ROBBO’S RESCUE REPEAT
EXCLUSIVE: LAST YEAR, HE SAVED A GIRL FROM DROWNING. LAST WEEK, HE FOUND A MISSING WAR PILOT
LIGHTNING has struck twice for Luke Robinson who, a year after almost drowning while saving a young girl at Fingal, has found himself entwined in another tragedy.
A week ago, 72-year-old Ian Sinnott’s distinctive green plane vanished over northern NSW, and his family launched a search that would last four desperate days.
It was Mr Robinson, a 22year-old painter, who was able to end their heartbreaking uncertainty, finding the body of the Vietnam War veteran in thick scrub.
“The plane only crashed about 10km from our place,” he said.
“I didn’t hear it at the time. I think I was playing PlayStation (but) when I heard what happened I knew they wouldn’t find the wreckage without people on horseback.
“I’ve only been riding for about two years. I got into it because my partner has always had horses but I know the area quite well, it’s really thick bushland so I took our horse Hooter.”
Police said that if it weren’t for Mr Robinson, from Limpinwood near Murwillumbah, they may have never found the crash site.
“It’s hard to explain what it’s like being the first person there. It’s pretty tragic,” Mr Robinson said.
“It was really just a pile of tin wrapped around a tree with parts here and there.”
A little over a year earlier, Mr Robinson sprinted into the waves at Fingal to save sevenyear-old Rihanna Milabo from a deadly rip.
At the time, there was one thought powering him through: “My missus had a baby on the way. I knew I
needed to get through it and meet my son,” he said.
While Mr Robinson was swept around the treacherous headland and had to be resuscitated on the beach by paramedics, fellow rescuer Ryan Martin wasn’t so lucky.
“I think about Fingal every day. It’s really hard looking back at that moment,” he said.
“I went back to the beach a couple of weeks later. The lifeguard who resuscitated me took me out for a surf.
“It was a bit scary but you can’t let it stop you from going back to the beach.
“I respect our emergency service guys big time after all this. God knows where we’d be without them.”
Mr Robinson, now a proud dad to nine-month-old Tristan, doesn’t pay much attention to the notion that these things happen in threes.
“My older brother joked about buying me a cape (but) I don’t think I’m a hero or anything, I just gave the guys a hand,” he said. “I definitely think I’ve had really good luck. I survived that day at Fingal (and) I hopefully gave the family (of Ian Sinnott) some closure.
“I’m hoping that nothing that bad ever happens again, but if it does I’ll be ready.”