Annabelle Brayley - Outback Vets

Dave Hall, Walwa, Victoria

In October 2007, Dave Hall decided it was way past time for him to kick his lifelong smoking habit. Knowing from past experience that he was a cranky bugger whenever he tried to give up, he went to his GP for help. His regular doc was away so he saw a locum, who prescribed him Serepax, a drug used to manage anxiety and tensions associated with stress.

One Sunday soon after, Dave decided to take himself out to the Upper Murray Resort, west of Walwa, for an afternoon of music. Although he wasnt a regular drinker, he admits he could tie one on when he was partying. That night, because he was taking a sedative and trying not to smoke, he decided not to drink any beer. Instead, he sipped a glass of port. Later, he sipped another...

From there on, its all hazy. He vaguely remembers deciding to leave but cant recall getting into his car. He also remembers a falling sensation and then feeling profoundly comfortable, as though he was having the most wonderful sleep.

He doesnt recall trying to crawl out through all the vet gear strewn around the back of his old, upside-down Landcruiser. He just remembers waking up and seeing the stars in the sky, closely followed by faces looking down at him.

He heard someone tell him not to move because he might have broken his neck. Thats when the pain kicked in, slicing through his neck and head and across his face where hed smashed his nose on the steering wheel.

Strapped into a hard collar and loaded onto a spinal board, Dave was transferred to Albury Base Hospital by ambulance, where he was X-rayed and stabilised. A doctor told him he was lucky. Then he was transferred by air to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.

Dave woke again flat on his back in the trauma ward. He couldnt move, which was instantly terrifying. As one of the nurses explained his situation to him, he realised he was in traction. He had a big steel halo bolted to four points of his skull. Weights on the end of a rope attached to the ring hanging over the top of the spinal bed pulled on his head to relieve the pressure on his spine. Dave had fractured his third cervical vertebra (C3). It was split diagonally from top to bottom through the canal and body of the vertebra, and pushed out of alignment. His C4 was also damaged. Against the odds, his spinal cord was not. He understood that was the lucky part.

The nurses werent really sure whether he was an orthopaedic patient or a neurological one. Hovering on the edge of a claustrophobic panic, Dave didnt care and decided right from the first conscious minute to be a really good patient. He was in there for two months, flat on his back except for when four nurses log-rolled him on to his side to attend to his back. His head was effectively lying flat on two bars and it was either really sore or really bloody sore all of the time. He was completely dependent on other people for everything and although he could feel his fingers and toes, he lived in dread that his status might change. Remembering, he says almost to himself, You lie there, shit-scared, hoping youre going to get better. He thought a lot about what it would be like to be quadriplegic and now, every day, he thinks what a privilege it is to view the world standing upright. He spent the hours and days and weeks reflecting on his life.

Unlike some vets, Dave didnt grow up wanting to be one, but he did grow up knowing he had an affinity with animals. His father was a school physics teacher and his mother was a commercial artist, which undoubtedly accounts for his unusual logical creativity... or his creative logic. His family moved to wherever his father was transferred, so although he was born in Hamilton in the western districts of Victoria, he spent his teenage years in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, back when they were still semi-rural, home to small farms and orchards and plenty of animals.