CAREER IN FOCUS
FINDING A PURPOSE IN POLICING 01
Few people know the value of good police work more than Samantha Davidson. In May 2005, the now-Constable with Victoria Police was just like any other teenage girl living in the tiny rural township of Picola, undertaking year seven at high school and spending her weekends playing netball. But during a weekend drive with her father, sister and two brothers, her life both literally and metaphorically took a turn for the worse. Const Davidson’s father, Jon, lost consciousness behind the wheel and the car left the road and careened into a creek. As water flooded the car, Const Davidson helped her siblings onto the roof and managed to rouse her father and help him to safety with the aid of some nearby campers.
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POLICE LIFE | SUMMER 2019-20
Davidson suffered an injury to her spleen in the accident and spent the next week in hospital, but her father didn’t come to visit her. Once she was discharged from hospital, Const Davidson learned why. “I got home and dad had a large scar and a lot of staples running along the side of his head,” Const Davidson said. “Doctors had discovered he had stage three glioblastoma, a fast-growing brain cancer, and the tumour had caused him to lose consciousness while driving.” Despite being told he had five months left to live, Jon bravely battled the cancer for the next five years. In that time, Jon’s repeat surgeries and frequent seizures were a reality the family had to cope with. In November 2010, Const Davidson again saved her father from drowning, this time from a bathtub after he suffered another seizure.
He was taken to hospital after the incident but would never come home. A stroke derailed his recovery and the subsequent complications resulted in him passing away at the age of 40. Sadly, only another six months would go by before Const Davidson and her siblings buried their other parent. In May 2011, a trivial argument about the household being out of milk upset Const Davidson’s mother, Julia, who had been diagnosed with bi-polar schizophrenia years earlier. Tragically, the small argument led to Julia locking herself in a bedroom and taking a massive dosage of prescription medication. Const Davidson cleared the house of her siblings and paramedics rushed to the home, but Julia couldn’t be saved and died in the arms of her daughter on the living room floor as a result of the overdose.
