A day of Australia Day celebrations turned into a dramatic rescue mission for an 11-year-old girl from Rathdowney, who suffered a severe leg break on a massive 120-metre slip-and-slide at Christmas Creek in the Scenic Rim.
Felicity Kennedy had been enjoying the public holiday with her family and friends, spending hours racing down the giant inflatable waterslide without any problems. The incident occurred when she went down the slide with five other people. At the bottom of the slide, her leg became trapped, resulting in a catastrophic injury.
Her femur, the longest and strongest bone in the human body, snapped completely in half.
A Terrifying Injury and Urgent Call for Help
"When I was getting out of the water, I tried to walk and I couldn't," Felicity recalled. "A friend carried me out and then we saw my leg. It was bent like a banana."
The situation quickly escalated. A friend dialled triple-0, and while an ambulance was dispatched, Felicity's condition began to deteriorate rapidly. Firefighters provided initial first aid, but her mother, Katie Kennedy, described her daughter slipping in and out of consciousness.
In a second, urgent call to emergency services, her mother can be heard saying, "She is in and out of consciousness every five to 10 minutes. She's really starting to drain and going really, really cold. They're having trouble waking her up!"
The family faced a daunting 90-minute road journey to the Queensland Children's Hospital in Brisbane, making the need for a faster alternative critical.
LifeFlight to the Rescue
The LifeFlight rescue helicopter was tasked to the scene, landing in a nearby paddock. The specialist crew immediately treated Felicity, administering pain relief before carefully loading her for the flight to Brisbane.
"Her pain was unbelievable," Katie said. "She was drifting in and out of consciousness. It means everything to have a service like LifeFlight available. It would have been a very uncomfortable, bumpy ride without the trip in the chopper."
LifeFlight pilot Tyson Pearce, with nearly a decade of service, noted that the giant waterslide was easy to spot from the air. "As soon as we saw the area, we were so impressed with how big the waterslide was," he said. "As we were flying off, I couldn't help but take a few photos because it was so awesome."
A Cautionary Tale and a Road to Recovery
Pilot Pearce used the incident to highlight how quickly summer fun can turn serious. "LifeFlight responds to a 21 per cent increase in primary missions during the Christmas break," he explained. "From November to January, people are out camping, swimming and enjoying themselves — and sometimes things go wrong."
Following the airlift, Felicity underwent surgery where her broken femur was stabilised with a steel rod. She is scheduled for another procedure later this month to have the rod removed and is eagerly anticipating a return to her passion: horse-riding competitions.
The Kennedy family has since reunited with the LifeFlight crew, expressing their immense gratitude for the service that provided critical care during their emergency.
