Cop recalls day ‘world exploded’
THERE’S a ringing in Trevor Crawford’s ears.
He hasn’t been able to get rid of it for 30 years – not since his car was engulfed by a giant fireball.
He can still hear the “whoosh”, see a wall of orange that rushed towards him, feel the heat as it seared the hairs on his arms.
The former police officer had just gone to the corner of Spence and Bunda streets with colleague Paul Priest to help evacuate the area as a ruptured gas tanker threatened to explode at the Bunda St Gas Corporation depot.
Despite their warnings a lone man stood outside the Cape York Hotel gathering tools and seemed unconcerned about what was unfolding around him. They knew they couldn’t leave him.
They drove their police car closer to him. Mr Priest stepped out and begged him to get inside their car. Then hell erupted. Mr Crawford reached over and pulled his partner inside the car as the world around them ignited.
“All I saw was a ball of orange that surrounded the police vehicle and the intense heat,” he said. “We were screaming. “I remember getting burnt.” Mr Priest said that it was like “getting hit by a bomb”.
“The car shook violently. I slammed the door shut but flames still blistered the inside of the door,” he said.
“The sound of the explosion was horrendous and the car was completely engulfed in flames. I was expecting the car to explode.
“I looked at Trev and he seemed out of it. I thought he was unconscious. Then he suddenly came to and looked at me. I remember saying ‘we’re f-----g dead Trev’.”
Mr Crawford slammed the car into reverse. They both assumed the man they had been trying to help had been incin- erated. Then out of the subsiding flames walked a figure.
“I said something to him – I can’t remember what – and I remember he just said “look at me” and he touched his left upper arm with his right hand and some flesh peeled away,” Mr Priest said.
“We laid him down on the back seat of our car. He was in a very bad way.”
The pair drove him straight to the hospital. They never found out who he was or what became of him.
It was then back to work, via the pub for a stiff drink. That was a “debrief” in those days.