It was the biggest-ever peacetime emergency evacuation of Australians from overseas and the largest air evacuation since the Vietnam War, with more than 100 patients – most with horrendous burns, terrible injuries and many fighting for their very lives – airlifted to safety.
But what made the biggest impression on Professor Fiona Wood that day was something much more intimate. “The thing that overwhelmed me, when I saw the patients, was the look of relief on their faces,” she says quietly.
