Mr. Popularity, Scotty Douglas, is back - regaling us with stories of his travels, trials tribulations and triumphs. Enjoy.
Scottie Douglas, mega starman about town, paramedic, educator, inspirer of the masses, quickly risen to the top of the typ popularity fucking chart, so happy with himself. Get to him in a moment. We'll get to him in a moment, Tiff Cookai.
He's so good.
I muscled in on this conversation.
Yes, he is.
And you two had a little bit of a romance before we went live can flattering each other. I just did a little bit of spew in my own mouth.
But anyway, Wow, good paramedic.
Oh don't we it's I mean, yeah, I want to borrow his outfit so I can go and get you know, public adoration and free coffee, free coffee.
You get plenty of that free coffee he got pretty much. That's it's the discount suit. I heard someone caught one.
Day, Hey mate, what's your heart rate?
I was going to tell you sixty six?
Sixty six? Yes, did you hear what his heart rate was the other day?
Tip?
Yeah, yeah, one hundred and twelve, and then and then like and then a few minutes later it was like one twenty something. That's just excitement, it is, mate, It is did do people in all seriousness, did people have a listen to the chat and did they like it? From your side of things, Scotty, Yes, it was.
I'll be honest, it's kind of amazing, and then it's a little bit embarrassing and then you don't know how to say thank you, Like you don't know what to say. It's a little bit like that when people read my book or when you do nice things for people, Like it's one of the biggest things I had to learn when I was sick is how to say, how to accept thanks and how to give thanks.
Yeah, yeah, I wonder what that What do you reckon that's about?
Either of you?
Like, why are we so when someone says do you think that's a union? An equally Australian thing when people go, oh, you're ace and then we tend to go, no, I'm not, I'm shit. What do you reckon that's about? Do you think that's a self estate?
I agree one hundred percent agree with there because yeah, because obviously so for me, I've had the privilege job being involved in situations where people that you say, oh you made my dad alive, thank you, right, and you brush it off and go yeah, that's just doing my job. Blah blah blah blah blah. But when I was sick and I wanted to say thank you to the people that, literally, like the surgeon that comes saw me after my first surgery, and the people that would were going out of their way to make me comfortable, I realized that I had been very bad at accepting thanks from people, because here I was trying to give people thanks, like legitimately and you know, you know, genuinely saying thank you so much, you literally are saving my life, and they're like, oh, I'm just doing my job, and I would sometimes you know, obviously nicely grab them and so no, no, no, no, please, I need to tell you that you're amazing. Like so I probably agree with him.
I think Australians maybe just go yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just doing my job.
But yeah, when you upon reflection, when you think about what some people's jobs contain down big.
Jobs, yeah yeah. When that little episode happened with the crab, I got a letter from I don't know who's the head of Ambulance Victoria or who was at the time.
I don't know because that has changed a couple of times.
But anyway, I got a letter.
If it was Tody Walker, he kicks ass. If it was Tody Walker, he kicks ass like he was a good boss.
Anyway, I've got it somewhere like this beautiful letter from like thanking me for what I did. I'm like think I didn't. I just fucking was waiting for you blokes to get there. But yeah, it's it's amazing. So well, I'm glad we got some really nice feedback. But so I wanted to keep the conversation going. And one of the things I said when I wrote the copy or when I wrote the overview of the show was a Saintually, sometimes I meet people that I really like and I like talking to and they're interesting, and they're not a household name and they're not famous and they're but they're just a good human doing good things and they're interesting and I want people to meet them. And so a lot of people met you. And if you haven't heard the first episode or the first installment with Scott, everybody, go and go and have a listen, because it was just fascinating and we spoke extensively about but we kind of got halfway through the overall potential chat, so I said let's do another one. But we spoke about your cancer journey a bit. We spoke about your lack of academic kind of prowess in the early days of being kind doing year one of your paramedics degree with butcher paper and crayon and progressing from there. But there's a lot of stuff we didn't cover, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about transitioning from being a dude who was known and respected and recognized as a really good chef and entrepreneur and owner of multiple cafes, and so you had a kind of a profile in a certain space. So give us a snapshot of what you had going on pre pre your journey into Ambos.
So I'd become a chef quite early in my life because my mother was a.
Pastry chef, So she used to take us to work.
And I'd be standing on a milk crate, potting peas or doing things like that. So for me, I felt incredibly comfortable in a kitchen and almost like I was at home.
So I was always felt very safe there.
And you always got a feed and some red cordial or red lemonade or whatever when they used to make it with Grenadine say that was always a bonus.
So when I did my.
Apprenticeship and I did really well, and then I started traveling overseas. I went to Paris, to Canada, to London, to America, and I was on a journeyman program where you would spend four or five months in each place and then go to the next place, and then you could go back to any one of those places. So I went back to Canada multiple times, and I predominantly worked in skifields as well. I absolutely loved working in skifields as a circus, you know, hospitalities of a circus. Skifield are a circus. And then once I sort of settled down, I went to Turkie and opened a place in Turkie, and we opened a place in Ocean in Anglesey, and we already and we had another place in Geelong. So we opened our place in Torquay really at the cusp of the town itself growing, and you know, and fortuitously Rip Curl decided to put their head office in Turkie. So there's this massive influx of younger, cooler people, and so they really liked what we were doing, especially in the first two years. So we did very very well, and I honestly believe that's probably where I would stay because we got to engage with so many amazing people and sort of every single thing we did while it was hard, was a success.
