By KATH GANNAWAY
FORMER Healesville SES volunteer, Keith Picone, has been awarded a Bronze Medal for Bravery by The Royal Humane Society of Australasia.
Mr Picone was presented with the award by Victorian Governor Linda Dessau, on Tuesday 15 December at Government House in Melbourne.
Mr Picone and his wife Karen, SES Controller at Healesville at the time, came across an horrific, fatal crash at Coldstream on 21 February, 2007, as they headed for an anniversary dinner down the line.
A head-on collision had resulted in one car in the middle of the road with the driver injured and trapped, the other on its passenger side, trapping the deceased front seat passenger, David McVea, and the driver, his daughter, Rachael.
That two highly-trained, experienced and courageous people were there, quite by chance, at that very time, still astounds Rachael who has forged a strong friendship and bond with them both over the past six or seven years.
Talking with the Mail last week, Keith said they arrived minutes after the crash and knew immediately it was bad.
“We crossed over the hill and there was just carnage,” he said.
He says he wasn’t aware of any fire in the engine, something noted in the award commendation, but that they were focused solely on getting SES units and other emergency services to the scene.
“The rear hatch had popped open, so I had no idea what the rest of the car was like. I stuck my head inside and could hear moaning,” he said.
Ripping the back seats out he crawled in and established quickly that the passenger was deceased.
“The situation then was that Rachael was pinned by the steering wheel and the seat belt and struggling to breath,” he said.
The seat belt wouldn’t yield, so he made a risky but life-saving decision to cut the belt and hold Rachael in place until she could be rescued.
Karen cut the belt, then ran up the highway to get reception and call Healesville SES to set the ball rolling.
“You never cut a seat belt, it holds the person into the seat and there’s the danger of further injury when you don’t know whether there is any spinal injury, but she couldn’t breathe and I made that decision.
“She asked me about her dad; what do you say?,” Keith said.
“I just said ‘someone else is looking after your dad’, but she knew.”
Rachael’s injuries were horrendous, practically every bone in her body, from toes to chest, was broken, but fortunately no back or neck injuries.
She was not expected to live and has had 19 operations to basically put her back together.
Once the belt was cut her breathing increased and Keith took on the role of keeping her in place.
“If I let her go, her world would have come crashing down,” Keith said.
Both Rachel and Keith remember the incredible noise, being inside the car with the SES volunteers cutting through the mangled metal outside, and the sirens and voices all around them as an enduring memory of rescue.
“The real thing is nothing like the training sessions,” Keith said.
“It was like a coke can being crushed,” Rachel said.
Rachael’s recollection of the rescue was of Keith appearing from nowhere as she was struggling to breath and holding her up.
“He said he couldn’t move me and to “just put your head on my head”.
“I was so tired, but any time I went quiet, he just talking .
“He was so brave. He truly is my hero. I wouldn’t be here without him, it’s as simple as that.”
The Mail spoke with Detective Leading Senior Constable Cussack on Monday also.
He is now stationed at Alexandra, but said he had had the draft report recommending Keith for the bravery award since 2008, but could not lodge it until the Coroner finalised his finding on the crash.
That happened in 2014 and he put it in.
“I had had numerous conversations with Rachael in Epworth and then a formal statement and what struck me most was that if Keith had not done what he did, regardless of whether there was a fire, she had given up the will to live at that point.
“She said this person then gets into the car, sees her situation and that person then crawls in under her and arches his back to relieve the pressure from the steering wheel.
“She had resigned herself to the fact that she was going to die, but decided then that if that person is willing to do this for me, I’m going to live.
“He restored her will to live.”
Keith said he was blown away when he was presented with a letter from Victoria Police informing him about the recommendation – first because of a natural reaction to the police logo on an envelope, then because of the contents.
“This whole thing was a joint effort, not just me. There were a whole lot of people involved and everyone worked so well together to get the best possible outcome.”
Karen and Rachael were at Government House to see him get his medal.
“We have become such firm friends,” Rachael said.
“I could not have asked for two better people to come across that crash, and to develop such a friendship with.”
