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A fiery air crash in the Top End – and a miracle by Aussie doctors who saved a US marine
00:22:53
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- [00:04]
Samantha Salinger Morris
Travis Reyes, a 21 year old American Marine, remembers feeling smug as he sat with his feet dangling at the door of a military aircraft soaring high above a gulf in the Northern Territory. Yes, dozens of military personnel had died in one of these hybrid airplane helicopters over the years, but the takeoff from Darwin was smooth. Hello, I'm Samantha Salinger Morris and you're listening to the morning edition from the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, senior reporter Grant McArthur on the 23 Marines who crashed in the bush shocking the globe and the world. First medical experiments by quick thinking Australian doctors aimed at helping Travis Reyes survive against all odds.
- [00:51]
Interviewer 1
Welcome Grant, to the podcast.
- [00:53]
Grant McArthur
Good morning Grant.
- [00:54]
Interviewer 1
Can you just start by taking us back to 2023 when this incident occurred in the Northern Territory. What was Travis Reyes, an American Marine, doing in the top end of Australia in the first place? And at what point did he realize that things were not quite right in the aircraft that he was traveling in?
- [01:12]
Grant McArthur
Yeah, I mean it was way back in, in August 2023. And look, this made huge headlines all around the world when it happened because there was an Osprey crash, three US defense personnel killed. So there was that huge story at the time but there was such a big story going on in, well, hospitals across the, across half the world I guess that went on for the next year or two. And, and this is the story of that. It centered around a young Marine called Travis Reyes. And he was one of the flight crew on an Osprey taking part in war games known as Predator Run. And it was the first day and they were flying an Osprey which is of a half helicopter, half plane, quite notorious for falling out of the sky I guess. And unfortunately for Travis and, and his crew quite seriously, theirs did crash. It crashed on Melville island in an extremely remote place, burst into flames. Three crew members died. There was another 20 odd Marines on board. They were transporting and they were in the middle of the jungle. Travis survived but absolutely critically hurt. Unbelievable injuries that nobody real.
- [02:23]
Travis Reyes
We flew over the water closer towards the Tiwi Islands and then felt the aircraft bank a little more aggressive than normal. Then we heard a bunch of deedles. I grabbed onto the left hydraulic actuator for the ramp and then we hit the ground and that's most that I remember.
- [02:42]
Grant McArthur
Fortunately for him there was an Australian Defence Force rescue crew on Melville island that were quite close so they got dispatched and showed up at the scene.
- [02:52]
Search and Rescue Operator
We are just declaring an emergency of Melville Island. Roger. Search and rescue is on the way. Ducks. 833 Search and Rescue is requesting. If there's fire. There is a significant fire.
- [03:06]
Grant McArthur
Couldn't even land, the jungle was so thick. But a doctor who just happens to be from the Alfred Hospital, who was kind of up there by accident, he winched down to the scene and was stunned because the Marines had dragged this guy out of the burning wreck and he started trying to save his life basically from above.
- [03:24]
Dr. David McCreary
First thing we saw was some smoke and that a smoldering wreck as we flew over the top of it. I just remember looking at it and thinking, there's no way anyone could have survived that.
- [03:35]
Grant McArthur
And that's where a pretty amazing story starts.
- [03:40]
Interviewer 1
Okay, well, I want you to take us to this scene because he has to get winched down to the island, Right. This is Dr. David McCreary, who, like you say, he wasn't even meant to be there. I believe he's normally in Melbourne. He gets winched down to the side. He is stunned by what he sees. So tell us about the scene that he sees and just how dire Travis's condition in particular was, how close he was to death, really, when he first saw him.
- [04:05]
Grant McArthur
Well, close to death. At one point, he actually kind of did die. So he's been dragged out of the wreck. He's conscious, he knows his name and he's talking. And from outside appearances, he looks okay. He's covered, absolutely covered in this red dust, which comes into play later on. David McCreary's been around the blocks a lot, and he knows what he's doing, as all good doctors do, but he was terrified. He could tell that the kind of way Travis was going, there was a lot going on inside.
- [04:31]
Dr. David McCreary
He had a belly full of blood. He had a severe chest injury. His oxygen levels were almost unrecordable. His blood pressure was almost unrecordable. I knew that he had a pulse and that he was conscious, and those were the only things that were positive at the time.
- [04:50]
Grant McArthur
He needed an operation very quickly or he was going to die. But there was no way of operating on him because they were in the middle of the jungle. It got to the point where he was 100% going to die if he didn't get an operation. But if Macquarie had started operating, he's probably going to die anyway because there was no blood to backfill or anything at that point. He had no choice because Travis was dying. All of a sudden, this blood appears. And there'd been a chopper that the US military had contracted had just got overhead and it winched down 8 liters of blood. So McCreary and a flight paramedic who were there as well. They basically then cut Travis open. Massive amounts of blood, massive amounts of air came gushing out of him and his heart restarted because at that point his heart had actually stopped and he was gone. As soon as he operated, it brought him back to life and from there it was a matter of stabilizing him and getting him out of the jungle. So they put him in a com. From there, he got eventually taken to Darwin Hospital and the next chapter of his story began.