Like, you know, I had a bit of a cooking school.
We did lots of catering for lots of cool functions. We became involved in the Falls Festival, we became involved in bales, and yeah, it was It was a very nice time in my life. I was a bit younger, so had tons more energy and I thought, hey, this will do me for a while. So I sort of settled into that groove of making nice food and you know, dealing with the public. Yeah, but I was always at the back of my mind I would see an ambulance go past and.
Go, oh, I reckon, they be a cool job.
And what was the like was there a tipping point, Like was there something where you went, I'm sick of being in hospitality, of running cafes or was it just because you had that interaction with those guys and bumped into those guys Like.
I've never been sick of cooking. Always love it. I think it's a special gift to go and especially go to someone's house and make them dinner. I genuinely think that is a special thing. I love making something out of nothing, like I love making someone's day.
Like. I never hated it. I never resented it.
I actually thought I was very privileged to you know, every bells when you know, people like Mick Fanny and Kelly Slater would come in. They would come in and go, oh, Scotty man, that feed was so good, and then they'd go out and do well in the competition or something. I would be like, yeah, cool, you're a little part of that. So I never resented cooking, but it did take up. Like I worked seven days.
A week for four years.
You know, everyone is not everyone, but so many people are jealous of your success, but no one jealous of what it took to get there. But that was a grind, Yes, that was That was an exceptionally hard situation to run those businesses and to get up every single day and then try and get in the water and try and exercise and try and be a nice person. And in the middle of it, we had my daughter and I remember looking at her going I want something more for her, Like this is cool and fun, but it's for young people. Like I want I want her to look at me and be proud of what I'm doing. So that's that is I reckon one of the main motivations for me.
Then going to UNI.
Really really so you didn't think that she that she would look at her dad who owns multiple businesses and making good dough and is well known and respected, and you thought that wouldn't that wouldn't create the response or the the I don't know, the respect that you wanted.
For your kid. I don't know.
It's interesting because when I was in talking, I loved living in there. I love being part of the town. Were very immersed in the community. I was a member of both surf clubs to try and stay neutral with everybody. But I do remember looking at her. She's laying on the floor and I remember looking at her going, I don't know if she'll think I'm cool or I just wanted more for her. Yeah. Yeah, And I thought hospitality is a bit of a game, and you you play, it's yeah, it's a funny until you unless you're imersing.
It's a really funny thing.
Like I got to travel the world and I got to cook for some really famous and lovely beautiful people.
But it is a little bit of a like it.
Is almost like you're playing some days it's I don't I don't know, there'll be people listening to this guy.
I've got matesut of chefs and they're super serious. Yeah, when you're in the middle of it. I was very serious about it. But it's sort of silly, a little bit of fun. It is a bit of a circus, I reckon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I mean, uh, well, notoriously chefs are high maintenance and hard work. Is that's true or is that just right?
Well?
Part part of the problem is, Craig, you think about this, right, like, every single person that meets you tells you you're amazing. Oh that's amazing, Oh that food, And that goes on for years, and then you're in magazines and you're in epicure and people are writing stuff about you. Yeah right, like and you're twenty five, twenty six years old.
But do you have that happened did you have that happen to you about you?
Yeah?
Yeah, So then all of a sudden, you'd start believing that which is not true. So you then get there's such a fine line between arrogance and confidence, right, you know you know what I mean? Like when people come to you and say, can you do this? Can you do the catering at my daughter's wedding?
Sure?
And you sit down and you plan and you do the function and it is an exceptionally beautiful function, and everybody at that wedding tells you yeah, yes, And so then you go home and you may still carry a bit of that. And so when your partner or your wife or whatever says to you, oh, can you do this? You're like, dude, dude, you serious? Do you not know who I am? I just cooked Mick Fanning's lunch, So I think, yeah, you have to be very careful because you can get caught up in that.
Yeah, how do you how do you navigate that? How do you a high profile chef? Who didn't you cook at the Commonwealth Games?
I did?
I cooked the Comonalth Games. I've cooked for the Queen, which is amazing. You know, I've cooked for and you have to define what you think as a famous person. But I have certainly cooked for famous people, and I've cooked for some people who incredibly.
Gracious and in their thanks. So yeah, you see, as I got older, I was much much better at it.
But certainly, when I was in my mid to late twenties, I was probably quite arrogance, and I probably had a little bit of reputation for being that way. But then I was also surrounded by some of the best chefs in the world who were exactly.
The same and if not worse. You know, so you know, you mimic their behavior.
I want to be as good as that person, and that person is a little bit nasty to the weight stuff sometimes, so maybe that's the way you're supposed to behave And then you realize years later it's not. Yes, and you hopefully then you have that capacity to maybe visit those people and say sorry or just change your behavior.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is it hard when you are really good at something and respected for something and you've got a passionate about something to walk away from that something, because that would seem to be for many people, that would be somewhat addictive.
It is like cooking is like doing a good service and being in the flow of a good service, like Friday night doing twelve hundred meals at like Blue Train, and is like being a rock star, and like it's an open kitchen and people are literally trying to buy your drinks, girls are trying to chat you up, and you're running a kitchen staff of over twenty and you're putting out four or five meals every three or four minutes.
Yeah, and then to stop it? Does you then have to find somewhere else to put your energy?
