Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / “I Should Be Dead”: A STAR Group Officer’s Fight Back | Derrick McManus

Transcript

“I Should Be Dead”: A STAR Group Officer’s Fight Back | Derrick McManus · Real Crime with Adam Shand

0:05
Speaker 1: Approach production.
0:14
Speaker 2: Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shand I'm your host,
0:16
Speaker 2: Adam Shann. It's been my privilege over the years to
0:19
Speaker 2: tell stories that reflect the amazing durability of human beings.
0:24
Speaker 2: What people can survive when they have no choice never
0:27
Speaker 2: ceases to amaze me, and also how they live with
0:30
Speaker 2: the effects those moments have on them for the rest
0:34
Speaker 2: of their lives. My guest today is in that cohort.
0:37
Speaker 2: It was May fifth, nineteen ninety four and mister McManus
0:41
Speaker 2: was carrying out an arrest warrant on Grosser. Derek McManus
0:46
Speaker 2: was a South Australian police officer, a member of the
0:48
Speaker 2: elite Special Tasks and Rescue Group, the Star Group.
0:52
Speaker 1: It's the police squad so secretive few know about it.
0:56
Speaker 2: He was a specialist sniper diver trained by the military
1:00
Speaker 2: elite Special Air Services Regiment the SAS. In counter terrorist
1:04
Speaker 2: TAC May five, nineteen ninety four, Derek and his colleagues
1:10
Speaker 2: were carrying out an arrest warrant on a crook named
1:12
Speaker 2: Tony Grosser, who failed to attend court.
1:16
Speaker 1: As he approached Ross's house, Derek was.
1:19
Speaker 2: Shot fourteen times in less than five seconds with a
1:23
Speaker 2: high powered semi automatic rifle. StarForce officers used to rescue
1:28
Speaker 2: helicopters down to the call of a wounded police officer.
1:32
Speaker 1: Gunman's hold up in a farmhouse.
1:33
Speaker 2: Two kilometers office stirred by way and is keeping police
1:37
Speaker 2: at bay. Amazingly, two and a half years later, he
1:41
Speaker 2: returned to full duties. His story literally epitomizes durability. Since retiring,
1:50
Speaker 2: Derek has become an international speaker and trainer. He provides
1:54
Speaker 2: insights and the tools for people to go beyond brasilience
1:58
Speaker 2: to durability and create sustained optimum performance. And it's my
2:03
Speaker 2: pleasure to welcome you to the real crime Studio, Derek get.
2:07
Speaker 1: Eight, Adam, absolute pleasure to be here with you.
2:11
Speaker 2: I lot to start there. We can't go past that
2:14
Speaker 2: moment May five, nineteen ninety four. You've told the story
2:17
Speaker 2: a couple of times over the years, but I don't
2:20
Speaker 2: think anybody who's hasn't been in that situation understands how
2:25
Speaker 2: time stands still, what happens in those moments.
2:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And there are a couple of moments in
2:32
Speaker 1: experience where time literally stood still. There was the five
2:35
Speaker 1: seconds where the bullets were hitting me, seemed to take
2:38
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds to a minute, and it was essentially
2:42
Speaker 1: that pace of time. But for me, it's a surreal experience.
2:45
Speaker 1: I had prepared myself physically, mentally, and emotionally, and that's
2:49
Speaker 1: one of the most important parts. The emotionally having some
2:52
Speaker 1: anticipation I'm going into Star Groups special Task and Rescue,
2:56
Speaker 1: sniper diver trained by the Essays and counter terrorism. There
3:00
Speaker 1: was a reality for me that I may be shot
3:03
Speaker 1: and injured, I may be shot and killed. Five years
3:06
Speaker 1: prior to the shooting, I had a conversation with my
3:09
Speaker 1: wife and I said, going in here and maybe shot
3:11
Speaker 1: and ninjured, maybe shot and killed. If I die, what
3:14
Speaker 1: will your life look like? Because I wanted her to
3:16
Speaker 1: be on the same page as me, facing this reality
3:19
Speaker 1: of if it does happen, what's it going to feel
3:22
Speaker 1: like for her? So we had that discussion, and I
3:25
Speaker 1: love going into what that discussion was and how it
3:27
Speaker 1: handed out and what it meant. But we had that discussion.
3:30
Speaker 1: I then prepared myself and said, if I get shot
3:34
Speaker 1: and I don't die, what's going to happen in my
3:36
Speaker 1: mind and what's going to happen in my body? And
3:38
Speaker 1: I knew that they would be diametrically opposed. My mind
3:41
Speaker 1: would want to take over my body and my body
3:43
Speaker 1: would want to just collapse. And I said, what's that
3:46
Speaker 1: opposition going to be? And how do I actually manage
3:49
Speaker 1: it so I can get the best result that I want.
3:52
Speaker 1: I had to reflect on other experiences that I've had. Now,
3:55
Speaker 1: most people will tell you they've reflected on the moments
3:57
Speaker 1: that were really good for them, that they've done really well.
4:00
Speaker 1: I reflected on the times and I have stuffed up
4:03
Speaker 1: as well. Why did I stuff up? How did I
4:05
Speaker 1: stuff up? How can I improve upon that? But then,
4:08
Speaker 1: what have I done well? How can I take that?
4:10
Speaker 1: So in nineteen eighty seven, which is seven years prior
4:14
Speaker 1: to the shooting, I was in another incident where somebody
4:17
Speaker 1: tried to shoot us. We actually got into a wrestling match.
4:20
Speaker 1: Because it was so close quarters, we didn't get our
4:22
Speaker 1: gun down. We got into a wrestling match and the
4:26
Speaker 1: gun wouldn't be fired because it had to be cocked first.
