Our phones rang at the same time this afternoon, which means a fire & rescue call out, so I went to get the keys etc while Gaz talked to comms. "Some idiot's dog has fallen into a mine pit," he said. "I've told them to call the SES, we don't have the gear for cliff rescues." Two minutes later, Splinter from the SES rings Gary. "Nah mate," says Gary, "Haven't ever done it before, don't know how."
"Do what?" I asked as Gaz got off the phone. "Rapelling down cliffs," said Gaz. "None of the blokes in town has any experience." I rolled my eyes. "And did it occur to any of you to ask if any of the SHEILAS in town have any experience?" I said. Gary looked blank. "I know how to rappel and do cliff rescues for god's sake!" I said. "Oh!" says Gaz, and rings Splinter back while I grab my motorcycle helmet & gloves, and we head off.
As we pull out on to the Wiluna road near our place, we see a young dog standing exhausted and confused in the middle of the track. What...? We pulled up and she hid under the car. I coaxed her out - she was dehydrated and on the verge of collapse, so I gave her some water and put her on my lap while we drove to the SES depot, and she cheered up considerably.
When we get to the depot to meet Splinter and the SES truck, we discover Matty standing there - turns out it's Matty's dog who's fallen into the mine quarry, but what's weird is that the dog we've just picked up off the road is one of the pups from his dog's litter! Her rotten asshole owners have gone off to Port Hedland for a few weeks and just left the dog, whose name is Princess, with no one to look after her - she's lucky she managed to get out of the yard to go foraging.
So now we have to take Princess with us to and rescue her brother Brady; it's turning into a typically complicated Meeka situation, compounded in true Meeka style by the fact that the only SES guy in town has got two false legs (I'm not making this up), hence the nickname Splinter (wooden leg - splinter - get it? anyway, try to keep up), the only two guys on hand to help us are the town druggies, the only person with any cliff rescue experience and dog-calming ability is a fifty year old overweight woman with arthritic knees, a fear of heights and raging menopause, leaving Gary as the only vaguely competent person in the team.
We get to the pit, where Dave (my ex tenant) has been trying to reach Brady from below. Mine pits are created by the trucks digging a series of inner spiral walls, and Brady's fallen onto a section of wall twenty five metres down which has collapsed at either end, with another drop of about forty metres to the rocky floor and quarry water below. The mine walls are crumbling and unstable; it's really dangerous. Brady, by some miracle, has fallen without seriously hurting himself, and is running back and forth along the narrow mine wall, whimpering.
We find a safe place to put the SES truck with the winch, and creep to the edge to work out a plan. We decide that the best thing is to attach the body rescue basket to the winch cable, strap someone in, and lower them down to the dog. Gary assumes he should be the person in the basket, but I want him in charge up top, not to mention that he has terrible dog communication skills. Matty and Dave don't know what they're doing with harnesses, Splinter can't rely on his legs, so guess who gets the basket job? Ha ha ha ho heee ooooohhh oh dammit.
So I climb in and bark orders at the guys about how to secure me into the basket, and tell them to make sure they secure my personal harness to the winch cable as a secondary safety line, as well as attaching the basket. I didn't know it at the time, but they misunderstood this and attached my harness to the basket, not the cable, and after I tell you what happened they will never ever get this wrong ever again ...
Anyway, I'm strapped flat to the basket with spare webbing for the dog, and they slide me over the edge of this frigging huge cliff, which is so freaking terrifying I can't begin to describe it, so I just keep my eyes shut and hang on for dear life, knowing that Gary will absolutely not let anything happen to me, but still Not Looking Down Are You Fucking Kidding. The cliff is really crumbly, and Gary realises why I insisted on bringing a helmet - big rocks and stuff are falling on me from above as the winch cable displaces them. The basket gets stuck on some rough sections a couple of times and I have to roll around & rock it out. About halfway down I decide to open my eyes; I nearly throw up, but I focus on calling Brady and talking to the guys up top, who are doing a great job. The basket goes down inch by inch, it seems to take forever, but finally I reach the ledge.
