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Wednesday, W d d 27 S September, b 2017
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■ Trapped man grateful but can’t see what all the fuss is about…
Pole position By Bonny Burrows An Upper Beaconsfield resident who made national headlines after becoming trapped under a 1.5 tonne power pole has “no idea” why people are so interested in his story. Odie Barwick, 42, was awaiting a delivery of garden mulch when he became trapped under the eight-metre hardwood pole he was trying to clear from his Norbury Road driveway shortly before 9am on 23 September. Speaking to the Gazette from his Dandenong Hospital bed on 25 September, Mr Barwick said he was setting up some braces so that he could move the pole off the driveway with an excavator when things went wrong. “When moving one of the props, the pole moved unexpectedly and rolled down hill into my leg - only a metre or so - but that was enough to snap my shin bone,” Mr Barwick said. “The pole carried on rolling, coming to rest against the props/braces, with my foot crushed underneath.” Luckily, Mr Barwick, who is an engineering manager, had his mobile phone in his pocket. “I always carry my mobile with me - on our 20-acre block when working with machinery, chainsaws, livestock, anything can happen,” Mr Barwick said. “I rang my wife who was in the house, told her I’d broken my leg and to call an ambulance.” Initially, Mr Barwick thought he could get his neighbour Rod to use the nearby excavator to move the pole off his leg “but the triple zero operator said to do no such thing, so Rod moved the machine out the way”. Despite the pain and weight crushing his leg, Mr Barwick’s mind then turned to the impending mulch delivery. Looking back at it now, he sees the humour in an otherwise serious situation. “I then thought I’d better cancel the delivery of mulch as there were going to be a couple of emergency vehicles around,” Mr Barwick said. “I rang him, and tried to explain, but I guess I wasn’t very coherent. “He is local to Upper Beac, and soon worked
It took several emergency services agencies to free Odie Barwick from under the power pole. out what was going on based on what was happening on social media.” It took an army of emergency service crews in a multi-agency joint effort about 30 minutes to free Mr Barwick’s leg from under the pole. A CFA spokesperson said seven fire trucks
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from Pakenham, Nar Nar Goon, Dandenong and Upper Beaconsfield attended the scene. Mr Barwick’s neighbour also counted two police vehicles, three ambulances, one SES and a handful of other marked vehicles. Mr Barwick said there were 45 emergency
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service personnel on site in what he described as a “phenomenal” team effort. He praised the work of all those involved, from the triple zero call taker to the ambulance crew which took him to hospital.
Continued page 4
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