4:29
Speaker 1: It was broken, so it had to be cocked. As
4:32
Speaker 1: we were wrestling, He's called out to his girlfriend, cocked
4:34
Speaker 1: the gun. She's cocked the gun, and as she's cocked
4:37
Speaker 1: the gun, I put my thumb on the hammer of
4:40
Speaker 1: the gun to hold the hammer back so it couldn't
4:42
Speaker 1: be fired. Now, as I was preparing to go into
4:45
Speaker 1: this star group, I've gone, if I do get shot,
4:49
Speaker 1: how was I able to stay calm and rational enough
4:51
Speaker 1: to think about that at the time and do that
4:54
Speaker 1: without any emotion and come out of that and be
4:56
Speaker 1: able to be lighthearted joking while still being extremely serious
5:00
Speaker 1: about the circumstances. And how can I take that forward?
5:03
Speaker 1: So that's what I reflect on try to going into
5:06
Speaker 1: the shooting. And at the time the shooting happened, I think.
5:10
Speaker 2: It was Mike Tyson who said that everyone's got a
5:12
Speaker 2: plan until they get punched in the face. Correct, what's
5:15
Speaker 2: the difference between the planning and the reality in that moment?
5:19
Speaker 1: So for me, in my mind, I'd already been punched
5:22
Speaker 1: in the face. I went into it with visualization, and
5:26
Speaker 1: we talked a lot about visualization for business these days.
5:28
Speaker 1: I went into it for this circumstance. So when I
5:31
Speaker 1: said what will my mind be doing? What will my
5:33
Speaker 1: body doing? I went into visualization mode and I put
5:36
Speaker 1: myself in that situation, and I felt it emotionally. If
5:39
Speaker 1: I'm being overwhelmed, if my body's doing this absolute perfection
5:43
Speaker 1: is going to look like this. Absolute chaos is going
5:45
Speaker 1: to look like this. And I lived that scenario, and
5:48
Speaker 1: I said, if it turns out this way, how do
5:50
Speaker 1: I influence it to get it back towards this? And
5:53
Speaker 1: because I'd gone through this visualization with such reality, and
5:58
Speaker 1: I'd never been trained to do this, this is something
6:00
Speaker 1: I just did intuitively. But it did happen. There was
6:02
Speaker 1: a moment immediately after the shooting where I'd been shot.
6:06
Speaker 1: I fell to the ground, I rolled away, I got
6:09
Speaker 1: up despite massive injuries. I leant against the wall and
6:12
Speaker 1: something else happened, and very happy to go into this
6:14
Speaker 1: story in greater detail, but my forearm had been broken
6:18
Speaker 1: in two places, so when I leant against the wall,
6:21
Speaker 1: my hand has literally folded back along my forearm. And
6:25
Speaker 1: I was so well relaxed, so prepared for this, that
6:28
Speaker 1: I looked at it and I'm gone, damn, this is
6:31
Speaker 1: not a good day, and then got back on with
6:34
Speaker 1: doing what I needed to do. So virtually in my
6:37
Speaker 1: mind I had been punched in the face. It still
6:40
Speaker 1: came as a shock when it did happen, but I
6:42
Speaker 1: had the plan and I was able to implement it.
6:44
Speaker 1: Now Mike Tyson, everybody's got a plan toil they get
6:47
Speaker 1: punched in the face. He'd been punched in the face
6:48
Speaker 1: so often he knew exactly what to do, so when
6:51
Speaker 1: he got punched in the face, he came back at him.
6:53
Speaker 1: And the classic example he generally talks about is the
6:56
Speaker 1: black belt karate. You know, they've done all the scenario punching,
6:59
Speaker 1: and they've done the shadow boxing, they've done the virtual
7:02
Speaker 1: fights and all that sort of stuff. But in reality
7:04
Speaker 1: on the street, when somebody punches them in the face
7:06
Speaker 1: and they're not expecting it, a lot of them just go,
7:09
Speaker 1: oh my god, what do I do now? Because it
7:11
Speaker 1: comes unexpected. This was not unexpected for me.
7:15
Speaker 2: It's like your average uniform member who might go there
7:18
Speaker 2: through their whole career and not pull out their firearm.
7:21
Speaker 2: Correct they go to the range for a little while
7:24
Speaker 2: each year, do their regulation number of shots, but too
7:27
Speaker 2: often when they get in the conflict situation and they've
7:29
Speaker 2: got to draw their weapon, the first six shots or
7:32
Speaker 2: most of the shots go wide anyway. So most police
7:35
Speaker 2: officers are not prepared for this scenario. And we saw
7:38
Speaker 2: this when we talked about your story. It immediately draws
7:42
Speaker 2: comparisons with Desi Freeman in Porpunka here in Victoria and
7:48
Speaker 2: how those members went into that scenario. The coroner will
7:52
Speaker 2: have his say and probably the Supreme Court as well
7:55
Speaker 2: about the decisions.
7:55
Speaker 1: That were made.
7:57
Speaker 2: But you've been on the ground exactly in that scenario
8:00
Speaker 2: approaching somebody. Grossa was a delusional person, had a persecution complex.
8:08
Speaker 2: He was deeply paranoid against authority, and you sort of
8:12
Speaker 2: knew that it was going to be a high risk situation.
8:14
Speaker 1: Describe what happened. So we did know it was going
8:17
Speaker 1: to be a high risk situation. This is the third
8:19
Speaker 1: job that I'd been involved with him because when the
8:22
Speaker 1: cib were investigating him five years prior to this, and
8:25
Speaker 1: this is obviously thirty five years ago, he actually said
8:28
Speaker 1: any copy who comes near my place is going to
8:30
Speaker 1: get shot. So we had a hint that he could
8:33
Speaker 1: be violent, but we had two jobs with him where
8:35
Speaker 1: he did absolutely nothing. But that didn't mean we were complacent,
8:38
Speaker 1: and that's why our Star group to go and arrest
8:41
Speaker 1: him on this occasion because he'd failed to appear in court.
