Pool man saves woman in flash flood

Gordon Brock of Leisure Pools Coffs Harbour has become a minor celebrity in the district after rescuing a woman trapped in a car.

But in the typical Australian, uneffacing way, he says it’s ridiculous to call him a hero. “The real heroes are the people from the SES and Fire Brigade,” Brock says. “People who do this sort of thing every day and risk having their lives changed every day. For an ordinary person like me, this sort of thing only happens once in a lifetime.”

 

The incident occurred in early June when about 200mm of rain fell within half an hour. After checking on the condition of the site where he is installing his own pool, he went back inside to change and get ready for bed. Then he remembered his horses, and went back outside to check on them. That’s when he saw the bobbing headlights of a car washed into nearby Newee Creek.

 

“It was a Commodore station wagon, two-thirds submerged and trapped against the fence by a torrent of water,” he says. “The water was so high that one tyre was sitting on the top of a fence post.” Brock ran onto the road to stop the traffic coming down the hill into the flooded creek, but his mobile phone wasn’t in range, so he couldn’t call the authorities. Luckily he stopped a railway worker with a satellite phone who contacted the police.

 

That was when he got the shock of his life. He had assumed the driver had got out of the car, but he saw an arm come out of the driver’s window and heard a woman’s voice call: “I’m in the car!” He dashed straight into the flooded creek. The car was now tilting so much the driver’s side had come right out of the water. He convinced the woman, Robyn Fletcher, to climb out the window and onto his back. Calmly, she followed his advice. But she had a carry bag with her, and as it hit the creek it filled up with water, dragging them along with the torrent and sending Brock under the water.

 

“Then I started to panic,” he says. “I knew there was a barbed wire fence there, and a sunken tree, and if I got washed away in my Drizabone and boots, we wouldn’t be found till morning. “Then something came over me – maybe it was the adrenaline kicking in. I spotted a mudguard and used it to pull myself around till I eventually got to the back of the car where the water wasn’t so forceful. Then I managed to jump up and get a breath of air, and push her onto land.”

 

While Brock’s wife and daughter looked after Fletcher, the police arrived. “They thought the trouble was a couple of kilometres further up the road, and they just drove straight into the creek. All you could see of the police 4WD was the lights flashing on top. But they managed to back out and stop the traffic.”

 

Brock credits the good outcome with a few instances of chance – the fact he had gone out to check his horses for one – and also the calmness and maturity Fletcher displayed during her ordeal.

 

He was initially reluctant for SPLASH! to run this story, as he didn’t want to big-note himself, but eventually consented when told it was an opportunity to tell a positive story about a member of the pool industry. And we all know we could do with more of them.

 

And as much as he’d hate SPLASH! to mention it, he’s not the only Brock to be praised recently. A few days after the incident, he travelled down to Sydney to see his son presented with a bravery award for running into a burning building to save the occupants. It seems his style of ordinary Australian heroism runs in the family.