I reckon, tell me about in the middle of all of that adoration and girls throwing themselves at you, twelve hundred people being a I never had that. I had three guys, being a culinary rock star and then being you know, a paramedic who gets you know, different but similar, you know, respect and adoration and let me buy you this, and let me buy you that, and thank you for your service and all of that stuff, which is all warranted. Tell me about ego. Tell me about ego in the middle of all of that. How do you not become an arrogant fuck with I.
Think it's because you're older, but also too, you're frightened.
I'll tell you something that probably maybe people wouldn't even understand. Right, So I remember the day I got my uniform, and I was very fortunate. I did it with two other people who are still somewhere still to this day, Like one of their friends who I went to UNI with. So we've got our uniforms. Yeah, incredibly emotional times. And I think it's a beautiful uniform. It's just beautiful, dark blue.
It's really well made. So you put it on right and you go wow.
The next day, myself and those three other people got into a car drove to a place in South Moumain where we have orientation and there's twenty eight of us or something. All wear a uniform, right, So the first couple of hours they're just talking shitty about how it's going to work. Then it's ten to thirty, right, and they go, ah, we'll go down the street and get coffee.
So we all walk out the building.
We're walking down the street, there's four of us. I'm like, oh, my fucking god, what is this. Someone wants help from us?
What is this?
A car crashes at the intersection, Like you are absolutely shitting yourself, Like you're wearing a uniform which carries so much weight and so much expectation and you know nothing, Like you know what they taught you at school, but you've theoretically never really seen a dead person, delivered a baby or controlled a scene. So that the first six months or you're just shitting yourself. And I don't know if it's like that for police officers or fires or I haven't had that conversation, but I do categorically know that my friends all felt the same, and when we started on the road, we all felt the same for a long long time.
So I think it takes a long time to get arrogant about it.
And if along the way you start to feel arrogant about it, some of them will literally die in your care and you go, ah, I am not that good and I need to be better. So the people that become arrogant were probably arrogant at the.
Last thing they did. Maybe, Yeah. And like I said, it's such a fine line between confidence.
Confidence gets you in the room, Like you have a confidence you are walking into a house at two o'clock in the morning and there's a very sick child.
You have to go.
There's no choice that you are going into that building, and then you are going into that room. So confidence gets you in there. Yeah. Arrogance would be you ignoring what the mother is telling you.
Right right right, and how long from you and your mates walking down the street at ten thirty in uniform first time and then having these thoughts of terror that fuck, what if someone actually needs me? I don't know anything to being not arrogant, but just at a point where you're comfortable and confident and not terrified and you can control a scene.
In your words, four to five years, wow, so you live in terror like people who tell you that.
That's like.
I have lots of mates and obviously I did it for twenty years. That well, they are all the same. No, four to five years and four to five years is when you don't wear your pants when the pager goes off. And that's the irony, right, You want the pages to go off because you want to test yourself, right, So you're sit in the garden, I want the pa I hope the page goes off. It goes off, you go fucking fuckingly fuck you where your pants? And then you go, oh shit, why do I want to go off? It took me four or five years before I'd go, oh, yeah cool. I'd look at the page and go yeah cool, happy with that, and you look at your partner and go and you'd have a comversation about perhaps.
You were going to encounter when you got there.
So tell people I don't think we spoke about this will jump forward and back. It doesn't need to be chronological as conversation. But h what are you? And then in twenty eleven January, chapter seven, Scott Douglas, what are you doing now? Tell people like what? Like, what are you doing now?
So I'm going I'm going to you need to do my master's in education. And I'm working for a company that puts paramedics and finement on mind sits and I've worked for them off and on for fifteen years and they're they're like that the owner and the boss that company is a really cool guy.
Like he put me on oil rigs, he put me.
On research vessels like I just yeah, he recognized something in me, gave me a chance.
So I will be forever greatful for that.
And so yeah, I resigned from Ambulz Victoria about a month ago. And then I will I will stay working in resource in the resourcing sector until next year, I think, and then I'll go to unifull time.
What's it like? What is what is the practical situation like being a paramedic on an oil rig like for example, or in the minds or like what do you do? You just Okay, get in your little spot until somebody breaks their leg.
No, no, so And you know, I've had lots of people say to me, oh my god, oh my god, get me a job at the Mind, and I would say, Okay, this is what I do every day. I get up at eight minutes to three, I go and have to I have to do forty minutes of exercise normally with the team. Then we all sit down and have breakfast. Then we go out to the mine. And so I was on an underground mine, which for me was I absolutely loved being in an underground mind. So you might have to go down and refuge chambers, you might have to go and check ladder ways. You would possibly have to wear breathing apparatus while you're doing that.
So you know, you would have.
To go down one and a half kilometers underground. You know it's the darkest of dark. You can't see your hand in front.
Of your face.
You'll be probably with one other person. You'll drive down there. There'll be the biggest structure you've ever seen coming towards you, and you'll stop at a place and go, okay, we're going to climb back to the surface through these escape ways to ensure that if that actually occurred, that the people climbing these ladder ways would.
Be able to do that.