8:44
Speaker 1: So we went to the front door of the house
8:46
Speaker 1: wearing full police blue uniform and flatfests. We knocked on
8:50
Speaker 1: the door. There is a YouTube video of this, so
8:53
Speaker 1: you can get to it via my website or just
8:55
Speaker 1: go to my YouTube channel. You can see how I
8:57
Speaker 1: was approaching the house. You can see how's knocking on
8:59
Speaker 1: the door and calling out to him. Mister grossol, we
9:02
Speaker 1: want to talk to you. There's no answer. However, we've
9:05
Speaker 1: got a sniper sitting in the bush for the last
9:07
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. We know he's inside. We know he to
9:09
Speaker 1: be answering the door. We knocked again, We call again, again,
9:12
Speaker 1: no answer. We always go in with a very strict,
9:15
Speaker 1: very disciplined and thought through plan for what we're going
9:19
Speaker 1: to do, and everybody is briefed on exactly what their
9:22
Speaker 1: requirements are, but we always have them in the side
9:24
Speaker 1: of our mind. If there is a better opportunity, and
9:27
Speaker 1: we see it on the moment, then we can take it.
9:29
Speaker 1: Everybody knows how we're each other train. We can roll
9:32
Speaker 1: into it. Immediately. As we were knocking on the door,
9:35
Speaker 1: I looked down the side of the house and five
9:37
Speaker 1: steps away from where I am there's a glass sliding door.
9:41
Speaker 1: Now this is going to present us with a better opportunity,
9:44
Speaker 1: more efficient, more effective. I went down the side to
9:47
Speaker 1: have a look at this door. I was going to
9:48
Speaker 1: make an assessment. Come back five steps, tell the sergeant, hey,
9:52
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity over here. As I got within two
9:55
Speaker 1: feet of that door, he happened to be standing in
9:58
Speaker 1: an opportune place where he was waiting for us to
10:01
Speaker 1: come through his front door. And if we'd come through
10:04
Speaker 1: his front door, he was way him to shoot whoever
10:06
Speaker 1: was first, second, third in. However, from that position he
10:09
Speaker 1: could also see me as I approached this side door,
10:12
Speaker 1: and he just turned and started to fire, and he
10:15
Speaker 1: fired eighteen times and hit me fourteen times. Not all
10:20
Speaker 1: bullets and not all penetrated into my body, but they
10:23
Speaker 1: were good, solid hits. One was a piece of shrapnel
10:26
Speaker 1: in my right wrist and that severed an archery, so
10:28
Speaker 1: I count that as a significant hit. Another one broke
10:31
Speaker 1: my forearm in two places, severed an archery in there,
10:34
Speaker 1: obviously a significant hit. Two bullets into my stomach lost
10:38
Speaker 1: forty five centimeters of bow. Two in my left thigh,
10:41
Speaker 1: missed the femeral artery by the width of a piece
10:43
Speaker 1: of paper. One went through my right achilles tendon and
10:47
Speaker 1: severed eighty percent of the thickness, and so I got
10:51
Speaker 1: and stood with twenty percent of my achilles tendon still
10:54
Speaker 1: holding together. And I still only have twenty percent of
10:57
Speaker 1: my achilles tendon now. And the other ones either hit
11:00
Speaker 1: the ceramic plate and didn't penetrate, hit a piece of
11:03
Speaker 1: equipment on my thigh, or they were either bullets or
11:07
Speaker 1: shrapnel that just cut through the skin enough to need stitching.
11:11
Speaker 1: But it was hit fourteen times. And then I was
11:14
Speaker 1: dealing with two sevadar trees, massive life threatening injuries to
11:18
Speaker 1: other parts of my body, and I fired back. I
11:21
Speaker 1: managed to roll away, I managed to get to my
11:24
Speaker 1: feet despite those injuries. Stagger around the corner, have that
11:28
Speaker 1: moment of reflection and lightheartedness which breaks at tension and
11:32
Speaker 1: allows us to be more created. Then I went around
11:35
Speaker 1: the corner, I collapsed to the ground again because I
11:38
Speaker 1: didn't have the energy or the strength to be able
11:40
Speaker 1: to hold myself up. And I was lying on my
11:43
Speaker 1: back for the next three hours waiting for the boys
11:46
Speaker 1: to come and get me. And for the three hours
11:48
Speaker 1: I was lying on the ground, I had every confidence
11:51
Speaker 1: they would be there as soon as they safely could,
11:54
Speaker 1: and I was fully conscious for that three hours.
11:57
Speaker 2: And the siege raged around you Sapaul admitted to firing
12:02
Speaker 2: seventeen hundred and sixty rounds in that exchange.
12:06
Speaker 1: YEP, amazing, and he fired similar He fired about two
12:10
Speaker 1: thousand rounds as well. So for the entire three hours
12:14
Speaker 1: that I was on the ground, he was just firing,
12:17
Speaker 1: reloading a thirty round magazine, and firing again. For the
12:21
Speaker 1: entire three hours I was lying on the ground, and ironically,
12:24
Speaker 1: when he was shooting, I felt comfortable because when he
12:28
Speaker 1: was shooting, I was able to identify where he was
12:29
Speaker 1: in the house by where the sound was coming from.
12:32
Speaker 1: The majority of the time he was in the roof
12:33
Speaker 1: of the house in the attic, and so I was comfortable.
12:36
Speaker 1: From that place, he could not see me or shoot me.
12:40
Speaker 1: So while he was shooting and up there, I was
12:43
Speaker 1: able to relax. When he wasn't shootings, when my mind
12:46
Speaker 1: started racing again, where is he going? Is he coming out?
12:49
Speaker 1: Is he searching for me? Is he hunting me? And
12:52
Speaker 1: I had to use every bit of strength in my
12:55
Speaker 1: mindset to be able to control my panic, control my shock,
12:58
Speaker 1: keep my breathing in control, and slow down my heart
13:01
Speaker 1: rate so that I didn't bleed out. Through these two
13:04
Speaker 1: seven archeries all the rest of the injuries.
13:07
Speaker 2: That would be a real possibility. So you had the
13:09
Speaker 2: presence of mind at that moment to realize, if I
13:13
Speaker 2: stay calm here, I'm going to survive.
