Pilot John Martin suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body in 1989.
Pilot John Martin suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body in 1989.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
Top-dressing pilot John Martin suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body after crashing his Cessna AGwagon near Te Puke in 1989 at age 27. Thirty-four years later, he’s alive to tell the tale.
I was spraying fish fertiliser and I was returning to a job I’d been doing earlier that morning — one extra drum of fertiliser that the farmer had organised at the last minute. As I flew out there, I had a niggling feeling something wasn’t quite right. I checked and double-checked the gauges, and everything seemed to be okay, but still, something didn’t sit right with me.
It was just a sense, I guess, which I’m a little more tuned into now than I was back then. I approached the field I’d been spraying earlier, diving the aircraft towards the paddock, setting up for the first spray run, opening the spray valves as I crossed the boundary fence, racing fast across the paddock at a low level.
Approaching the boundary fence at the other end, I pulled up into a climbing turn to the right to gain a bit of altitude and position for the second run. Still, it felt as though something wasn’t right, and I scanned the gauges again; everything appeared to be okay.
Unknown to me, the fuel sender unit had failed (so there was no fuel); the engine was losing power, and I hadn’t noticed any noise change as I had a constant-speed propeller (the propeller changes pitch automatically depending on power). I dived for the second spray run. I crossed the boundary fence and pulled back on the stick to level out, but the plane continued to sink rapidly towards the ground. I stabbed my thumb into the jettison lever to get rid of the load so the aircraft could recover, but it was too late.
The plane smacked heavily on to the plateau. It hit so hard the undercarriage splayed apart, wiping off the air-driven pump underneath it. Time slowed down, micro-seconds seemed to take hours, and I remember thinking through my options. As the plane lofted back up into the air, I saw there was a row of trees along my left-hand side and a gully going up to the right, so I banked the plane to the right and headed into the gully.
I saw a field, a clear paddock on the other side of the gully that I could belly-land the plane into. At that same time, a power wire appeared in my field of vision, spanning the gully. I still remember hearing my flight instructor shouting at me, “If you’re ever going to hit a wire, hit it with the prop.” I aimed for the wire and hit it with the propellor, but because there was no power on it, it didn’t cut through; instead, it tangled around the propellor hub and then trailed out and hooked around the wing. A clear, calm feeling overcame me. Man, there’s no way out of this. I’m going to die.
Kiwi pilot John Martin (right) crashed his plane in 1989.
I felt the plane running out of airspeed and knew any minute now it would fall out of the sky and that would be it. I felt the plane stall, tipping vertically towards the ground and heading straight down to a spot in the middle of the gully. I could see the exact point I was going to hit, and thought, ‘This is how my life is going to end’. There was no way out of it.
The impact drove the engine back through the fuel tank, which was driven back into the hopper and back to the roll cage where I was sitting — a huge concertina effect. I came out of this impact with a feeling of startled disbelief that I was okay. The engine, fuel tank and hopper had absorbed the impact. I was basically intact, without a bone broken, but I knew I had to get out. I opened the hatch and undid my harness, and the next part of the ordeal is the only bit I can’t remember, because that was when the aircraft blew up.
I staggered away from the wreckage, still feeling lucky, knowing that I’d been given a second chance and I should have been dead. What I didn’t know at that point was that I was on fire. I shouted out, “Somebody help me!” and I heard the farmer, John Malcolmson, in the distance saying, “I’m coming. You’ll be all right, mate.” I remember rolling around on the grass as my body was swarmed by a deep searing pain — more than 70 per cent of my body had been burned — and I tried to put the flames out.
It was a pain like I’d never experienced before. I’d broken my arm as a kid, and found I could hold it in a certain way where it didn’t hurt so much, but burns were like a monster that had a hold on me and wouldn’t let go.
The wreckage of John Martin's plane crash in 1989.
