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A New Zealand doctor has been credited with helping save the lives of East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta and a guard from his home.
The two men were shot in a failed coup attempt.
Dr Sarah Olsen - a senior neurosurgeon at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane - was flown by a Queensland Government jet to Darwin within hours of the attempted assassination to provide expert assistance to the two men.
Lieutenant Selestino Gomes was manning an external watchhouse at Dr Ramos-Horta's home on Monday when the rebels attacked, and was shot three times, suffering a serious gunshot wound to the head. He is still in a coma.
A humble Dr Olsen yesterday played down her life-saving role, the Brisbane Times reported.
"I'm not sure why they called on me. I thought maybe I was the only person they could get hold of.
"The fellow who was organising emergency services said there was a person with an open gunshot wound to the head being brought into Darwin.
"At that stage we had no idea if it was an Australian soldier or a local person."
Despite a huge workload on the afternoon she received the call to help, Dr Olsen said she managed to clear her schedule to get to the plane in time.
"That day I had a full list of surgery on for the afternoon, a patient from the morning I was still worried about and now I was going to have to pack up in half an hour and get there. And my husband was calling me saying, 'We haven't got any milk at home, can you bring some on your way home'."
Once in Darwin, Dr Olsen was able to treat the lieutenant, who had already had surgery by Australian Army doctors guided by a neurosurgeon in Melbourne via a phone link.
"I didn't know what to expect, but once we got this big bandage off his head I thought the job the Army surgeons did looked like it had been done by a neurosurgeon: it had been done to a very high quality," Dr Olsen said.
She then went through a plan with the general surgeon for the lieutenant's continuing care.
"I then was asked to see the President and give an opinion on some spinal fractures but he didn't require any surgery."
- NZPA
