More than 20 years after he lost his arm in a farming accident, a world champion woodchopper has reunited with one of the doctors who saved his life.
Nick Fredriksen was just eight years old when his shirt got caught in a hay baler on his parent's farm at Sheep Station Creek outside Kilcoy, north-west of Brisbane, and had his arm amputated.
Now a world-champion woodchopper, Fredriksen has reunited with doctor Colin Myers from Life Flight at the Ekka in Brisbane today — 23 years on since the accident.
Dr Myers was part of the aeromedical crew who treated a young Fredriksen on the way to Brisbane.
"It is great to actually meet someone that was there when I almost lost my life, and one of the people that helped me survive," Fredriksen said.
Dr Myers said a lot of patients did not remember much when they have to be airlifted in a rescue helicopter.
"They are pretty sick when we pick them up. I always say to people, 'good to see you again but don't see me at work', because it means they're in trouble," Dr Myers said.
He said he was happy to see Fredriksen flourish in life — the one-armed woodchopper has become an international champion and competed at the Royal Welsh Show in the UK.
"It's wonderful to see him, because as I was saying before, you look after people and make sure they get to the hospital alive, and survive and go home," Dr Myers said.
"What you don't see is what they make of their lives, and Nick's done an awesome job."
Fredriksen said woodchopping was in his blood.
"My father was a woodchopper, so I grew up with it ever since I was a little kid ... I didn't become competitive until I was 10 years old, so it was after I lost my arm," he said.
"But because I've been doing it for so long, for 22 years, its sort of a natural thing for me to do now. It's just part of everyday life."
Patient, doctor recall fateful flight
Dr Myers said he remembered picking up Fredriksen from Kilcoy.
"[It] was a little hospital with a one room emergency department ... so we landed at the hospital and it was quite a quick turnaround for me, because I could see that what you needed most was surgery," he said.
"So we stabilised you, put in drips, connected you to the television screens ... and loaded you into the aircraft and got going. It was really only a short flight back to Royal Brisbane from Kilcoy."
Fredriksen said he was "pretty much conscious the whole time".
"When I got on the chopper I remember taking off from Kilcoy, but I don't remember much of the flight.
"It [the accident] happened on the family property, 15 kilometres north of Kilcoy.
"We were doing maintenance on the bailer at the time, right next to the machinery shed when it happened, and my shirt got caught and tore it completely off, my arm 8 centimetres below the shoulder.
"I was unaware that I'd even lost my arm until dad told the ambulance officer on the phone, so it wasn't until then that the shock started coming and I started swearing a lot too, when I realised."
