens because of your self worth. Problems, re licenships, alcohol, drugs, suicide, depression, all can come from
self worth and there's nothing worse. And yeah, it's very difficult when you've got self low self worth to get over yourself requires a totally different mind change, and not everyone can do it by themself.
I reference in part one we're talking about. You know, in policing, you're meant to be able to do this, you're meant to be able to do that, and you're weak if you can't. That's it's a culture that plays in part and I don't think it's just the organization's fault. I think it's a type of people that sign up for policing generally, what they're driven by someone like you that have done so many things and it catches you.
I've had someone else on the podcast, a good cop, a hard cop that was really at the front to front end of everything. It hit him that quickly when he got got help and it had to put his hand up, and he felt like he was letting down his mates. He felt like he was an embarrassment to his family and his kids and all that shit. And he's come back now. And basically the lesson he learned that if he addressed it earlier, perhaps he still could
have been in the cops. What's your what's your take on your journey?
Oh yeah, exactly. I mean, one, you need to address it earlier. But if you're not aware of what the symptoms are, and like I said, I thought insomnia was just for night night shift. Lack of inulance is just pile of the parcel of doing something too. I suppose if I had to name what the symptoms are PTS Two, I would have noticed that I probably started suffering those symptoms back in the mid nineties and may have avoided the end of the police Carrier of twenty twenty.
When I finally, what are the symptoms? You look at that you've said in some there what the other things is.
The other way is there was a bit of biness, drinking, you know, there was memory loss, depression. There's about I think there's about twenty odd symptoms. But to be diagnosed with PTSD you have to have a certain number of them. A lot of people don't know. To have PTSD, full blown PTSD, you have to have depression or anxiety. It's part of the diagnosis. And I didn't know that either. I didn't even know what the signs were. Depression just sometimes I thought it was too lazy to get out
of bed, and just having a bad day. Socially, withdrawn is another big one. You start withdrawing from your friends. You don't want to go out anymore. You are to be seen in public, you don't want to associate with more than one person at a time. I had a lot of hyper vigilance issues. As I was a cafe, someone dropped the spoon, I'd hit the roof because your brain doesn't pick up. But that's not a threat that thinks everything's a threat. It's hyper vigilance when you're waiting
for something to happen. I had a lot of that towards the end. And again, if I hadn't known that that was part of PTUs too, then you know, I would have sought help. Hopefully, I think I would have been smart enough to seek help. A lot of people just ignore it or just ride off as something else, and no one's immune to it. I don't think. You know, they can recruit people that are into it. They recruit people that want to get out there and do this job.
That's why they're toppers. Some people will make good coppers. Unfortunately, it's a byproduct. I don't know what they're going to do about it, apart from changing coppers about the symptoms and what they are and how to recognize it, manage counseling and stuff like that.
Your journey, how have you many to navigate your way through from that low point to where you are now? Has it been a tough journey? Yeah?
It has. I mean, you know, we've got to you've got to go through the workhover process and the tom care process, and that's never a good one. And I went through that process, which is yeah, it just makes recovery so much worse. I had to prove to the insurance company that it was police work that caused my PTSD, even though I'd only ever had two jobs in my life, both of the policing, and that took about three years.
So you know, eventually they'll bring in the reverse onus, and I think they need to do that as soon as possible. I think in Canada nowadays, and I think in Queensland. I'm not one under posential that if you die police officer emergency services and you're diagnosed with PTSD, that's automatically attributed to work, and the insurance company have to prove.
That it isn't right, so the owners goes back on them. Yeah.
The other side is the police forces are way better at recognizing it and they're boosting numbers for psychologists and all say mandatory debrief. I mean my whole police career, I never had a critical incident debrief.
Well, we're becoming more aware of it.
I think nowadays to you that they don't expect the average cop and to do a lifetime service. When you and I joined, it was a career and they expected it to retire at sixty five. Yeah.
Yeah, they virtually mapped it out for you, didn't they.
Now I think if they get five to ten years service out of police officers. They are happy.
Well, and both you and I know. The trouble is if you only get that much, you're only coming into hitting your straps after about ten years with the experience and the ability to manage it. But I'm sad and the fact that it's so hard to attract police across the country and everyone's under resourced in policing. And I think it is a great job. Yeah, you pay a price to a degree and the things that you see.
But for a young blake like yourself that joined the cops wasn't concentrating when he was meant to be studying at school and trying to look for a life, how do you look back at your career?
Well, great memories now, I mean I had, you know, second thoughts early on when i'd finished work because of the BTSD. As coppers, like you said before, we never go to jobs where people are happy and safe. They're always really shit, you know. When what we do is as coppers, we focus on the bad stuff because that's what we talk about when we have a ber. We
talk about the bad ship and the bad stories. And I think when your career ends, it's a bit bitter, you know, you start to concentrate on how much you hated your bosses and how much we paying the us well, and they're really bad jobs that you went to, and
that sort of defines your whole career. But I think what we need to do is concentrate about the people that we actually helped, and there's many of them, and you would know yourself to concentrate on the really shit murders and the bad homicide scenes, nearly concentrate is the fact that throughout your career there's far more people that you helped and better life because of your input. We tend to forget.
About that one. You've got Bravery awards, and I know that even came as for the bats strait and other things. I know that even came back to cause conflict in your in your mind that yeah, I don't deserve that. I was just doing my job type thing. There was nothing brave about what I was doing. But I think if we take on your advice, you know, look at the people you help, Like, I don't know, if I was drowning in the water and you turned up, you'd be my favorite person in the world for the rest
of my life. And the people in the accidents that you've helped. So I hope you can hang on to that.
Yeah, I do now, but at the time, you know, you don't, don't think about that and the fun times you had. I mean, I still say policing is the best job you can have with your pants one.
Well, that's right, what are you what are you doing with yourself now?
I've got a teenage son to look after and a teenage daughter to get the school.
That's a full time job in itself.
You want to come at a full time job and when they're not there, I gather it like a local cafe and have a coffee and I'm amazed at how quick the days go.
Your book, I've had had a read of it, as I've said, read it cover to cover, and I think it was a great book and it really gave me an insight into the things that you do as a police and it's not sort of I don't think people realize the type of trauma that police see in their career, in most police officers' career, and it's quite confronting when you put it put it down in writing. Did that help you in any way writing the book?
Yeah, it definitely did. I mean It took me three years to write it, so it was a long process.
Were you doing that on the manual typewriter? No?
I had a computer, all right, I bought You know, it was a long process. For the most part therapeutic, but you know, there are times where you start going down a rabbit hole and start I open up a can of worms that probably should have been left closed. So you're going to go down that path of writing about trauma and your experience, you know, to be prepared for that. I thought of wasn't but sort of accepted it,
and then of course it's good for your family. I realized towards the end of the process that this might be the only way that my kids are going to find out exactly what happened to dad and why it's such a grumpy prick and didn't want to go out with the family or didn't want to go to these functions. But it's got a reason why. I understand it. My kids do understand it. My son's read the book, he gets it well.
It does help because quite often they have no idea what you're going through and they probably look at you differently. Well, we'll wrap it up here. I just want to say thanks for coming on the podcast and thanks for the service that you've done. And I don't think you should ever underestimate. Yeah, we see these blokes. I've never actually thought about, who is that person being dangled from the helicopter that we watch on the nightly news, rescuing people
and the other stuff that you've done in policing. Says you'd walk away, walk away very proud.
Yeah, and look I do. And then at the end of the day, if I had my time over again, I'll do it exactly the same way. Cheers, Thank you,