So you would then you know, you wear a harness, you click on and you literally climb maybe close to a kilometer of ladders and it's every one hundred meters there's a gate, so you go through the gate, shut the gate, keep walking or going up the ladder. So that would be maybe a day, and you're filthy, you're covered in sort of mud dust. It's quite hot, so you're sweaty, and that might be one day. But then, as you said, you literally might be in the medical center itself. And a couple of weeks ago we had twelve patients in a day, and there'said some very very good nurses in the medical center that I currently work, and we have access to a doctor, but we also help to service three and a half thousand predominantly men. So it's a small So you've got a small town of three and a half thousand predominant bokes.
So you have people come in.
We had a general walk in with chest paint, have had people come in dehydrated, You have people with stuff in their arrise, you have people with smashed fingers stuff like that. So, and having worked in very small towns, it's not dis similar to that.
Can I just point out as a sidebar how many calories you would burn climbing up one kilometer of ladder? Do you know what?
Do you know what?
Avers? Do you know what a versa climber is, Scottie.
No, no, but you're going to tell tip.
Do you know what a versa climber is? So? Aversa climber is google it while you it's a machine, Well, it's a it's a piece of cardio equipment in the gym. It's maybe the hardest piece of cardio equipment where you're climbing and legs and arms.
Oh yeah, okay, yeah.
Cool, yeah, yeah, they're they're a motherfucker. And so that's like the real life versus climber with no stop button. Yeah it is.
Look and sometimes you're wearing what's called a BG four, which is an encapsulated breathing device, and you have that on you and you can't take it off once you've got it on.
So you've got a face mask. You can't like it, let you so, And I think they weighed maybe twelve to ten kilo.
So you've got that in your back, and some of the ladder ways are so small because I've been cut by hand.
You have to take it.
Off and put it in front of you and push it forward. So but you don't know that you're going to be okay doing that until you go and do it. Like I didn't realize that I loved being underground until I went underground, and I didn't realize that for me, it was a very comfortable place. It never felt enclosed or small. But I have certainly been with people who know you escort them down, you know, one and a half kilometers to a big room, you know, and they get out of the car and vomit right because it's too much for them. But you don't think that about yourself. I don't know if that makes sense. I didn't know how I was going to react to being a kilometer underground until I was, and I realized I loved.
It, like I genuinely.
It was like a big playground to me, and I was very lucky. The people I worked with felt exactly the same, so they were just as excited as you were to go underground.
This is a weird question, but being a kilometer underground is there a different energy? I don't know if this is the right word, yes, but like, is there like what does it feel like being a kilometer under the earth?
It is funky like it's so I remember the first, very first time I was taken down.
By it's called the shift Boss.
He was a big cousin bro Mary Got, a lovely, lovely guy, and he's he was very clever because he's talking to me the whole way down because he probably knew I was were in my pants, right, and so he's explaining to me what's going to happen. And I'm trying and I'm trying.
To be oh, yeah, mate, I'm cool. I'm cool.
You know, clearly was not cool. And so he's he is such a lovely guy. He's just telling me this is what's going to happen next, and this was going to happen next.
Blah blahlah blah blah blah blah.
So we literally pull up and if you can imagine if the been in the burning tunnel, that's sort of what it's like.
Like.
This literally places to eat your lunch. This, you know, really well made rooms like you sort of forget underground sometimes, you know, And so we pull up and he says to me, look, when you get out of the car, just go slow.
And so when you say car, hang on, hang on, what do you mean car?
Yeah, what's the land?
Yeah, so you're driving on a road underground? Yes, yes, I thought you were like going down in an elevator or something.
Oh. Now, because if you can imagine, the drive is what it's called is like the Burnley Tunnel, but massive because it has to fit the biggest tructure you've ever seen. They are hauling or from the face from where they're digging for want of a better word. Their trucks are taking that up to the surface. Right.
Well, you can drive down those roads, wow, which you do. Right. So anyway, so we pull up, I get out of the.
Car and I'm basically sort of faint because it is really oppressive and you're not used to it, and it's really like it's yeah, it's very different, and there is certainly an energy that you don't that you're not used to, but then you get used to it. And so he, you know, he came over and he's like laughing, going, oh you know, I said.
Oh you know, and I was sort of my head was spinning and.
You guys, just take some breaths. And I'd literally standing there with my hands on the knees taking some breaths, and he said, you'll get used to it. And I was very lucky because I did get used to it very quickly. Whereas there are people that you will escort underground, like geos or people like that, they have to go and look at something and they won't like it. And I've certainly been in the car with people who say how long will it take to get back to the service and you go forty five minutes if we say it's an emergency, and they go oh, and you go is it an emergency? And they're like, man, I just want to I want to see the sky, and you go okay, okay, and then you quite quickly take them back to the surface.
Yeah.
Here's my other weird question. So we know that at sea level that I might fuck this up a little bit, but it's something like eighty eighty one percent nitrogen and twenty percent twenty point nine to three or something oxygen, right, and we know that the higher we go, the less oxygen.
Ye blah blah blah.
What's the nitrogen O two balance a kilometer underground do you any like is oxygen the same or less or more?
So?
What's going to by the way, an amazing question because I have to learn this, and that's a very clever question. So when you are doing any kind of work underground, and I'm unspeaking about underground mining, you have to calculate how many trucks are going to be in that area, what their burn rate is, so how much oxygen they burn and how much diesel they put out. And there is a guy called a vent engineer who controls the air that's sent down to the mine. So if you can imagine, we have these big vent stations that pump air down into the mine. So you can stand, you can stand next to one of those vents, share and then walk out in front of that bent and if you would get blown away. So I've done it a couple of times before. See handrails on that where you're hanging onto a handrail and you're flapping in the breeze, because that's how powerful.
