Woodvale woman recounts harrowing ordeal trapped in floodwaters

Marlene Wing-Quay was driving home to Woodvale on Saturday, October 22 when flash floodwaters took hold of her car and swept it up a creek.

"When I got to my local road that I have driven home on for 30 years, I saw the water and backed out of it," she said.

"(It) was so fast, coming from somewhere. It actually went to take my car and I jumped out."

Marlene frantically managed to escape out of the car's window. She then spent an hour and 15 minutes stumbling and wading through floodwaters in an effort to find safety.

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"There was no way (that water) was going to let me get out," she said.

"I was thrown down the creek for quite some time. I can remember seeing the car float down the creek not knowing whether it was mine or somebody else's."

Clinging to trees and fences along the way, she eventually made it to an embankment alongside a road.

"I did get thrown onto the embankment and for some time I walked through the paddocks in knee-high to waist-high water," Marlene said.

It was at that point she saw the headlights of a car.

Marlene waved the car down. Incredibly, it was an SES unit travelling between jobs.

Quickly realising the seriousness of Marlene's predicament, SES volunteer Trent Ross waded into water to rescue her while fellow volunteer Braden Verity called for more support.

The SES crew took care of Marlene and drove her to a waiting ambulance where paramedics Dani Turner and Aleisha Rutland treated her before taking her to hospital.

"Words cannot say how grateful that myself and my family are to the SES unit of Bendigo and all our volunteers and our paramedics that have saved people like me to celebrate Christmas for 2022," Marlene said.

The survivor said she remembered more than she should of the rescue and hoped no one ever had to face a situation like she did.

"I'm not comfortable with (what I can remember) but I will learn to live with it," Marlene said.

"I certainly don't want to go through it again in my lifetime and I don't wish anybody to be put in the same situation."

Marlene said the relief of seeing the SES lights being turned on was overwhelming.

"It's just a miracle," she said.

"I could see the headlights not knowing that they were SES. I crawled up into the road, stood up and I think I frightened them. I was just so happy to see them.

"The vehicle flashed its lights and on came the emergency lights of the SES. I just collapsed.

"I absolutely collapsed and couldn't believe that rescue had come that night at 11pm."

Marlene said the SES volunteers helped keep her warm after pulling her from the freezing water.

"They and the paramedics were just so professional," she said.

"They are so amazing and brave.

"They're heroes and so are the paramedics. We just don't know how well off we are and how blessed we are to have the paramedics and SES.

"There's many volunteers in our city that we now say thank you to."

Making Marlene's rescue even more miraculous was the fact she has a pre-existing heart condition.

"An hour and 15 minutes is unaccounted for and I don't swim," she said.

"I have a heart condition and that was the concern on that evening.

"Thankfully, I came out of it with no broken bones, no stitches and no stents."

Marlene is keen to make inquiries to ensure the Woodvale community is safe from future flooding events.

"I'd like to know where the water came from," she said.

"I've lived out there for 30 years. I'd like to know why there's no barriers on the mouth of the creek of Camp Road.

"I have a heavy rigid licence. I have experience. I feel for anyone that doesn't have experience on a night like that."

Braden and Trent have volunteered for the emergency service for 14 and nine years respectively.

They said they had never come across a situation like Marlene's before in all their time on the SES.

"That night we were traveling from incident to incident," Braden said.

"We had a number of rescues that night and we actually came across Marlene when traveling from one incident to another.

"It wasn't an actual call. We just happened upon her.

"Because of the floodwater everywhere, we didn't actually have to go the way that we went. So it was by chance essentially.

As the SES unit drove along, the volunteers could see something in the water in white clothing.

"We didn't actually know what it was at the time," Braden said.

As they approached closer, they suddenly realised it was a person struggling.

"We didn't go too far in but Trent got out and could walk through the water so he went out while I called the paramedics," Braden said.

"You don't happen upon people like this very often in the SES like what we did that night. So I think Marlene is quite lucky."

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Trent said luck was on their side when they randomly located Marlene in floodwaters.

"A lot of things aligned that night to get us in that spot," Trent said.

"Any later and we would have turned around because the water was too strong there to drive through.

"We would have turned around and potentially not seen anybody there."

Dani said it was lucky Marlene came out of her experience relatively unscathed.

"I was surprised - considering she had spent so much time in the water - that she wasn't a lot colder to begin with and that she didn't have any injuries," the paramedic said.

"She was quite sore. I think she got sort of tumbled around in the water for some time.

"So she had some soft tissue injuries from that but fortunately no broken bones or any more sinister conditions going on. She was very lucky.

"She was obviously very shaken. There was an unaccounted time of how long she'd actually been in the water."

The paramedics priority was to get Marlene warm and reassure her she was safe before transporting her to hospital.

"But she was very lucky," Dani said.

Trent said it was the first time they had taken such a direct role in saving someone's life.

"We go to car accidents almost on a weekly basis and pull people out of cars but to have that much direct input into someone's life, that was really an experience for us," he said.

Braden described the ability to save a person's life as a real honour, "almost a humbling experience".

He said the two volunteers kept calm in an impromptu situation as their training took over.

"We still go through like a systematic approach essentially - it's not an adrenaline rush," Braden said.

"It's just part of volunteering in the service.

"I don't want to take away from the experience but we do train to be able to deal with any sort of situation.

"So it was get on the radio, make sure she's safe, keep her warm, ensure other services are notified. All the standard protocols that we would normally follow."

The rescue is one of countless call outs the Bendigo SES faced during the flash flooding across the region during October.

"It has been quite a busy period to say the least," Braden said.

"There is fatigue but we are still fully operational."

He said there's been no drop off in numbers in the SES ranks with the flood disaster now largely abated.

"If anything, we've had more of an influx of queries of people wanting to assist and volunteer," he said.

Now with Christmas almost here, Marlene said she was looking forward to celebrating the holiday season with her family.

"My grandparents are married here in 1913. I'm a Bendigo Chinese girl and my family is just the children and the grandchildren now," she said.

"I'm one of 15 children. I have many brothers and sisters and many nieces and nephews and they're so happy that I'm here to be able to say thank you."

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