In Episode 19 of What a Stranger Told Me, Tim pulls up a chair at the Gympie Muster beside Jane Turner (not Kath!) – a veteran burns, ICU and emergency nurse who has spent decades on the absolute frontline of human suffering, and is now finally kicking back with a cold beer and a good book.

Ready for some stranger stories? Personal stories of love, resilience & daring unfold in this loveable podcast, as story-collectors Tim Reid & Jon Coghill wander the streets of Australia, microphone in hand, chatting to strangers.

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Jane started in New Zealand when the Christchurch burns unit took overflow patients Australia couldn’t handle after the 2002 Bali bombings. She was part of the small volunteer “Bratz team” that met planes at 3 a.m., triaged horrific injuries, and fought to keep young lives together. To this day, whenever she visits Bali she visits the memorial – the emotional pull is still raw.

She’s seen burns care change dramatically (“We treat them completely differently now”), worked the old-school graft of daily dressing marathons, and held more hands through unimaginable pain than most of us could imagine. Yet she insists the job always came back to basics: care hard, do your best, be the patient’s advocate, then go home and sleep.

After a lifetime of 12-hour shifts in burns, plastics, emergency and intensive care, Jane has zero regrets and zero burnout. “As long as you care, you’re good enough,” she says. Policies come and go, but the fundamentals never change – and that goes for every job, not just nursing.

Now she’s exactly where she wants to be: same campsite, same mates, same morning ritual of cracking a breakfast beer while someone else cooks (and someone else cleans up). The woman who once raced to save blast victims is finally, joyfully, off the clock – and loving every second of it.

Chapters

• 00:00 – Beer, Book and a Burns Nurse at Gympie
• 00:40 – “Yes, I get the Kath & Kim joke daily”
• 01:20 – Bali Bombings: The Night NZ Took Australia’s Overflow
• 02:30 – Being on the Volunteer “Bratz Team” at 3 a.m.
• 04:10 – How Burns Care Has Completely Changed
• 05:40 – 12-Hour Shifts, ICU, Emergency – Why She Stayed
• 07:20 – The One Rule: Care Hard, Then Go Home
• 08:30 – Breakfast Beers and Zero Regrets at the Muster

Key Insights

• Bali bombings created lifelong emotional ties – many nurses still visit the memorial
• Burns nursing has transformed – modern treatment is worlds away from 2002 methods
• Best nursing advice ever: “As long as you care, you’re good enough”
• Be the patient and family advocate – everything else is secondary
• After decades on the frontline, the perfect retirement is cold beer and old friends at sunrise

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Made & Hosted by Tim Reid & Jon Coghill
Music Supervision by Dennis Feletto
Photography by Will Reid & Andy McColl