The air is that's coming down that vent. And there are vents.
To take the air out as well, because it has to be scrubbed and cleaned and measured because obviously the more trucks you have, the.
More oxygen you're burning, and then the more.
Diesel particulans you put out into the atmosphere that has been breathed by a couple hundred people.
So hopefully I've answered your questions. I didn't want to.
No, it's great, just because I think about like, you know, when you go to altitude. I remember, I don't know if I was talking to you about this. Maybe I was when we had a coffee, but I remember when I was in a place in Colorado called Breckenridge, which is eleven or twelve thousand yeah, which is yes, yes, I remember, eleven or twelve thousand feet above sea level, and dummy fucking Jumbo Harper goes, I'm going to go I'm going to go for a run, and I go, yeah, I know, there is a bit dinner, and I'm like, yeah, fuck it, I'm a weapon around about seventeen feet and Nelly died. Like I was going to run five k's, I literally ran four hundred meters, had to stop, tail between my legs walk back because I couldn't breathe, and I just, yeah, it's just that. And then I was thinking about underground on top of that you've got all the carbon monoxide or whatever diesel pumps out, but all of that being pumped into the air down there, Yes, trying to manage and I mean with the size of those fucking trucks and engines and all of those fumes, like trying to create a healthy, breatheable, sustainable environment. I mean that seems like the ultimate science experiment on top of everything else.
I mean that is and that is literally someone's job. That is event indineer's role.
Yeah, because I have to make it compatible with life so people can go down and sometimes it's too hot, like I've certainly been underground in areas where yeah.
It's at the fate.
This is what it's called, you know, is in the high forties and so then and when and part of your role is to look after the guys that are down there and constantly checking him and do high hydration testing and you know you will encounter people who are consuming twelve to fifteen liters a.
Day of water.
Wow, And is that the main physiological challenge? Like like what are the other variables? Sorry everybody if this is boring, but as a body, as someone who's weird about bodies, so hydration, thermoregulation. I'm guessing body temperature. Yeah, just the mental health. Like, so they get up and it's dark.
H they go into the dark and then they finish and it's dark. So guys who are on the say, see, they normally do a day of nights and sorry, day of days. In the day of nights, we watch them on their eleventh out of fourteen fifteen days because that's normally when incidents occur. And then when you go and visit them, they are quite pale. They have this great look about them and predominantly again these are underground miners and then a lot being doing it a long time and they do a lot of self care. They have a lot of chats with it amongst themselves. In A massive part of your role is staff morale and like we just we will sometimes just as we go down to the to where some drillers are and take them lollies to drop in and say, hey, you going, do you need anything?
Oh, by the way, we have a whole bunch of kit cats, you know.
Yeah, And it breaks up their day and it's and it's taken you at least two hours to get there, and I'll take you two hours to get back to the surface, you know, so.
They know that's a big thing to do that kind of stuff.
Yeah, that's incredible, and I would I would imagine that from as you mentioned, but from a mental health perspective, that being in that environment, even with good conditions, even with good workmates, even with you drop an in going here's a KitKat. Yeah, it's like that's got to be I feel like you're going to turn into a were wolf after about six weeks of that, or no, a vampire.
So I was.
I was involved in a mental health in mining project and I've got to you know, unfortunately, I got to speak at a few conferences and miners or what's called the resourcing sector, the men am nine times more likely to harm themselves or commit suicide than.
The national average.
And so when you go and spend time in those places, I believe you can understand why. Like you are, like I do, too on, too off. So for two weeks, I'm literally immersed in a circus. Yeah, so you get up, you're fed on and off buses. I mean, I love it, I absolutely love it. Right, So I'm not hope I'm not painting a dark picture. But the people that you work with are very really, very very good at what they do. You constantly are learning things. You are constantly having to learn things because someone will make a statement about something which is not even in your lane, but you have to go figure it out. So the time that you spend with those people is very tense, especially in underground mining, because you are literally and part of it.
You do sometimes get into an elevator.
Or something like that, or a cage and you go underground for ten hours and the blackstand and next to you literally is handing you rods if you're a driller, and then you eat with that person.
All your meals, and then you come home with that person.
Then you only get on a bus and go back to camp, and depending I've worked on dry camps, I've worked on wet camps. You know you're having a mess and you all eat together and then hopefully which normally is there's some kind of activity after dinner or before dinner where you go pay volleyball or something all together, or you play frisbee, or you can walk, or the someone playing music. But it is super intense, and you're very very far away, and it feels far away from the people that you love and the people that you want to talk to. So it's a very it's a very intense and compressed environment.
I reckon.
Yeah, yeah, tell me about work looking at the Isle of Man or at the tt for so firstly I know, and you know, and Tiff knows because she rides a motorbike. But tell tell our listeners what the Isle of man TT is.
So Isle of Man TT is the longest running road race in the world. It's I wanted to.
Go there from a very very early age, like I used to watch it with the Gentleman the man. I did my apprenticeship with my first ever really cool boss and he was a former Australian Superboil champion who had ridden at the island race of the Isle of Man So when so sadly when he passed away, I was given a small earn of his ashes to take there. So I actually had to go there in twenty fifteen to take those ashes there. So I had at the time was working for the London Ambulance Service and I applied to work there as a marshal or just a volunteer. Yeah stuff, I go, and so I had to do a whole couple of weeks of riding and tests and all kinds of stuff to qualify to be allowed to be a volunteer. Then I was staying at the volunteers camp and which it was amazing, like it really really was.
