What would you do?

Yesterday – 27^th February – I wanted to go for a bit of a drive when I went home from Griffith Uni at Nathan. Usually I would just go right from Griffith into Kessels Road, onwards into Riawena Road and Granard Road which takes me onto the Ipswich motorway. Instead I turned left, turned right into Mains Road and right at Sunnybank into McCullough Street. (If you don’t know this area, look it up on the map.) McCullough Street runs into Boundary Road, which crosses Beaudesert Road and heads towards Archerfield. This was where I was heading.

I hadn’t gone very far into the road across Beaudesert Road when I saw a power line – across the Boundary Road to Desgrand Street – which had been ripped from the power pole and was lying across the road – and there were still some vehicles driving over it!! It was still connected to both the power poles, but there were no sparks or indication that power was still there. However, only the middle of the lead laid in the middle of the road, leaving very little space for any vehicles to drive under, and certainly not indicated as no power.

Boundary Road is a two lane road, quite small, but very big trucks travel along it. I turned around and parked in front of that lead because I saw safety. So many cars, so many trucks, and one chap came and helped me to turn those vehicles around and not allow them to cross that area. I rang police, and so did he. They came pretty quickly and kept the road blocked off. I left before the electrical truck came to cut that lead right off – I hope it was done pretty quickly.

In 2013, before my stroke, I had completed a Graduate Diploma of Occupational Health & Safety from CQU. It had taken me 2.5 years part-time, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, in 2014 I had a stroke with aphasia, and I haven’t been able to work in OHS. Today’s incident was, for me, something that struck on my brain as a safety incident. I didn’t even have a safety vest, I was in my jeans and a kaftan, but I gave directions to vehicles, with assistance from a wonderful chap whose name I didn’t get.

I probably still won’t be able to do safety again, in a couple of days I'll have forgotten what happened today – but I am feeling very happy that I did something about this before it may have ended up with a serious issue. It’s not even on the police Facebook page, but OHS still rocks!