I sat on that hillside for 90 minutes with the farmer at my side, waiting for a helicopter. They’d dispatched an ambulance from the nearby town of Te Puke, but they were lost up the road because there was no rural numbering system back then. Things were getting desperate, but I had in my mind that I needed to stay conscious. I needed to tell the doctor that I was okay, with no known internal injuries or broken bones, just burns to deal with. By the time I heard the helicopter touch down, I was slipping in and out of consciousness.
I recall flashes of the helicopter ride. Finally feeling the helicopter touch down at Waikato Hospital. The fuss and hassle as orderlies tried to get me on to a stretcher and into the hospital (one of them passed out at the sight of me, and they had to get another orderly to help carry me in). Doors opening, and me being wheeled in. Finally seeing the white uniform of a doctor’s coat and thinking, ‘I’ve made it. I’m here. I just need to tell him I’m okay’.
I surrendered then. I left my soul and my body in the hands of the excellent doctors and nurses at Waikato Hospital and spent the next three months in intensive care. I went through so much that I never thought I’d have to go through: many operations, skin grafts, fighting infection, dealing with drugs — I was so sedated, I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. It was like living in fantasy land. I remember coming out of that coma with my mother at my bedside telling me, ‘You were in a plane crash. It was April 15, it’s now June 16. Do you remember?’ Somewhere in that jumble of images and feelings swarming around in my head, I remembered a plane crash.
The first time I looked in a mirror, it didn’t really bother me. I saw my burned face; but there was still an overriding feeling that I’d been given a second chance and there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps it was more of an issue for other people, like my family and friends. I remember one day getting in the elevator with my mother at Waikato Hospital to go to physiotherapy, and there was instant silence. Everybody stood there uncomfortably and didn’t know what to say or do. I went to physiotherapy quite oblivious to it all, and my mother asked, “Did you notice people staring at you?” I answered honestly, “Not really.” I was so wrapped up in my world, happy to be alive and back on my feet, that it didn’t seem important to me. But I could see it was important to put her mind at rest. So, the next day, we got in the elevator and I looked around and said to everybody, “How are you all today? Having a lovely day?” and that broke the ice. They asked me, “How are you doing?” “What happened?” Off we went, chat, chat, chat. I could see I had to put people at ease.
Pilot John Martin in hospital after his plane crash.
I have to admit, before I had my burns, I found it hard to look at people with disfigurement and say, “Oh gosh, you must find that difficult”. When it happened to me, I learned that it wasn’t really an issue; it was all about your attitude towards it. I look around at what I have today — I’ve run a fabulous skydiving business for 26 years, I have a fabulous hangar and two awesome aeroplanes, I enjoy flying — and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Yet it would have been very easy to have lain in that hospital bed feeling sorry for myself and just given up. I am very lucky to be here.
I was very fortunate with the support that I had. My mother was there the whole time at my bedside; I had my friends, skydiving friends, and a lot of peer support. I was one of the people the system worked for. It was all on the public health system, and I had the best service and the best treatment from the doctors and the staff at Waikato Hospital.
My surgeon, Peter Witterson, did a fabulous job of patching me back together. As the farmer, John Malcolmson, ran to me, he took his shirt off and dipped it in a trough, then threw it over my face. Without his actions, my burn injuries could have been a lot worse. I have so many people to be thankful for.
The nurses, in particular, were underpaid and overworked, and I didn’t make their job easy, but to me, they were angels. They probably bore the brunt of my frustration and anger. I was sick of feeling sore.
Everything I did — open a door, sit on a chair — was painful, and I lashed out at the people that were closest to me. I will always feel bad about that, but I think most of my friends, and those angels, are special people and they understood. I had a very supportive doctor; he saw it was vital for my recovery that I would one day be flying again.
'From the Pilot's Seat' by Fletcher McKenzie, out now. RRP $40. Published by Penguin.
An extract from From the Pilot’s Seat by Fletcher McKenzie, out now. RRP $40. Published by Penguin.