- [05:52]
Interviewer 1
Okay, well, that's it, because every chapter is more astonishing than the next because at this point it's a race against the clock, right? He gets airlifted to Darwin Hospital and this is where I believe doctors really finally understand what's happened. They figure, okay, once his vehicle, this ospreys hit the ground, he'd slammed against the bulkhead, bounced off the walls, which essentially pulverized his internal organs. But then he's transferred to the Alford Hospital in Melbourne where doctors declare him to be the sickest patient in the state and they decide to give him a last ditch treatment. But this is hugely risky. Patients often don't survive us. So tell us about this treatment and what happened.
- [06:30]
Grant McArthur
Well, there was a few different treatments. One is they've had to remove a lot of his organs. He was flown down to Melbourne in a coma. When he lands in Melbourne, they find he has even more injuries. He's got gangrene. It looks like he might lose his limbs because there's not enough blood supply to them. He keeps getting sicker and sicker. When they go back inside where his lung's been removed, massive bleeding, massive infection, he's got sepsis and that infection's going to kill him. No matter what they do, they can't get over this infection. Eventually they go back and essentially cut a window into his chest to act as a permanent drain, permanent wash. Just continuously doing that. And that kind of, that kind of saves his life again and settles him down for a while. Mind you, that took I think seven or eight surgeries over 10 days to save him. Doctors probably for the first time started breathing a sigh of relief because they finally had an answer to this infection in his chest that was killing him. And he was just coming out of that. And then people had noticed this pimple, this scratch on his cheek since the crash. But in amongst organs shutting down, broken bones left, right and center, there hadn't been a lot of attention given to this scratch on his cheek. His wife and a few others started questioning, well, what's this about? It looks like it's changing. And so they did a biopsy to see if there was anything underneath it. And when they cut under the skin, I think, well, they not only took a breath, they were in shock at what they found. And the tables were turned again.
- [07:56]
Interviewer 1
Well, that's it. This is such a pivotal moment. So tell us, what did they find?
- [08:01]
Grant McArthur
Basically, under the skin in Travis's face, there was a sea of black fungus growing under the skin. Not only is it not a great thing to think about, it's also deadly. In that red soil that he'd crashed into on Melville island, one of the only places on the world there's a couple of very, very rare funguses. And in the surgery that it took to save his life, some of those fungus spores in the dirt must have got inside him. And so the surgery that had saved him in the immediate term was now killing him much more slowly. The fungus had taken hold. It was growing under his face and. And it was growing gradually and gradually and gradually taking over all the tissues under his face. And when it takes them over, basically kills him. And so bits of his face were dying one bit at a time, and that would spread through his body. And the more it spread, the more his life was in danger. So it gets into the bones, it gets into the blood, and that's how it kills. And it's a very rare. It's a very rare infection to get, but it kills in at least half of those cases when it does. And so they basically had no choice. They couldn't wait for medication. They had to start. It's a process called debriding. Basically means cutting away his face. So one piece at a time, they're cutting away his face, trying to get rid of this fungus over and over and over. And speaking to the doctors doing this, they're plastic surgeons who have had to do some pretty amazing and pretty horrific things to save people's lives. They've never had to cut someone's face away like this. And it was heartbreaking for them seeing. Seeing what he was going through, seeing what his family's going through, and knowing that the end of the day, it's probably not going to be enough. They'd got to the point in consultation with Travis's family where they basically had to put their hand up and say, there is nothing more we can do for him. There's probably more than 100 medical. Way more than 100 medical and other people at the Alfred who were fighting to save Travis's life at this point. And you know, there was a lot of broken hearts there at that point.
- [10:14]
Samantha Salinger Morris
After the break.
- [10:16]
Grant McArthur
And the Alfred started getting lots of calls from the prime minister's office in Australia and through right up to the secretary of defense in the U.S.
- [10:38]
Interviewer 1
Not only are there all these medical specialists who are fighting to save his life and I believe his wife Jasmine, I think they'd only been married about seven months at this point and she's having to make life and death decisions on his behalf because of course he's still, as I understand it, in a coma. But there's also tensions growing, isn't there, over this surgery on his face between the American and the Australian military. So tell us about that.
