User:BrettFairbairn

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Contents 1 Ancient history 2 The Dark Age 3 The Middle Ages 4 Renaissance 5 Modern Times

[edit] Ancient history

Born in Sydney, Australia, I am of Scots-English-Irish descent. The oldest child of a Northern Territory police officer, I was raised in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. My family moved to Darwin in late 1974 just before Cyclone Tracy - in which our house was destroyed (we spent the night of the cyclone at Casuarina Police Station, and had to change rooms during the night when the roof began lifting off).

My mother, sister and I were evacuated to Sydney. We stayed with relatives for a few months before returning to Darwin, where we eventually moved into a new cyclone-proof (reinforced-concrete) house. I completed school and began a business degree.

[edit] The Dark Age

One Friday evening in early December 1984 I was walking across a car park and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a hospital bed. Upon looking out the window I realised I was not in Darwin. I then discovered from a nurse that I was in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, some 3,200 km (2,000 miles) from Darwin, and it was January 1985.

It transpired that I had walked across the car park, gone home, done who-knows-what over the weekend, worked Monday and then been in a serious motorcycle accident on Tuesday morning. A car had cut across an intersection and I had run into the side of the front of the vehicle. After intensive care at the Royal Darwin Hospital I was evacuated to Adelaide for specialised treatment on an RAAF C-130 Hercules flown up from Canberra.

In the accident I received numerous injuries, and afterwards underwent a number of operations including some brilliant plastic surgery by (then) head of the Australian Craniofacial Unit, Dr David David.

[edit] The Middle Ages

After two months in hospital and a few years rehabilitation I returned to study. One night during the last semester of my degree I was walking across campus when suddenly I realised I was falling (it was a cloudy night and the campus lights were off). It turned out that during the day a 4.6 metre (15') deep trench had been dug, and that when digging it the builders had cut through electricity cables leading to the lights. After falling all the way to the bottom I tried to get out of the trench but was unable to do so, mainly because my right femur had been badly broken. It was 9:00pm and there was nobody around.

After exploring my (very limited) options, I decided the safest thing to do was to yell out every now and then in the hope that a security guard who patrolled the grounds would hear me. After about half-an-hour he did. It took some time to get the message across to him that I needed an ambulance, and after doing so I can only remember little bits and pieces of the ordeal - it was like I had waited until I was sure help was at hand before succumbing to the pain and passing out.

Later that night an orthopaedic surgeon went in through the top of my thigh and drilled a hole down the centre of my femur towards the knee, before inserting a long rod (referred to as an AO Nail) and four screws to hold it in place. It has since been removed, but I continue to set off metal detectors as there are plates, screws and pieces of wire present courtesy of the motorcycle accident.

[edit] Renaissance

I returned to study and the following year finally graduated with a Bachelor of Business degree from Northern Territory University, with a major in Information Systems and a minor in Management.

[edit] Modern Times

I now live and work in Brisbane as a software developer, and neither ride motorcycles nor walk across college campuses at night!!