13:14
Speaker 1: If I panic, I'm dead absolutely, And that came from
13:18
Speaker 1: the visualization beforehand, saying what will my body want to
13:22
Speaker 1: do and what will that impact be, what will my
13:24
Speaker 1: mind want to be doing, and what do I know
13:26
Speaker 1: I should be doing? And how do I get from
13:28
Speaker 1: there to here? And you know, it's the classic where
13:32
Speaker 1: am I now? And where do I want to go
13:33
Speaker 1: to and what do I need to do to get there?
13:36
Speaker 1: But that came from the visualization beforehand. So what happened
13:40
Speaker 1: next in this siege? So I was lying on the
13:43
Speaker 1: ground for three hours, and to give you a little
13:46
Speaker 1: bit of an insight into what was happening in my mind,
13:49
Speaker 1: I had every moment of reality saying that with the
13:53
Speaker 1: injuries that I've got, I'm going to have very serious
13:56
Speaker 1: consequences coming forward, and knowing that it could cause death.
14:00
Speaker 1: There's no ways about it. I could die from what
14:03
Speaker 1: I've got here. But when I looked at the worst
14:06
Speaker 1: case scenario if I was to get out of this alive,
14:09
Speaker 1: I started thinking I may spend the rest of my
14:11
Speaker 1: life in a wheelchair, and I had to try and
14:13
Speaker 1: figure out how I'm going to make that interesting. And
14:15
Speaker 1: this is while I'm lying on the ground and he's
14:18
Speaker 1: firing and shooting, and my blood is pulling on the
14:22
Speaker 1: ground next to me, and I'm starting to think, how
14:24
Speaker 1: am I going to make life interesting if I'm going
14:26
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair?
14:27
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, I played basketball, I could
14:30
Speaker 1: maybe play wheelchair basketball. I like to tell people I've
14:33
Speaker 1: got a bit of an ego, don't shy away from it.
14:36
Speaker 1: And my ego kicked in, and I'm gone, do you
14:38
Speaker 1: know something, I'm damn good at basketball. I may be
14:40
Speaker 1: able to make the Paralympic team. And the Paralympic team
14:43
Speaker 1: they are traveling the world and I'm not traveling the
14:45
Speaker 1: world at the moment. Actually, there could be a bonus
14:47
Speaker 1: in this. Now. I don't know if you know anybody
14:49
Speaker 1: in the Special Forces. I'm sure you do. If a
14:52
Speaker 1: copper has got an ego, this big, ours is this big?
14:55
Speaker 1: That ego kicked in And while I'm lying on the ground,
14:57
Speaker 1: my body's closing down. He's shooting blood pulling on the ground.
15:01
Speaker 1: I start thinking to myself, if I make the Paralympic
15:04
Speaker 1: team add something to what they're already doing, we may
15:07
Speaker 1: be able to make the Paralympic finals. I may end
15:09
Speaker 1: up with a gold medal. It's a good way of
15:11
Speaker 1: distracting yourself. It's a good way of distracting myself. But
15:14
Speaker 1: I've analyzed what I was doing there and I've now
15:17
Speaker 1: put it into a model and it's the first step
15:19
Speaker 1: in five drivers for success, and that was creating a
15:23
Speaker 1: sense of optimism. Where I was was not a great place.
15:28
Speaker 2: You talked about preparing your wife for this possible eventuality. Yep,
15:32
Speaker 2: I've got no doubt that news is spreading pretty quickly.
15:35
Speaker 1: What's going on there.
15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, she doesn't know that your would, I presume, But
15:40
Speaker 2: were you thinking about her and your kids?
15:43
Speaker 1: I was thinking about my pa. It's a contentious point
15:46
Speaker 1: between my wife and I because I will admit I
15:48
Speaker 1: was thinking about my children and it wasn't a lot
15:51
Speaker 1: of thought about her. I've been open about that. But
15:54
Speaker 1: the one thing that I wanted, and I identified this
15:56
Speaker 1: to her five years beforehand, I said, if worst case
15:59
Speaker 1: scenario happens, and we discussed the fact I may end
16:03
Speaker 1: up in a wheelchair, and I said, even if i
16:05
Speaker 1: end up in a wheelchair, so long as I'm able
16:07
Speaker 1: to interact with my children, I'll be happy. So this
16:10
Speaker 1: is about accepting responsibility for choice, for behaviors, for consequence,
16:14
Speaker 1: but also the future after consequence, right, and that conversation,
16:19
Speaker 1: anything better than death is a bonus as long as
16:21
Speaker 1: I'm able to interact with my kids. And for the
16:23
Speaker 1: three hours I was lying on the ground, it's the
16:25
Speaker 1: one thing that gave me the drive, the determination, the
16:28
Speaker 1: focus to keep on fighting. I wanted to be there
16:31
Speaker 1: with them for their birthdays, their weddings, their trials, their tribulations,
16:35
Speaker 1: just be there to interact with them. And that is
16:38
Speaker 1: definitely what kept me focused and driven to keep fighting.
16:42
Speaker 2: Because lying in the pool of blood broken limbs, it'd
16:46
Speaker 2: be tempting to feel sorry for oneself, but that wouldn't
16:48
Speaker 2: have helped you.
16:50
Speaker 1: Now and again, I go back to those four steps
16:53
Speaker 1: of responsibility, and I love talking to corporates about that.
16:56
Speaker 1: Except responsibility for my choice, my behaviors, my consequences, both
17:00
Speaker 1: good and bad. Going into stargroup, sensational life, all the
17:04
Speaker 1: boys toy you could ever ask for, but also the
17:07
Speaker 1: chance that I may be shot and injured or may
17:08
Speaker 1: be shot and killed. I accepted responsibility for that, and
17:12
Speaker 1: I accept responsibility for the future if it does happen.
17:15
Speaker 1: Worst case scenario, I may end up in a wheelchair?
