Zack
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Zack has an acquired brain injury and is largely non-verbal. He needs physical and first aid support for seizures.
As a young adult living in rural Australia, Zack volunteered with his family at the local fire service. His parents told the Royal Commission this was a positive experience. He attended trainings with his siblings and loved helping to wash the firetrucks after call-outs. Zack enjoyed being in nature and, through his involvement with the fire service, had ‘a healthy respect and knowledge of the danger of fires … [but] was not adversely afraid’.
However this all changed one very hot dry Christmas, more than a decade ago.
As the fire risk in their area intensified, Zack’s parents asked the fire service to warn them if they planned to do any back-burning. They explained the importance of this for Zack and others in the neighbourhood with disability. They would need to make plans to evacuate and minimise anxiety.
As the threat of bushfires increased, Zack’s family and neighbours began a ‘massive property preparation regime’. Zack enjoyed being involved in this, helping with pruning and disposing of litter.
But one morning, the family woke to the terrifying sight of the next hillside ablaze – ‘a huge blanket of smoke and leaping flames’ not 500 metres from their house.
Believing these were spot fires from the main fire front, the family evacuated.
Zack thought his family would perish. During the evacuation he was in a ‘constant very aggressive uncontrollable behavioural state calming only during tonic clonic seizures’.
It was only as the family drove out of the area they heard on the radio that the fire they were fleeing was actually controlled back-burning. The warning the family asked for had never come.
The family continued with their evacuation.
‘The scene of such an inferno was terrifying to us so it was multiple for [Zack].’
Initially they went to a relative’s house, but Zack was in such a state that the confined space was not safe for him. They took him instead to a caravan park where there were at least playgrounds and nature walks to divert him.
The family then took Zack to a respite facility, but there was evidence of the fires all around. They tried to find counselling for him, someone to help reassure him they were safe, but there was none available.
In the aftermath of the fires the family attended community briefings and programs for bushfire recovery.
‘Experts from various fields offered advice and counselling … but not one thing was available to help [Zack] overcome his trauma.’
Even through his family’s extensive contacts in the disability sector, there was ‘nothing to meet [Zack’s] disability in the realms of counselling’.
Zack never went back to fire training or wanted to clean fire trucks. For years to come he would go outside every night to make sure there were no fires. And every Christmas he relives the trauma of that bushfire season.
Zack’s parents believe the failure of the fire service to ‘pre-warn vulnerable people’ about back-burning amounted to neglect.
They also believe it is the responsibility of governments to ensure sufficient and appropriate support is in place for people with disabilities during and after bushfires. This includes quite areas for people with disability to go if they need to evacuate.
‘The state [Zack] was in with his aggressive behaviour he would have been not only unsafe to himself but to others for he would have “attacked” anyone and anything out of fear and stress if he was placed in a normal evacuation site.’
They would also like emergency services personnel to receive training to counsel people with disability who have been traumatised by fires.
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.