The people I met there.
I still talk to some of those people you know on a regular basis, But for me, I mean it is if you watch the footage, like it's insane the racing.
Can we just can we just point out to people that in the isle on the Isle of man t T by the way, motorbikes not cars. Just not that you said cars, but just so people know what we're talking about and that these people are not racing around a circuit like Albert Park or they're literally racing around the island. The road roads that the that the residents use every day. Yes, at over three hundred kilometers an hour sometimes, yes, that is correct. And these are roads that are not built for racing.
No, they're roads normal and when you ride on them, when you ride on them, like you realize, like when you're going past a building that's a meter away and you're doing two hundred plus qlumeters an hour, Yeah, yeah, you do have a shincter moment.
You go, that's right, and you're riding through towns and past farms and past sucking businesses at yeah, the speed of sound, and yes, and like some of them. I've never been there, but I've watched it a bunch of times. And you see people coming over the top of a bit of a rise, yes, and again they're airborne and these floaks are just like off the ground for a hundred or not one hundred, but probably twenty thirty forty feet.
Oh yeah, they're like to watch it.
And then so for me, so obviously that was one of the most emotional moments I've ever had in my life, like getting off the ferry, Like there's all little kids with flags, and there's probably a couple hundred, maybe a thousand motorcycles all starting at once, and I remember being very overwhelmed the very first time I went there, And just you know, in your life, you will have moments where least shoul say, I feel on your hand your child, you know, for the first time. Was one of those moments for me. And so I then had like a conversation with God.
While I was riding.
I was riding in one of the practice laps, and I came over a rise doing about two forty, and I had a bike beside me. And as I went over the ridse, obviously the bike gets lighter and it lifts up off the track and it slid across the white line.
And so I speaking about two forty and it's the bike.
The back end of the bike started to wobble and I actually went and everything went very quiet in my helmet, and I literally, I mean, without coning down a rabbit hole.
I went, hey, God, I promised to be a better person if you help me.
It was a very unique moment for me because I'd never done anything like that before. And the bike just straightened up and off I went again, right, and I went, oh, okay, And so it was very Yeah, it was kind of I thought I was going to die, and then I didn't, and then you.
Go, wow, cool, So stop. Did you keep your end of the bargain with God?
I was going to say, here's the here's for me, which is what I believe in. I believe in karma. So that's twenty fifteen. In twenty sixteen, I'm in my tent in the volunteers area, and there's everyone in there is a volunteer generally and a lot of medical staff, so people like amazing people.
From all around the world who don't have the time to come and work at the isle.
Man like some really high end surgeons, doctors, trauma surgeons and all that kind of stuff. Right, And we'd had a dinner, so I half met everyone, and I'd gone to bed, and so I'm in my long Johnscause freezing and my tent gets opened it's about ten o'clock night by a guy named Jack Smith. He's like, mate, you've got to come with me. You've got to come into town. They need you in town. And I said, Jack, this is not funny. If this is a joke, it's not a funny joke, mate, He goes, no, no, please, please, You've got to come into town.
So literally put a.
Pair of crocs on, apologize, put my helmet on my motorcycles, park right next to my tent, and start my bike. Follow Jack, who's on a motorcycle out of the volunteers camp down this road and there's a police car parked in the middle of the road with the boots open. Because I didn't know, but they carry medical stuff in their boots. This guy's waving me down. I watched Jack Parky's bike get off, run into this massive big house. I just ignore this copp up. Run into this massive big house. Go into the lound room. It's a beautiful english man out like it's amazing, and there's a gentleman on the floor in his forties and someone who's.
Performing CPR on him. So I'm like the probably the second or third person in the room.
So that you take off my helmet, I try and get a little bit of an understanding what's going on.
I'm on the airway. Jack starts doing CPR.
Then after that there's a steady stream of people that keep coming into the room. Some of them are recognize from the meetings I've had some of them.
I don't now.
If you're on the airway, that means you're in charge. So I theoretically was in charge of this kardiak arrest. So for people who watch TV or know a little bit about medicine. So we had the monitor on and we look at the screen and the person is in what we call a shockable rhythm, and so there's probably seven people crouched around this man, and I'm supposed to call it, but bearing in mind I've probably met two of the seven people ever. And I'm in a PJS, so I'm pointing. I pointed at the screen and go are we happy to shock that? And everyone nods and goes yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So we shock that the patient. So we do that maybe three times. We put in a cany you light. So we put a needle in the gentleman's arm, and we put an airway in the patient. So that man goes into what we call ROSK, which is return of spontaneous circulation, so he has so his heart starts beating by itself.
After about three minutes. So then the ambulance comes.
The people in the ambulance volunteers, so they don't have the kind of qualifications so we have in Victoria. So we helped place that patient in the back of this ambulance. And Deb who runs a hospital in Liverpool, She's like, oh gorah. So this gentleman is alive theoretically and goes on to live. And so we go back to camp. I go to bed, crazy, crazy night, like incredible situation. The gentleman that woke me Jack Smith, he was so inspired by what occurred, and he was a petrochemical engineer.
He worked on oil rings.