17:18
Speaker 1: What will that look like? And if we can get
17:21
Speaker 1: people to start thinking this way every time they make
17:23
Speaker 1: a choice about what behavior is going to take, then
17:27
Speaker 1: we can design better outcomes. The challenge we have personally
17:31
Speaker 1: and in business is that people go, oh, listen, I'm
17:35
Speaker 1: going to do this. I hope it works out well
17:37
Speaker 1: because it's worked out well for other people, so it
17:39
Speaker 1: should work out well for me, rather than going to
17:42
Speaker 1: know something. We don't have the finance to fund failure,
17:45
Speaker 1: we don't have the expertise to be able to do this.
17:48
Speaker 1: So taking this opportunity or this chance may actually destroy us.
17:52
Speaker 1: We need to say no. And if we can get
17:54
Speaker 1: people to just take on those four steps of responsibility,
17:58
Speaker 1: it can change the way people perform and also help
18:01
Speaker 1: them to take ownership moving forward than going oh, it's
18:06
Speaker 1: not me, I didn't do it. I'm not going to
18:08
Speaker 1: tell anybody. Let's take ownership of it and move forward positively.
18:12
Speaker 2: You certainly did. One who wasn't taking responsibility. Was Tony Grosser?
18:16
Speaker 2: In fact, later on when he's in jail, Yeah, he
18:18
Speaker 2: finds God and he talks about the fact that it
18:21
Speaker 2: was a miracle that I wasn't killed, forgetting the fact
18:24
Speaker 2: that he was the one that precipitated that situation.
18:28
Speaker 1: How was he not killed?
18:29
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a credit to Sapol that
18:32
Speaker 2: he wasn't killed and taken alive what happened.
18:35
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you. It's a credit to Sapold.
18:38
Speaker 1: It's an absolute credit to Star Group because most people
18:41
Speaker 1: go your mates must have been so angry with him,
18:45
Speaker 1: they would have taken him out in an instant. And
18:47
Speaker 1: it is a credit to the professionalism of Star Group,
18:49
Speaker 1: and that's how we are taught and driven and managed.
18:52
Speaker 1: But certainly, while I was on the ground, if he
18:56
Speaker 1: had presented himself as a target and he was still
18:59
Speaker 1: threatening me, it would have been like that and he
19:02
Speaker 1: would have been shot, disabled and whatever that might have
19:05
Speaker 1: meant for him. But he would have been disabled so
19:08
Speaker 1: they could get into me earlier. But he didn't present
19:11
Speaker 1: himself as a target. He hid. He was very, very
19:13
Speaker 1: tactical himself. And when I was taken out and the
19:17
Speaker 1: siege went on for another thirty eight hours after I
19:20
Speaker 1: was taken out longer siege in South Australia. When he
19:23
Speaker 1: did present, there was certainly an opportunity that if somebody
19:27
Speaker 1: had been vindictive and malicious, they could have injured him
19:31
Speaker 1: at that time. But again it goes back to the
19:33
Speaker 1: professionalism of Sapole and of Star Group that he was
19:36
Speaker 1: treated with the greatest respect because we knew that anything
19:40
Speaker 1: that we did would endanger any future court proceedings and
19:44
Speaker 1: it's just inhumane to be able to do those things.
19:47
Speaker 1: We have a responsibility to treat everybody the best way
19:51
Speaker 1: we can to get the right outcome.
19:53
Speaker 2: Because no matter what he had done, if he was
19:56
Speaker 2: shot and killed, that would have been reviewed frame by
19:59
Speaker 2: frame in slow motion in the Supreme Court. And the
20:02
Speaker 2: fact that you were wounded wouldn't have prevented people being
20:04
Speaker 2: he held accountable on your side.
20:07
Speaker 1: No, absolutely not. And as you take action like that
20:09
Speaker 1: without true justification, it becomes murder. There is no two
20:12
Speaker 1: ways about that. That is very omnipresent in our minds
20:16
Speaker 1: in everything we do, that everything has to be done legally, morally,
20:21
Speaker 1: socially responsibly to make sure that everybody has the best outcome,
20:25
Speaker 1: and people are held account by the courts, not by
20:29
Speaker 1: an individual. So what happened in the end, So he
20:33
Speaker 1: stayed in the house for forty one hours or er
20:36
Speaker 1: and Sapole, how do I say this succinctly, Sapole essentially
20:40
Speaker 1: coached him out. He became exhausted. They presented an opportunity
20:44
Speaker 1: for him. Well, they actually knocked down half the side
20:47
Speaker 1: of the roof so that he was completely exposed, but
20:50
Speaker 1: that still took another three hours. He came out, he
20:53
Speaker 1: was arrested, assessed by psychologists, psychiatrists, and as you strived
20:58
Speaker 1: in the beginning, it was a good deal of paranoia,
21:01
Speaker 1: but completely saying otherwise, and he was taken to court.
21:06
Speaker 1: It took us two and a half years to get
21:07
Speaker 1: him to court for the first trial, and that was
21:11
Speaker 1: a trial that lasted about a month long as barrister
21:14
Speaker 1: represented him. He was found guilty twenty two years jail,
21:18
Speaker 1: eighteen years non parole. He appealed and won the appeal,
21:22
Speaker 1: so we went back to court another two and a
21:24
Speaker 1: half years later, so we're now talking five years after
21:27
Speaker 1: the shooting, and this time he didn't have a barrister.
21:31
Speaker 1: He couldn't get representation and he decided to represent himself.
21:35
Speaker 1: I was in the witness box for five days, being
21:38
Speaker 1: questioned and ridiculed and harassed by the person who had
21:42
Speaker 1: shot me fourteen times. Absolutely exhausted at the end of it.
21:45
Speaker 1: The trial lasted three months. At that time it was
21:48
Speaker 1: the longest trial ever in South Australia. Twenty three years jail,
21:52
Speaker 1: eighteen years non parole. Again, the penalty and conviction was upheld.
21:57
Speaker 1: He appealed, appealed, appealed, went all the way to the
21:59
Speaker 1: High Court. Both penalty and conviction were both upheld and
22:03
Speaker 1: he spent twenty two years in jail. This happened thirty
22:06
Speaker 1: one years ago, so for the last nine years he
22:09
Speaker 1: has been walking amongst us.
