ROOFTOP RESCUER

Garlic farmer Mark O’toole is best known for his family’s heartwrenching helicopter rescue, which was broadcast live on Today and showed his rescuer fall through the roof and into the flood waters.

“I rescued my rescuer,” Mark, 54, laughs.

The single dad almost lost everything in the floods, including his beloved dog DJ, who was later found. But incredibly, Mark only rested for one day after the rooftop rescue before he pulled on his gumboots and jumped into a tinny to help others who were stranded.

“We were in the boat for five weeks rescuing people, taking generators and fuel out to people as they had no power, doing food runs for people and emergency medical trips,” he says.

“It helped keep my mind off what had happened to us. We watched everything in our life just float away.”

Mark’s family has only just secured safe housing through BDC’S “pop-up homes”, after couch surfing at his friends’ homes for months. “We as a community rescued ourselves, and now we as a community are rebuilding ourselves.”