- [11:01]
Grant McArthur
Yeah, that's correct. Became apparent very quickly, as you'd understand. It's. It's one of their troops, one of their servicemen, and they've had three others die in this crash. The U. S. Military was extremely invested and the Alfred started getting lots of calls from the prime minister's office in Australia and through right up to the secretary of defence in the US Were taking an interest in this. They were having to have an hour hookup every day between all the Australian medics as well as all the defence force medics in the US Comparing notes, working through what they wanted. It became a very difficult situation because the US military doctors were desperately wanting to save Travis as everybody was, and they wanted to continue debriding. Their advice was to continue to debride, just keep cutting away pieces, get Travis, whatever happens, just keep Travis alive. But the Australian doctors, they're living at the cold face. They're seeing the impact it's having on him, worried. But even if he does survive, what's going to be left when he wakes up? They don't know if he's got brain injuries, but if they keep cutting away his, his quality of life, he's not going to have a face, he's not going to have lots of parts of his body. And they chat to his family and the family agrees that if they go much further, he probably wouldn't want to wake up. And that's where they got to. But the decision was made that no. Led by the Aussie medics and most in particular Travis's family. No, this is where we have to stop. And if he passes away, unfortunately, it's just gonna. That heartbreak's gonna intensify.
- [12:31]
Interviewer 1
Okay, so we're at this really tense point. It could be a breaking point, life and death. But then finally, Travis appears to have a bit of luck, as it were, in the facility that he's in. This is of course, the Alfred Hospital, still in Melbourne, and it' only hospital in the world trialing a treatment for patients on life support. So tell us about this. Because it too came with extreme risks. It's hard to believe something in this story that doesn't, because I believe patients overseas who used this treatment had burst into fatal flames.
- [13:00]
Grant McArthur
Yeah. So one of the ways to beat some infections is to put people in a hyperbaric chamber that basically simulates being on the bottom of the ocean. Massively high doses of oxygen. And the science isn't even that settled on why it works, but it can overcome infections because this massive amounts of oxygen supercharges immune system and can beat infections. And the Alfred has a hyperbaric chamber. And if someone's not in a coma, if they're not on life support, it's a good option for them. Unfortunately, the massively high atmosphere inside a hyperbaric chamber, any little spark, any little rustle inside that can create electricity and it becomes a bomb. And without being graphic about it, because this actually has happened around the world. Even wearing the wrong clothing, if you don't wear 100% cotton clothing, your leg rubs together, say it creates a static spark and that whole thing just bursts into flames. So if you can't wear the right pants in there, imagine what it's like trying to put in a ventilator and a life support machine with lots of moving parts. It's not going to work out well. Secondly, the pressure means that pipes get compressed and you can't even pass gases or blood through them. Which is pretty vital with a ventilator. The Alfred, for two years, nothing to do with Travis, but they'd actually been trying to overcome this problem. And they'd been doing research to see if one day they might be able to use a life support machine inside the chamber. They'd actually just started running trials, passing, like saline solution through pipes, and found that the pipes were open enough that they thought they could sustain a life.
- [14:38]
Travis Reyes
And.
- [14:39]
Grant McArthur
And that week when they decided they couldn't operate on Travis any further, the hyperbaric unit was actually in the process of making an ethics application to see if they could start trialling human blood in the machine. Now, amazing coincidence going on that they now hear that Travis might need this treatment. They're at least 18 months away from trialing this on a person, but they say, hang on, he's going to die without this, no matter what. We've got to give it a chance. And so one of the hyperbaric Doctors, contacts her colleagues and actually said, look, I know this is crazy idea, should we consider this for Travis? And within a couple of minutes, the whole unit's gathered, going, yep, let's see what we can do. They spent 32 hours with dozens, if not hundreds of staff, all writing ethics applications, reviewing research, doing everything. And after 32 hours, they'd got ethics approvals, clinical approvals, they'd done massive amounts of research and went, yep, we can try this.
- [15:43]
Interviewer 1
And what happened?
- [15:45]
Grant McArthur
Well, firstly, everyone breathed a sigh of relief because they started up the, the ventilator in the hyperbaric unit and there were no flames, there was no problem. And then they held their breath and literally held their breath. There's quite a few stuff have to go in the chamber with him and they are, you know, wearing oxygen masks and everything so that they can breathe in that atmosphere. Travis had four days where he's having 95 minute sessions in there. After four days, they took him back into the theatre and they had a look and they were stunned. The fungus was disappearing, it was working. He was alive, he was still in a coma, but the fungus was retreating.
- [16:25]
Interviewer 1
It's just incredible. And then finally, finally it's time to take him back to the United States and a window opens up for an airlift to the U.S. and honestly, Grant, you couldn't write this. This life saving machine that he's now connected to in the plane shuts down. So as if it couldn't get any worse. It's honestly unbelievable. So how did he survive that? How panicked were the medical personnel tasked with keeping him alive at this point?