22:11
Speaker 2: Yes, he was released in twenty seventeen, but there was
22:13
Speaker 2: monitoring after that. But Yes, that experience you describe of
22:18
Speaker 2: going to court and the frustrations of that, and it's
22:21
Speaker 2: just an endless cycle of appearances and things often contributes
22:26
Speaker 2: to the development of post traumatic stress disorder. Yes, reliving
22:31
Speaker 2: it over and over and it's usually not the one event.
22:34
Speaker 2: It's the drip drip in the bucket and these sorts
22:37
Speaker 2: of things. I mean, you're back at work within two
22:39
Speaker 2: and a half years back at the Star group, Yes,
22:42
Speaker 2: how did you approach that whole elongated process that you've faced.
22:48
Speaker 1: Well, my thinking of taking responsibility and relation to the
22:51
Speaker 1: shooting carried forward into managing my mental health moving forward
22:57
Speaker 1: after the shooting. So part of that visualization is I
23:01
Speaker 1: said to myself, how is this going to affect me mentally? Emotionally? Nightmares, flashbacks,
23:05
Speaker 1: panic attacks. These were all reality that happened for other people.
23:09
Speaker 1: If they do happen for me, how will I manage it?
23:11
Speaker 1: So five days after the shooting, through my hand in
23:14
Speaker 1: there and said, get me a psych. I want to
23:16
Speaker 1: talk to a psych. It took Sapole three months to
23:19
Speaker 1: get a psych to me. That's another discussion altogether. But
23:24
Speaker 1: when I spoke to that psych, I ran through what
23:26
Speaker 1: my thinking was be the visualization, the conversations that I had,
23:30
Speaker 1: the responsibility that i'd taken, the future thoughts that I had,
23:34
Speaker 1: the fact that I'd had nightmares but they weren't recurring,
23:37
Speaker 1: the fact that I'd had bad dreams but they were
23:39
Speaker 1: always good outcomes, even though they were struggles during the dream.
23:43
Speaker 1: I'd had panic attacks, but they weren't recurring, and I
23:47
Speaker 1: was open about all of this and because of the
23:50
Speaker 1: way my mindset has been set up in that taking
23:54
Speaker 1: responsibility and looking future focused, the Pike said, Derek, psychologically,
23:58
Speaker 1: you're doing absolutely perfectly. There is no PTSD. Yes, you've
24:01
Speaker 1: had some effects, but it is not PTSD. And I
24:05
Speaker 1: didn't need any ongoing therapy because he said the way
24:08
Speaker 1: my mind works and my openness too are having challenges
24:12
Speaker 1: and changes in my life. If I did need psych
24:15
Speaker 1: I would come back and see him, and I was
24:17
Speaker 1: completely open to that. So I'm very, very fortunate that
24:20
Speaker 1: what happened to me was actually post traumatic growth, not PTSD. Right,
24:27
Speaker 1: How interesting you know you're so organized about this.
24:30
Speaker 2: A year after you had that experience, I was in
24:33
Speaker 2: a township in South Africa and we got carjacked six
24:36
Speaker 2: guys with guns who were drunk, and they wanted to
24:37
Speaker 2: kill us.
24:38
Speaker 1: They attained us for half an hour.
24:40
Speaker 2: And I'm the son of a psychiatrist, right, And I've
24:44
Speaker 2: been in that stree to hundred times in dreams, right,
24:47
Speaker 2: hundreds of times, getting shot, not getting shot, getting away,
24:51
Speaker 2: remaining the all kinds of stuff, kids appearing to me,
24:53
Speaker 2: all kinds of things. I never had any therapy whatsoever.
24:56
Speaker 2: And I should have. I wi't look back, and I
24:58
Speaker 2: realized should have. I was trying to be tough and
24:59
Speaker 2: get back to work. I was a free large journalist.
25:01
Speaker 2: I didn't have time for that. But you decided that
25:04
Speaker 2: you were going, and much against the grain of those years.
25:06
Speaker 1: By the way, oh yeah, absolutely four.
25:09
Speaker 2: They weren't doing that sort of stuff as course as
25:13
Speaker 2: I do now.
25:14
Speaker 1: Certainly not the tough guys. The tough guys were not
25:17
Speaker 1: doing it. And I say that inverted Commas and I
25:19
Speaker 1: don't know where that came from. I can only put
25:21
Speaker 1: it down to my parenting that made me open to
25:24
Speaker 1: that vulnerability. Intuitively, I knew it was what I needed
25:28
Speaker 1: to do. But it's not because I felt weak. I
25:30
Speaker 1: didn't feel like I was breaking. It was just I
25:33
Speaker 1: wanted that insight. They've got more expertise than me. They've
25:37
Speaker 1: seen people who have dealt with it badly. They've also
25:39
Speaker 1: seen people who have dealt with it well, and I
25:40
Speaker 1: wanted to pick their brains about what the experience might
25:43
Speaker 1: be for me. And again, it's responsibility for choice, behavior,
25:47
Speaker 1: consequence and the future afterwards. Here I am I've been shot.
25:52
Speaker 1: This is not my choice, it's my circumstance. But what
25:55
Speaker 1: does the future look like, what are the behaviors from here?
25:57
Speaker 1: What's the experience I'm going to have? What might the good,
26:00
Speaker 1: what might the bad be? And if it does happen,
26:03
Speaker 1: how do I handle it myself? The best outcome? And
26:07
Speaker 1: the reading research that I've done recently, most people see
26:10
Speaker 1: that you either have PTSD or you have a good outcome.
26:14
Speaker 1: The research that's coming out now is they coexist. You
26:18
Speaker 1: can have PTSD but still have good insights and good
26:21
Speaker 1: life afterwards. Even though you have PTSD. PTSD is not
26:26
Speaker 1: isolated and a conviction to a terrible life afterwards. You
26:31
Speaker 1: can have some PTSD and still have good life as well.
