Difficult Rescue of Explorer: Broken Leg in Gammon Ranges
Published in The Adelaide Chronicle, Thursday 8th August 1946, page 28
COPLEY.—After a 12-hour struggle, a rescue party bearing Mr. R. L. Crocker, the Waite Institute soil ecologist, who was injured in a fall in the Gammon Ranges two days previously, emerged into open country just after 8 o’clock on Friday.
Mr. Crocker’s left leg is believed to be broken above the ankle and, after resting at Yankaninna station, he will probably be brought to the Australian Inland Mission hostel at Leigh Creek.
A rescue party, headed by Mr. Warren Bonython, leader of the expedition which had attempted to reach the heart of the Gammons, and Mr. W. H. Thomas, of Balcanoona Station, reached the injured man after a four-hour climb.
Both he and Mr. P. Steadman, the third member of the expedition who was with him, were comfortable and cheerful, though Mr Crocker was suffering considerable pain.
They still had a six days’ supply of food and water and sufficient blankets.
After splinting Mr. Crocker’s leg with bark strips the rescuer’s placed him on a stretcher and set off for Yadnina, a Balcanoona out-station north of the range and 3,200 feet below their starting point, near the main peak.
Mr. Thomas and Mr. W. A. Wilson, of Wertaloona station, went on ahead and from the hut where Mr. Bonython had first appealed for help, Mr. Thomas telephoned his wife with the news that Mr. Crocker had been found.
Two miles were covered in the first seven hours of a laborious climb down to Main Water Pound, a narrow gorge leading into the open country north of the range.
In the pound Mr. Crocker was transferred to horseback and the party made swifter progress to reach motor vehicles at the mouth of the gorge five hours later.
At Yankaninna homestead, 12 miles west of the northern fringe of the Gammons, Mr. Crocker was given first aid by Mrs. A. K. Lillecrapp, a trained nurse, who had been standing by at Yadnina since word was brought back just after midday that Mr. Crocker had been found and a route out selected.
At Yankaninna, after a hot meal and a bath Mr. Bonython said that the party was moving on the main divide of the range when Mr. Crocker, who was carrying a heavy load, slipped and fell on a ledge of rock.
Altogether more than 20 men from six stations round the range took part in the search. One party, headed by Mr. G. A. Greenwood, of Mount Searle Station, struggled through dense undergrowth on the eastern side of the range for five hours on Friday night.
Mr. A. K. Lillecrapp organised another party which struck in from Yankaninna on horseback to within 100 yards of the injured man.
The Balcanoona party followed the original track of the explorers and negotiated a 200-foot high broken rock face.
Though the explorers failed in their original intention, the search resulted in more of the Gammons being known by more people than ever before.
Mr. Bonython and his companions arrived at the eastern fringe of the Gammons on Saturday. They spent the first few days preparing food dumps for a three-day trip round the top of the range. The accident occurred at noon on the first day of the traverse of the main ridge.
