Concern for mystery fire victim

A CALL to a car crash on the Black Spur is nothing new to SES volunteers Geoff Wilkinson and Ken Breasley, but one call, on Black Saturday, has had a profound effect.
The men would like to know how a young Marysville woman they transported from Narbethong to a waiting ambulance at Healesville has fared.
Deputy controller Steve Collins said the woman, who was from Hill Street, had fought to save her house, suffering bad burns to her hands and face as a result.
He said the day started for the SES volunteers with a routine job clearing a fallen tree in River Street.
The day moved very quickly to anything but routine.
The Narbethong call at 7.18pm was one of three simultaneous rescue calls which came in as members were dealing with the exodus of residents escaping the fires in Chum Creek.
A man had thrown himself in a dam in Steels Creek and needed help, and a woman was distraught having lost contact with her parents in Long Gully Road, Healesville, as they were taking shelter in a cellar.
Wilkinson and Breasley were sent to Narbethong to the car crash but with that situation defused, were enlisted to take the young woman to Healesville.
“They put her in the rescue vehicle and made a dash down the mountain, driving in the dark through flames on the way down,” Mr Collins said.
The woman’s father followed in his car and Mr Collins said there may have been others.
“The last thing the guys saw was this young woman getting loaded into the ambulance and we’ve not heard anything since,” he said.
Inquiries through Ambulance Victoria and hospitals have brought no result.
“No-one seems to know where she went but it would be good for our guys to just know who she was and how she got on,” said Mr Collins, describing the last few weeks as an emotional roller coaster.
As that first weekend went on they heard that the Kinglake and Marysville SES bases had been wiped out. It was an anxious time as they waited for news of their colleagues.
On the Monday morning they heard that Kinglake’s SES members had survived, but it was three days before they got any news out of Marysville.
“We finally got on to Jo (Marysville Deputy Controller) and it was such a relief as more and more of the members up there started coming in on the conference call,” Mr Collins said. “We are all very close.”
Their work didn’t finish on that weekend but Mr Collins said having some word on how the young woman was faring would help with what had been a lingering concern throughout it all.
Anyone with information can contact Steve Collins on 0407 579 118.