26:34
Speaker 1: And so that research, I think it's going to open
26:37
Speaker 1: up the minds of people dealing with PTSD from military
26:40
Speaker 1: or emergency services or any form of PTSD. I have
26:45
Speaker 1: a friend who got PTSD from a very bad step parenting.
26:49
Speaker 1: She was a step parenting. It wasn't pretty and she's
26:52
Speaker 1: got PTSD from that. And the model can help anybody
26:56
Speaker 1: going through those challenges. Hmmm. I think I should go
26:59
Speaker 1: for some therapy now having this because I still see
27:03
Speaker 1: the nine come and see me afterwards, Adam, I still see.
27:07
Speaker 2: That nine mil Barrel pointed at me, and I can
27:10
Speaker 2: still see our sound records. We were shooting television and
27:12
Speaker 2: sound recorders, negotiating for our lives. He was from that
27:15
Speaker 2: area and their attitude was we should just kill these
27:18
Speaker 2: people and take their car. Fools, what are you doing
27:20
Speaker 2: in the South African township. I think that has profoundly
27:23
Speaker 2: affected me. But I think everyone's life, whether a police
27:26
Speaker 2: officer or a journalist. So if you're out there in
27:29
Speaker 2: the wilds, there's going to be trauma. But I think
27:32
Speaker 2: your attitude about preparing oneself for it and recognizing it
27:36
Speaker 2: and having a plan is a good one.
27:39
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Again, the research that I'm doing shows an insight
27:43
Speaker 1: into the fact that within every eighteen month period in
27:48
Speaker 1: our life, there is some sort of trauma. Now this
27:51
Speaker 1: is not a physical trauma. It might be the hot
27:54
Speaker 1: water service bursts when you're having a party. It might
27:57
Speaker 1: be the children have to go to hospital. It might
27:59
Speaker 1: be the car breaks down. It might be you have
28:02
Speaker 1: a breakup in your relationship divorce. Eighteen month period, there
28:06
Speaker 1: is some sort of major incident which could be traumatic,
28:10
Speaker 1: or it could be just do you know something, this
28:12
Speaker 1: has happened, let's manage it. Let's move on. I think
28:15
Speaker 1: there are too many people who go I want a
28:17
Speaker 1: good life and I don't want anything bad to happen.
28:19
Speaker 1: But let's be honest. There are highs, there are lows,
28:23
Speaker 1: and we need to just be able to go, Okay,
28:24
Speaker 1: this is a low period. What can we do to
28:26
Speaker 1: manage it. We are not the first people on the
28:29
Speaker 1: face of this earth. We have been here for millennia
28:32
Speaker 1: and there has always been highs and lows and challenges.
28:36
Speaker 1: No matter who you are, no matter how much money
28:38
Speaker 1: you've got, how much bad parenting you've been exposed to,
28:41
Speaker 1: We've all had it. So let's accept the reality that
28:44
Speaker 1: we are going to face challenges, have some idea of
28:47
Speaker 1: what we're going to deal with, some idea of how
28:49
Speaker 1: it's going to affect us feelings, emotions, and some idea
28:52
Speaker 1: of how we're going to be able to manage it.
28:55
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we're not going to suffer. It
28:56
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we're not going to be upset, doesn't mean
28:58
Speaker 1: that we're not going to be going, oh my god,
29:00
Speaker 1: this is terrible, but we can proactively prepare to manage it.
29:05
Speaker 2: I've been talking to a Grand Prix motorcycle racer who
29:09
Speaker 2: had a very serious accident, and he came back to
29:12
Speaker 2: racing and he found that he could never approach a
29:17
Speaker 2: corner the way he had previously. He could never have
29:20
Speaker 2: that confidence and faith that there was nothing around the
29:22
Speaker 2: corner that was going to hit him or or clide
29:24
Speaker 2: into whatever. How did you return to your service having
29:28
Speaker 2: gone through that experience and survived?
29:33
Speaker 1: You know, this is something else that I absolutely love
29:35
Speaker 1: to talk about, is the choices we make and the
29:38
Speaker 1: circumstances we throw ourselves into. I was able to go
29:41
Speaker 1: back to stargroup because I was absolutely passionate about that world.
29:46
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved it. But I didn't do it as
29:49
Speaker 1: a risk taker. I did it as a risk manager,
29:53
Speaker 1: and there's a very different perspective and mindset around both
29:56
Speaker 1: of those. The racing car driver going back into the
29:59
Speaker 1: racing and absolutely committing himself even though he didn't have faith,
30:03
Speaker 1: that is risk taking. I went back in and I
30:07
Speaker 1: had staged introduction back in. I went back into training
30:10
Speaker 1: to see whether I would balk or get scared, or
30:13
Speaker 1: what my actions would be in training, and our training
30:15
Speaker 1: is very realistic. For anybody who's played paintball and knows
30:19
Speaker 1: that it hurts, come play with us. We have high
30:21
Speaker 1: tech paintball, so our training is very realistic and I
30:25
Speaker 1: went back into that and absolutely loved it. The first
30:28
Speaker 1: job that I went back to, I was in the
30:30
Speaker 1: outer courdon, way away from the action, and people were
30:33
Speaker 1: watching me. I was watching me. I then went to
30:36
Speaker 1: the innerccordon. I then went to the arrest team. The
30:38
Speaker 1: arrest team see the offender when he's brought out of
30:41
Speaker 1: their premises. I then went to entry team. And at
30:44
Speaker 1: every stage I was assessing myself, but I also knew
30:47
Speaker 1: and accepted and expected everybody else to be watching me
30:52
Speaker 1: and judging me as to how I was going to perform. Now,
30:56
Speaker 1: most people would be intimidated by that. You've got to
30:58
Speaker 1: trust me. Why are you judging me? No, I would
31:01
Speaker 1: be exactly the same, So that didn't intimidate me. You've
31:05
Speaker 1: got to watch me. And the thought in my head
31:08
Speaker 1: is if I balk at any stage, I'm out of there,
31:11
Speaker 1: because not only does it put my life in danger,
31:14
Speaker 1: it puts my partner's lives in danger as well, and
31:17
Speaker 1: we've got to think about everybody involved. So it was very,
31:20
Speaker 1: very stage, but I was passionate about getting in there.