He went back to Union to become a paramedic. I went to his graduation last year in Scotland, which is amazing, and we've stayed in contact, like we ring each other once a month, Like he went to a really bad job about a month ago, rang me up and we had a long chat about He's still one of my best mates and I will see him in about eight weeks when.
I go to Scotland.
When I go to Glasgow the next morning, I'm sitting there eating baked beans in the mess.
Because it's a mess for all the volunteers, and this copper can't dressed.
This gentleman dressed like a very serious looking police officer comes in. I got my head down and he says I need to speak to the Australian that's in the camp, going ah shit, I think he wants to speak. So I'm not saying nothing, like I want to speak to this dude. And then someone says that's him over there in the corner. So he comes over and he's like, oh, he'd say he was the chief of police. So he wants to have a chat with me, and I'm thinking I'm in trouble because that's like I'm in Australian.
That's the first thought when the police speak to you.
And he says, and he says, oh, you're involved in that instant last night. I'm going yet I'm.
Going to jail. Wow, I wonder what jail in the other man's like.
And he said, oh, who, I said, I'm a paramedic. I'm a registered paramedic in the UK and I'm a registered paramedic in Australia, and I'm trying to explain to him that I certainly am qualified to be working on that patient. And then he says to me, Oh, the man's alive and his family wants to say thank you.
I was like, oh my god, I'm my god.
Think.
Oh cool. Right, So to come along story short, we get a photo taken. They then we do this thing.
They give us the key to the city and they think it's funny to take a photo of me handcuffed.
So they handcuffed me.
And all these places stand around me and take a photo, right because I'm an Australian, right, So they then put that on Facebook and it goes out into the ether.
So and I mean, they'd write a lovely email to.
Ambulance Victoria say thank you so much for lending us Scott for the two weeks of the island man blah blah, bah blah blah. But they also put out a photo of me handcuff it. So if you can imagine, like I had to say, how many people going, I always knew you'd end up handcuffed, always knw you it ended up in trouble, But I guess, and that was an amazing like it was an amazing incidents. But I guess the point of making this Your question was did I pay back God? Did I do the thing that I said I was going to do.
I would say yes.
I would say ironically like I do believe in karma, and I did ask whoever in twenty fifteen to help me, and then I had to repay that in twenty sixteen. And that gentleman is you know a lie. Look I've met We went back into twenty seventeen. I'll got to meet him. We had dinner like it was an exceptional situation. And I mean that gentleman got world class care because of where he literally lived. He lived ninety seconds away from some of the best trauma surgeons, emergency people on the planet who happened to be there as volunteers.
So yeah, yeah, Wow, that's incredible, dude, it's so interesting. All right, one, we've got about five to eight minutes the lake. Tell me about the lady in Prague that. Oh right.
So we've been riding all day and we went to a town called Bethlehem and we'd had lunch and it was one of the loveliest meals I had. And I was with I was with Cooney, who's an ex Queensland Police officer, and we were traveling through Europe together and I had my partner, my girlfriend with me son, she's Dutch, and we'd gone to this lake to have a swim and I mean, i'd love water is such.
A big part of my life. And so we.
Parked the motorbikes under the tree, you know, we'd splash it in now of the water. It was a beautiful day lights and lots of people there. If everyone's ever been to Lake Dales with that's that's sort of what the vibe was there. So lots of you repeating people in and out of the water. So so I'm laying on the tent and I think, so I'm laying under the tree. Sorry on a towel, and I think to myself, oh, I'm still a bit hot, I might get back in the water.
And Cooney and Sona asleep and we've got all our camp and our bikekids sitting under this tree.
So I go into the world about waist deep and I look out.
I can see this what appears to be.
A lady and I think, oh, she's not doing that well. And I'm like looking at her and I'm going, oh shit, I think she's drowning. Which I just probably swam okay, I reckon, and I was tired and we'd ridden all day and I had a full stomach for food, and so I was like, oh my god, I definitely think she's drowning.
So I'm my fuck.
So I literally start swimming out to her, and I'm swimming out to her watching.
I'm like, yeah, she's drowning. This is not cool.
And so I get out close to her and she's panicking and she's probably mid forties, quite a bigger woman and really really short, and she's grabbing at me in I'm like, yeah, great, and something have to probably give her a smack. So I probably gave her a bit of a smack to explain the situation to her, and then I start.
Bringing her back into.
Shore.
And so I'm screaming and trying to swim and trying to pull this lady into shore, and I'm getting closer and there's no one really doing anything. There would to be hundreds of people in this little cove, and yeah, yeah, it was really interesting because no one was really helping. But I don't know why. I don't know, like maybe if you can't swim, because you know, I can swim, so maybe some of those people couldn't swim. Anyway, So I got closer enough that I thought I could touch the bottom, so I let it.
I sort of I couldn't. I went I went under. That has a bit of a wake up cool.
So then I come back up again, grabbed her and she's very heavy dragon. And then finally this guy who's in skinny white dude in really big broad shorts, he comes running down and we find out later he's an off duty fireman and he's on the phone and then he's yelling at his girlfriend, who spoke literally half dozen languages. She was amazing because obviously I'm speaking English, right, yelling English. They're asking me lots of questions in whatever the language. And by now there's quite a large group of people watching and excuse me, I'm sort of looking at what's going on.
So Karney wakes up, looks up and goes, oh, something's going on.
