Biker down! Don’t panic, it wasn’t us!

On day 3, we were travelling on one of the best biking roads in Australia between Eskdale and Omeo. We stopped for a drink and a guy on a VFR800 rides past and waves – we came across this same guy a few miles on with his bike smashed up in a ditch and him walking up the road with a very badly broken collar bone! He was lucky, as with many bends before, he could have just sailed off a vertical drop into the forest where he’d never been seen. We had previously past 2 cars like this but they were wrapped in blue Police tape, so we knew they hadn’t just happened.

Having an ex firefighter and nurse in the team, we quickly assessed the situation - we protected ourselves and the rider, while Jude administered some pain relief and made him as comfortable as she could. Petrol was pouring out of his bike, so we righted that and cleared the road.

There was no phone signal, so Richard used the SOS call feature on his iPhone, which uses a satellite signal, to call for an ambulance. He then linked his phone to his Garmin Inreach Mini 2, to text a friend of the rider to recover his bike - sorted. It was over an hour before any other car passed by, so this guy was pretty lucky.

Learnings: A lot of you will already know a lot of this but it’s worth mentioning.
1. ‘Who you gonna call’? Richard and Jude live in Australia but knew to call 000, the equivalent of 999 in the UK. Make sure you know the emergency numbers for any country you’re travelling through.

2. We had no telephone signal but the SOS feature on the iPhone could literally be a life saver. The rider had an EPIRB (a Personal Radio Beacon) but had forgotten to take it with him.
3. Coincidentally, we are booked in for a Bikers 1st Aid course when we reach Adelaide in 4 days time. We already had a lot of knowledge between us but this could have been a lot worse than a broken collarbone – would you know what to do?
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Don’t wait to get this knowledge, you can come across emergencies anywhere and in any circumstance.

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