Stories of survival are emerging from far north Queensland as floodwaters begin to recede. Helicopter pilot 'Magoo' helped airlift residents trapped by floodwaters.
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00:00 I did a lift off a roof at Melsonby Station for two rangers, two indigenous rangers.
00:07 But the local Laura Copper, he rang me and yeah, then I went to, I was going to lift
00:16 two more out of Kings Plains and Cooktown Police rang me and said there was a potential
00:24 drowning and I had to come here and pick up a policeman.
00:27 I had to fly over the top of it so I wasn't going to come here and then go back.
00:31 So when I seen them all there I just put them on high ground.
00:35 So you didn't actually get a call over the radio about this, you just saw them with your
00:39 own eyes out of the chopper when you were going on another job?
00:41 Yeah, I was going to Cooktown to pick up a policeman.
00:45 And what did you think when you saw what was happening there?
00:47 I'd never seen anything like it.
00:50 Describe it for us.
00:51 Well it's a bit hard.
00:52 Have you been to the lines then yet?
00:56 Yeah I have, I was there about 35 years ago.
00:59 Oh mate, you haven't been there.
01:00 There's tractors arse over head.
01:02 Mate, Dong was all the accommodations washed up against the pub.
01:06 It's like the cold rooms out of the lines down in trees.
01:11 And so describe for us what it was like coming in on that first run to actually pick someone
01:16 up.
01:17 Oh I landed, they were all on another roof so I landed and talked to one fella, old
01:22 Pickles, and he organised everybody to go from that roof to that roof.
01:28 And how were you actually getting them off the roof?
01:30 Just land on the roof, whole power, because you don't know the conditions of the roof.
01:35 So you hover there, they get in, take them to high ground.
01:39 And that was one at a time?
01:40 One at a time.
01:43 And what was the waters like around the pub at that stage?
01:47 Oh probably, mate, yeah, four foot from going over the roof.
01:55 And they were pretty happy to see you?
01:57 Very.
01:58 And so how long did that whole process take?
02:02 Oh I reckon two and a half hours.
02:06 And in pretty dangerous conditions?
02:08 Very.
02:09 And it wasn't that bad, but like the 22s, they're a small machine, they've got aluminium
02:15 tailrater blades, they don't like heavy rain.
02:18 But yeah, it did it.
02:20 [BLANK_AUDIO]