Guarantee you Scot's involved, grabs my trauma bag, which I carry on a modebike.
Waltz is over.
And tells me lady, you know, pushes his way through the crowd, and then there we are sort of resuscitating this lady and the gentleman who was an off duty fireman, he called his friends and they came that They came in what can only be described as a ninety.
Fifties aircraft fire truck. Was insane.
It was massive, and this little white like nineteen fifties van, you know, and these guys, three guys got out, always white. One was a doctor, and we successfully resuscitated this lady and you know, she was she was vomiting and trying to talk to us, and she had to talk to the off judy fireman's girlfriend, who then would said say.
To me what had occurred? And we're talking to her.
She had diabetes, and we did her blood sugars and we discovered that she you know, had maybe a hypo, so she.
Had a lot of Schulgren and gone into the water.
But so she was trying to think. So I had my seth escape on severyone thing. Everyone's going doctor, doctor, and I'm.
Trying to explain to them I'm not a doctor, but they no one cares. Was always got a set escape, must be a doctor.
And she beautiful and she was hot. Yeah, yeah, I I recommend it carried on all dates. And so she was trying to say thank you to me, and she said the check word for angel, which I then had to learn, and the girl it translated that for me. And so yeah, that was That was like my day off in the Czech Republic.
I'll tell you what it's never boring, and tell us where you're off too, because I know you're going away this week. You got some stuff came up in the next weeks and months.
Yeah, I go to.
Caratha on Monday for two more weeks, and then I go to Ireland and then you Europe for eight weeks. I go every year, I go and work on a farm over there, and I have a tiny house on the farm. And then I'll say lecture at one of the unis there and I'll probably do.
Some lecturing in Glasgow. I think i'll go see Jack, he's a paramedic. Yeah.
So, and what do you do? What do you do on the farm in Ireland?
Like a farm, Like it's a normal farm.
So like you get up at four o'clock in the morning, you move to cows around, you work on the harvests, because harvest.
That's why I go that this time.
You like they're harvesting, so the harvesting wheat and grain, and we clean the harvesters, work on the harvests, work on the.
Bailers, clean the tractors.
Like you just smell of cowshit and wet mud the whole time you're there, but you eat some amazing food.
I go to CrossFit, which I don't.
Do here, but I go across fit there and I swim in a place called Sandy Cove, which is where a lot of the English Channel swimmers train. It's a it's an island and it's a one point eight kilometer swim around the island. And I try and do that once a day and it's freezing, like the.
Water is absolutely freezing.
You're a maniac. Well, mate, I wish we had more time. We don't, but I reckon we could do a series with you. We could do a series with you, you know.
I please don't mean to INTERRUPTO. I was gonna say one more thing.
The idea that this isn't amazing for me to be on your podcast is ridiculous.
Like it is for me.
It's a bit of a fanboy moment, Like I remember speaking to you five years ago. I've always listened to your staff. I just don't want that to be diminished by the fact that I'm clearly quite comfortable talking to you, like it still is amazing, Like it's amazing, like it really is to be on your podcast, Like I genuinely feel like I'm walking in the steps of giants.
That's want to say thank you?
Yeah, well mate, very I feel like saying that's not warranted, but I won't. I'll just say thank you and take some of my own advice. But yeah, I like, honestly, I mean, today was like an episode of you know, Seinfeld, like a conversation about nothing but everything you know, and well, that's what I mean. It's like, I just like talking to you. I just find you interesting and you know, even in the last minute or two. Oh yeah, I go to Ireland for eight weeks and I work on a farm, like and then I swim around this island. You know, I just won. You're very well. I mean, the whole point of the show really is about having good conversations, and certainly I've done that with you twice thanks to you and Tip this time as well. So mate, we really appreciate you. I'd love to have you back when you get back. And I just think that, like your energy and your enthusiasm and your positivity is infectious. So it's you know right backatch, I really appreciate it. Tell people about just give your books a plug and where they can get those, and yeah.
So if you want to go check out the website, which is beautiful and has some lovely photos of Ireland on it, go to www dot Horatio dash Jones dot com dot au.
Just go check out the website if that's.
Cool, and then yeah, have a look and if you want to buy a book, that would be absolutely lovely.
And did you have you had a look at our By the way, everyone, if you haven't heard of our Facebook page, go there the You Project Facebook page, You Project Podcast Facebook page. Lots of nice feedback for you. Did you read it?
No, because I don't get embarrassed quite easily with that kind of stuff.
But if you say there's lots of nice feedback, that is, I'm very that's lovely. Thank you. I tanged you. Thank you very much.
I also said to you, I said to you yesterday and send your message. Did you listen to the show? You're like, no, I don't like my voice, and I wrote, try harder.
It's you did. And I still even now like I am not comfortable at all.
Well, you'll get over it. TIF Do you like Scotty. I like Scotty. I love Scotty. You're such a captivating storyteller. I felt like a kid listening at storytime.
Then it's so good. I know one question? How do you spell Horatio? Okay, so h O R A t io?
And when you well, not in the middle of winter, but when we get towards the submission stage of the year, the PhD submission stage of the year, also known as summer, the three of us should go for a ride.
Yes, absolutely, that would be lovely, it really really would.
Let's do that. We'll say goodbye affair. But for the moment, Scottie Thank you, appreciate it. You have a good trip, enjoy, Enjoy.
Your travels, no worries. Thank you.