- [16:51]
Grant McArthur
Yeah, so the us, they had this window where he was well enough, he was still in a coma. They want to get him back to the U.S. so the U.S. military sent massive military aircraft. One of the biggest aircraft in the world kitted out like an intensive care unit. He was wheeled on board. He's still in a coma. I think there was a team of 38, that's all the US military doctors, and they're flying him back to the States, to Texas. They stop over in Hawaii to refuel. As they're landing the plane in Hawaii, the machine stops. The ventilator that's keeping him alive, heart, lung bypass, it shuts down as they're landing. And in the air, a couple of the experienced US specialists get strapped in over the top of him and they basically have to keep him alive manually while the plane's landing. And then while they're on the tarmac, the machines changed over and they take off again and fly. So no patient as sick as Travis has ever flown that far. No one's ever been flown across the world on ECMO in a coma. So that was a first. Then there's another first, having to keep him alive and change a machine while you're landing a plane. There's more firsts in this story, I think, than anyone can even count.
- [17:59]
Interviewer 1
And then fast forward. It's seven weeks after the crash, and Travis is beginning to wake up. It's a long process, even the waking up period. So eventually, when he's able to sort of regain his memories or be in a state where he can speak about it, how does he explain what it was like to wake up from this horrendous experience? And what memories did he have of it all?
- [18:20]
Grant McArthur
He has absolutely horrific memories. And for him, he couldn't even express those because even when he woke up and had memories, he had tubes down his throat so he couldn't even talk. So he woke up in Texas. He doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know what's happened to him. He can eventually remember the Osprey crashing and from that moment on, his brain kind of ran a narrative to make sense of what was going on around him. But for him, it was horrific. His sedation did loosen up. At one point during one of his surgeries, he quickly went back to sleep. And then he woke up again in Texas and he surrounded by people. And even worse from there, it took another several weeks, probably a month before he had any awareness that he'd actually lost half of his face. He wasn't allowed to see a mirror. It was basically gradually bringing him along and letting him know a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And so he had to come up, not only learn that he was missing half his face, but that three of his colleagues had died. From there, it. It was a matter of rehabilitation. It took him a year before he could walk properly again. But he's a pretty amazing bloke and he's. He's not only walking now, he's running and he's competing in games and, and doing some amazing things.
- [19:31]
Interviewer 1
That's incredible. I believe he's earned the nickname the One Lung Warrior. But tell us, I guess, I mean, what did he think when he first saw his face? Do you know?
- [19:41]
Grant McArthur
It's hard. He has good days and bad days. Some days he makes jokes about it. It's quite funny. He had a hookup and spoke to all the team that saved him and he was, he was thanking them for Removing his face, saying it's much easier to live his life now because he doesn't have so many girls chasing him.
- [19:56]
Travis Reyes
I'm just. I'm so grateful for everybody. And, you know, even though you guys took out my face, it's okay because it's still hard to, you know, walk outside without having to beat people off me because I'm so good looking. I really appreciate it, who you are.
- [20:20]
Grant McArthur
But there's other days where it's really hard for him. He. He wants to get on an airplane, but he doesn't want to be seen in public because too many people see and. And so on. So. So he's coming to terms with it. There. There's a lot of emotional scarring as well as the physical scarring that he's dealing with. He says that in the last two months, things have become much, much better. I think he's. He's really starting to recover and take things in his stride.
- [20:45]
Interviewer 1
And Grant, just to wrap up, I would love to know what part of this story has really stuck with you. You know, is it that everything can go both so wrong, but then also, against all odds, go so right? Or is it sort of the tenacity of the human spirit of Travis and the Australian doctors who healed him? Like, what is it for you?
- [21:03]
Grant McArthur
Just the enormity of it. I'm dumbfounded that so many things can just fall into place. There's probably 30 or 40 things that just happened to fall into place that. That resulted in Travis still being here, to the fact that there was a text message when the Osprey went down that alerted David McCreary's team that there was an Osprey crash probably 10 minutes before they actually got the call, which meant they were in the air 10 minutes earlier than they should have been. Otherwise, if that hadn't happened, he would have died. If the blood hadn't been winched down to them at the exact moment he would have died. If he hadn't landed at the one hospital going around that not only has ECMO but also has a hyperbaric chamber, he would have died. It's impossible to think how many sliding door moments there are here. And I've been working on this story for months. And every day I probably think of a different sliding door moment. Each one of them on their own. Is amazing when you put them all together. It's almost that if Travis wasn't here and all the medics weren't here, no one would believe you, that so many things could have aligned
- [22:11]
Samantha Salinger Morris
absolutely. Well, we're so lucky that you have
- [22:13]
Interviewer 1
looked into this, and we're so lucky that Travis was happy to tell his story.
- [22:17]
Samantha Salinger Morris
So thank you so much, Grant, for your time.
- [22:20]
Grant McArthur
Thank you.
- [22:31]
Samantha Salinger Morris
Today's episode was produced by Josh Towers. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. And our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.