January 9, 2019
Coverty resident Wayne Charity had a brush with death on New Year’s Eve … and owes his life to his quick-thinking wife and the region’s emergency services.
Wayne was mowing his property to get it ready for 2019, and after he finished at about 3:00pm, decided to check his letterbox for any mail that had come in over the festive season.
He found wasps had built a nest underneath it when one flew out and stung him.
“I’ve been stung a lot of times in my life and never had any reaction before,” Wayne said.
“But there must be something in our bodies that just gives up at some point, because this time I went into anaphylactic shock.”
He managed to get back to his house but then collapsed and stopped breathing.
His wife called Triple Zero immediately, then began to apply CPR under instruction from the 000 operator while arrangements were made to get medical assistance.
Proston’s ambulance crew was on a call at another job, so QAS teams were despatched from Murgon and Kingaroy.
A RACQ LifeFlight helicopter also flew in from the Sunshine Coast.
It touched down on the couple’s property about 40 minutes later at roughly the same time the Murgon and Kingaroy QAS crews arrived.
“We had about 11 ambos on our property all up at that point, and they decided the best thing was to fly me to Kingaroy Hospital,” Wayne said.
“The hospital kept me in overnight for observation – just to be sure I didn’t have a relapse – but I was back home on New Year’s Day.”
Wayne said he felt extremely grateful to be able tell his story, and praised everyone who helped get him through the crisis.
“I really do want to say a huge thank you to all those wonderful ambos and paramedics who looked after me, including my darling wife,” he said.
“I also want to thank the team at Kingaroy Hospital, who were really great.
“We are so lucky to have such a wonderful service in a small country town.”
