Helicopter crash survivors titled 'miracle men'

ON BOARD HMAS KANIMBLA - To their shipmates, Shane "Warbo" Warburton and Scott Nicholls are the "miracle men".

Both survived the crash of Kanimbla's Sea King Shark 02 helicopter as it nose-dived into a field on Nias.

The two Australians were dragged from the flames by Indonesian villager Benar Giawa, who was later thanked personally for his heroism by Kanimbla's captain, Commander George McGuire.

Nicholls, an RAAF paramedic, and Warburton, a communications operator on the Kanimbla, were both on board the 817 Squadron chopper as part of a medical fast-response team sent to help earthquake survivors in one of the most remote parts of Nias.

The pair are believed to have survived the fireball because they were at the rear of the Sea King as it crashed at the remote village of Aman Draya.

Yesterday, they were recovering from broken bones, head injuries, cuts and bruising in the 12-bed hospital on board Kanimbla, and Warburton was feeling well enough to share a joke and enjoy a cigarette.

"You've had to have been blind to have missed Warbo," the crew were told over the Kanimbla's loudspeaker system. "The entire area around him has been declared a smoke hazard."

The pair would be flown home for specialist medical care as soon as possible, McGuire said.

Nicholls was carrying a lucky dollar coin that doctors on Kanimbla found. The coin had been polished up and a hole drilled in it, and Nicholls was wearing it as a pendant.

Giawa told McGuire through an interpreter that the helicopter had been about 20m above the ground on approach to landing when the engine noise changed and it plummeted.

He said the two survivors had signalled for help.

Local people were initially too scared to go near the flaming wreck until Giawa led the way, carrying the two men to safety and laying them on the ground until the Kanimbla's second helicopter touched down and airlifted them to hospital.

Both men have been barred from talking publicly about their experience until they have spoken to Australian military and civilian crash investigators, who arrived from Australia yesterday.

- AAP