It's a false sense of security, because the ledge is narrow and unstable. Brady is freaked out and comes close but not close enough for me to get a good grip on him - praying, I make the horribly risky decision to unclip myself from the safety line so I can take the two extra steps to get to him. He knows I'm here to help, but he doesn't like the basket, so I have to coax him over to it very slowly. It's a bugger that he's not a small dog!
If I do anything fast, he's going to panic, so I slowly and gently get a section of webbing around his chest behind his front legs and pull it tight, leaving one end long as a leash - I can't put it around his neck, he could pull free. As soon as it's secure I snap my clip back on to the safety line, then slowly pull Brady to me in the basket. This is the hard part - I've got to get him and me strapped in really tight, because it's going to be a very bumpy ride back up and I can't risk him freaking out and slipping his webbing, plus I need to be strapped in myself but still able to keep a hold on him while also pushing us away from outcroppings.
Brady is terrified and whimpering, but amazingly he does everything I say; it's like he knows I'm helping him, even though he doesn't like what's happening. I wedge him in at the foot of the basket and strap him over and over until he can't move; he starts wriggling, but stops as soon as I ask him to. The second he thinks I'm scared, he starts panicking, so I have to force myself to sound and act really calm, which is not easy because I sincerely feel like I'm going to throw up.
I give the boys the "all ready" signal and we start inching up again. This is much worse than going down - rocks are fallling on us all over the place, and we keep rolling on to one side or the other. I don't dare let go of Brady's scruff, even though he seems pretty secure; he shoves his head between my knees, terrified. I try not to look up from the dog; we're fifty metres above jagged rocks, it feels like miles.
By this time, unknown to me, we have tourists gathering up on the town lookout, watching the drama unfold. Everything seems to be going OK, but then, just as the basket starts its tilt over the top edge, Dave and Gary both yell out "STOP! STOP! SPLINTER GET THE ROPE HURRY HOLY SHIT!"
Then, just like in the movies, Dave calls down to me in that fake calm "everything's fine you're about to die but we're pretending you're not" voice, "Anna, whatever you do, don't move."
"Oh great," I think. "It's just like Jurassic Park, the cable's about to snap, I'm dangling in space, and a guy with wooden legs is hobbling to get a spare rope." I took a deep breath; I couldn't look up, but I knew I was in reaching distance and that Gary had one hand on the basket and would not let me fall no matter what. But who was holding Gary on the slippery gravelly ground? I focused on Brady. "Good boy! Isn't this fun?" I wondered how bad it was going to hurt when we hit the first ledge, and whether we'd flip over to certain death on to the bottom rock ledge, or just die slowly halfway down.
I realised I had about ten spare feet of webbing from the section that was tied around my waist and the basket, so I said "Gaz, I'm going to very slowly hand you the end of this webbing and you can tie it off to the truck." We held our breaths and he took it from my upheld hand; meanwhile, Dave had managed to tie me off from the other side (Gaz never let go of the basket). "Tell me everything's just fine even if it isn't" I said. "Everything's fine!" said Dave and Gaz.
So they got me & Brady over the edge, finally, and Gaz started unstrapping me. "Don't look at the basket when you get out," he advised. I handed Brady over to Matty, then went to look at the basket.
The metal tubing where the steel winch cable was attached had snapped; it had about a centimetre of metal casing still attached, which was the only thing holding me aloft for a couple of minutes while the guys ran for the other rope. The basket frame couldn't take the strain of me and the dog coming over the edge section. "That's why I said to attach ME to the cable as well as the basket," I said. The guys were suitably mortified and horrified and sorry.
Gary was freaked. "You were that close to...to just going over," he said. "I knew you weren't going to let go, no matter what," I said. Gaz goes very quiet when he's emotional. "Yep." "Let's go have a beer," I said, and we all packed up. The guys were pretty shaken up and they all said "You're a bloody brave sheila mate" and Matty couldn't thank us enough for saving Brady. Dave and Splinter took photos of me & Brady for the town paper - turns out Matty got most of it on video, so as soon as I can get copies I'll post them on the blog.
I got to keep the SES basket as souvenir, Princess is happily esconced at Dave's house, Brady is sore and tired but home at last, half the town got to see that wombat-shaped middle-aged women can be action heroes, and the boys know that next time there's an emergency and there aren't any blokes around who know what to do, just ask a sheila. Mate.
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