A fiery air crash, a face-eating fungus and minutes from death in the Top End: How The Alfred’s doctors saved this US marine

A fiery air crash, a face-eating fungus and minutes from death in the Top End: How The Alfred’s doctors saved this US marine In a series of world firsts, The Alfred’s team saved the life of US marine Travis Reyes, critically injured in a deadly aircraft crash in remote NT. Corporal Travis Reyes had 23 US marines crammed in the back of his Osprey aircraft. It was 9.04am and they had just left the RAAF’s Darwin base for Exercise Predator’s Run. The troops were nervous and hungry, strapped into the unique, though notorious, half-plane/half-helicopter, which has been involved in deadly crashes claiming 35 lives since it entered military service in 2007. As a crew member fastened only by a wander lead, Reyes was free to move around the flying office he’d grown to love. “I remember take-off was smooth, and as soon as we got over the water, it was all so smooth,” he recalls. “I started eating my McDonald’s in front of those grunts, and they were so jealous of me, and I was just smiling and dangling my feet off the ramp.” The 21-year-old from Maryland was nearing the end of a six-month deployment on August 27, 2023. The war games with 2500 personnel from the US, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Timor Leste were a cool way to sign off. But, as the jungles of Melville Island replaced the Beagle Gulf waters below Reyes’ feet, the ride became jerky. The Osprey in front pulled up without warning, forcing Reyes’ pilots to veer to avoid a mid-air crash. The manoeuvre, combined with wind and weight, caused the aircraft to lose lift. It plummeted as Reyes clung to a ramp activator. “I was grabbing that for dear life because I had no idea what was going on. And then I started hearing ‘mayday’.” Reyes jolted up, tugging on passengers’ seatbelts. “The infantry guys, you could just see it in their faces … They just looked like they were literally about to die. “I remember hearing sounds of trees just snapping against the rotor blades ... I was getting rag-dolled around ... I just remember hearing a cracking and I hit my head, and then that was it.” The Osprey was an inferno on the ground. Surviving marines dragged out their unconscious flight attendant onto Melville Island’s distinctive bright red dirt. “I remember waking up, and then everybody was around me, and everybody was rushing out of the aircraft,” Reyes said. “I was getting dragged out, and then they were working on me. I could feel my body was all messed up. “And then I was in Texas, and then that’s when a whole other set of stories start.” Welcome to the jungle Dr David McCreary wasn’t supposed to be in the Top End. The trauma specialist at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne took the place of an injured friend as the emergency flight doctor for Predator’s Run. On the operation’s first day at Melville Island, McCreary waited for the 9.30am arrival of two Ospreys but was surprised when the famously punctual marines didn’t appear. Surprise soon turned to worry when Darwin-based colleagues texted news of a crash. McCreary’s crew was already preparing their own chopper for take-off when official notification came through the US and Australian military. McCreary was only a 12-minute flight away. “From a distance, I could see smoke and, as we banked round, I could then see how crap it looked,” he recalled. “When we saw the wreck from above, it looked like nobody could have survived. It was just ashes and smoke, and you could see it had demolished loads of trees on the way in. Then we saw some guys signalling us from the ground.” McCreary and paramedic Lloyd Herbert winched down to the burning wreck. Three crew members – Major Tobin Lewis, Captain Eleanor LeBeau and Corporal Spencer Collart – were dead, and there were 20 walking wounded. But the marines were most concerned about one survivor they had dragged from the inferno. “He [Reyes] was able to tell me his name,” McCreary said. “When you see how burnt the aircraft was – it was incinerated – and you see him with literally nothing … those two things don’t compute to me. “But as soon as you actually lay hands on him and start doing numbers, it was bad.” Reyes’ vitals were beyond critical. The numbers indicated massive internal injuries, probably a build-up of blood that was rapidly increasing pressure on his heart and lungs. McCreary also suspected Reyes’ injured lungs were expelling air into his chest, where it couldn’t escape, preventing his lungs refilling and further constricting his heart until it would stop completely. “I saw there was a lot of blood in his belly and he needed an operation for that.” Without a blood supply and nothing to stem the bleeding, there was no safe way to operate, so McCreary provided saline, some of the limited oxygen available, and ketamine, to buy time. Then Reyes’ blood pressure dropped so low it could not even be measured. McCreary realised he had to perform an operation that would probably kill the young marine, but he knew Reyes would certainly die without it. Suddenly, a miracle appeared from above. “Literally, at the point where I was like ‘I just need blood’, I remember seeing this little cooler that appeared,” McCreary said. A CareFlight helicopter from Darwin had winched down eight litres of blood. At that moment, Reyes’ heart went into arrest. McCreary performed a thoracostomy procedure, plunging a knife into both sides of Reyes’ chest to release the pressure. “There was a big gush of air, a big gush of blood – it’s like a balloon going down – about 500-750 millilitres.” Reyes’ heart restarted. Medics inserted a chest drain and intubated him, leaving him unconscious and paralysed while a ventilator breathed for him. He was in too critical a condition to be winched, so an Australian Army Bushmaster armoured ambulance was brought in. The vehicle was gutted to fit in the team and, despite its being heavily damaged by trees during the one-kilometre race to an airstrip, Reyes was successfully transferred to the US chopper. A race against time in Darwin By the time the chopper crossed the Beagle Gulf, Royal Darwin Hospital had ordered a code brown emergency, ceasing all other operations to prepare for mass casualties. News crews captured images of an injured, tattooed marine being rushed into the hospital at 1.29pm, and the footage soon beamed around the world. Trauma surgeons rushed Reyes into theatre and it became obvious what had happened. As the Osprey hit the ground, he had been slammed against the bulkhead. A helmet saved him from instant death, but the tethered marine had bounced off the walls, pulverising his internal organs. His injuries were too numerous to count; his lungs were near obliterated, his neck broken, and every rib fractured. Surgeons had only minutes to remove his left lung before its uncontrolled bleeding would kill him. They hoped a ventilator could support his right lung. His heart stopped for a second time, though medics brought him back again. A laparotomy followed to take out his battered spleen and litres of pooled blood. Twenty-six litres of blood were transfused – enough to replace the blood of five adults. Reyes’ liver was packed with gauze, while serious pelvic injuries were sidelined and he was moved to intensive care. More than 8600 kilometres away, in Hawaii, it was nearing midnight and Reyes’ wife, Jasmine Policarpio, couldn’t come to terms with what she’d just seen. Vague reports of a crash were filtering through military families. She was monitoring the news for details when images of a marine being unloaded from a helicopter appeared. “It was a shirtless male, and they had a bunch of machines on him to keep him alive. I saw his tattoos, and I said, ‘That is Travis’ tattoos’,” Policarpio said. The US military notified her of the crash at 2am Hawaii time. Several hours later, a Darwin nurse FaceTimed her so she could see her husband. “They had told me that he had 48 to 72 hours to live. But I remember being very optimistic and just trying to get to him,” Policarpio said. Over the