31:23
Speaker 1: The conversations I like to have with people around. That
31:25
Speaker 1: sort of stuff is in policing. There are people in
31:29
Speaker 1: particular who get into child sex offender investigation and they
31:33
Speaker 1: find this becomes too overwhelming for them. Oh my gosh,
31:36
Speaker 1: it's too bad. But I can't leave because people think
31:39
Speaker 1: I'm weak, people will think I'm not good enough, people
31:42
Speaker 1: will judge me where They've got to say, do you
31:44
Speaker 1: know something this environment is not right for me. I
31:47
Speaker 1: want to go and find something that I really enjoy,
31:49
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about, and go and do that. But they
31:52
Speaker 1: stay there because they don't want to be judged or
31:54
Speaker 1: they don't want to feel weak themselves. And unfortunately, I've
31:57
Speaker 1: had one friend who took his life because it all
32:00
Speaker 1: became too much for him. And we need to make
32:03
Speaker 1: better decisions about what we're passion about. Another example I
32:06
Speaker 1: quickly want to give you is I've got an accountant,
32:09
Speaker 1: and she is an absolutely beautiful lady. She could never
32:12
Speaker 1: be a stary, she could never be on the end
32:13
Speaker 1: of a trigger and take someone's life if she needed to.
32:17
Speaker 1: I can tell you right now if I became an accountant,
32:19
Speaker 1: it would send me round the twist. Because she is passionate.
32:23
Speaker 1: She stays up at night worrying about my numbers. We
32:26
Speaker 1: need people to follow their passion because that's where they're
32:29
Speaker 1: going to be happy, and we need to be bold
32:31
Speaker 1: enough to go to know something. I'm not enjoying this.
32:33
Speaker 1: And so if at any stage I went back into
32:36
Speaker 1: stargroup and I said to myself, do you know this
32:38
Speaker 1: is too much? I don't like this? Or if a
32:41
Speaker 1: member of my family had said this is too much
32:44
Speaker 1: my family were more important than the job, I would
32:47
Speaker 1: have found a different passion.
32:50
Speaker 2: It's one thing to have a near death experience, which
32:52
Speaker 2: you had, but it's also something else to be part
32:56
Speaker 2: of a team that takes a life and the impact
32:59
Speaker 2: that has on members.
33:01
Speaker 1: Can you talk us through what that's like. Have you
33:03
Speaker 1: been in that situation as well. I've never had to
33:06
Speaker 1: take a life. When I fired back at the guy
33:09
Speaker 1: who shot me, I did hit him with a bit
33:11
Speaker 1: of shrapnel that came from a brick, and there was
33:14
Speaker 1: a bullet that skipped across the lower back. So I've
33:17
Speaker 1: certainly shot and hit someone, but I've never taken a life,
33:20
Speaker 1: and I've never been part of taking a life. But again,
33:23
Speaker 1: this goes down to I've visualized the fact that if
33:27
Speaker 1: and this was in particular to dis job. I'll give
33:29
Speaker 1: you that scenario. As we approached the house, I was
33:32
Speaker 1: running through the scenario in my mind. I know that
33:35
Speaker 1: his wife and two very young children were in the house,
33:39
Speaker 1: and if he started shooting, which was a real possibility,
33:42
Speaker 1: I was going to need to shoot back into the house.
33:45
Speaker 1: And if I'm shooting at him and his wife or
33:47
Speaker 1: one of his children are standing near him, I may
33:49
Speaker 1: shoot them accidentally. And I had to prepare myself. If
33:53
Speaker 1: I shoot them, how am I going to feel? How
33:56
Speaker 1: is it going to affect them? And I'd already justified
33:59
Speaker 1: in my mind that I am trying to protect the
34:01
Speaker 1: lives of myself or my partners. I'm trying to stop
34:05
Speaker 1: him if somebody else gets hit. It is not something
34:08
Speaker 1: I'm doing deliberately, and that's going to affect me in
34:12
Speaker 1: a certain way. But I needed to be able to
34:13
Speaker 1: be comfortable with that. I took it even further that
34:18
Speaker 1: if I shot him and he had died and I
34:20
Speaker 1: ran into one of his children, when they turn eighteen
34:23
Speaker 1: twenty and they meet me and they approached me and
34:26
Speaker 1: they say, you killed my father. I've had a terrible
34:29
Speaker 1: life as a result of that how am I going
34:31
Speaker 1: to feel eighteen years, twenty years from now? And I'd
34:34
Speaker 1: run that through my mind and I felt like I
34:37
Speaker 1: was reasonably well prepared that I can sit comfortably with.
34:42
Speaker 1: I was trying to do the right thing and responding
34:45
Speaker 1: to the behaviors of the offender, and it was him
34:49
Speaker 1: that had caused the situation I was responding to. It
34:52
Speaker 1: have to take responsibility for I fired the shot. I
34:54
Speaker 1: took the life of whoever it might have been. But
34:57
Speaker 1: I had to prepare myself for what would it feel like?
35:00
Speaker 1: How would I answer that twenty years down the track.
35:03
Speaker 1: So I don't know where I get that mindset from,
35:06
Speaker 1: but I find that it is appropriate. I work with
35:09
Speaker 1: kids in schools who are dealing with bullying, being excluded
35:13
Speaker 1: from friendship groups, dealing with learning activities. I'm about to
35:17
Speaker 1: go and work with some MI five retired officers in
35:21
Speaker 1: London and deliver an executive retreat for how people can
35:24
Speaker 1: run their businesses in life better. The philosophy that I'm
35:28
Speaker 1: coming up with by reflecting on what I did, is
35:31
Speaker 1: universally applicable and it could be applied to what can
35:35
Speaker 1: be judged as the most menial challenge. But I like
35:38
Speaker 1: to say that kids going through bullying, kids going through
35:42
Speaker 1: being excluded. Some parents go, oh, isn't it cute? In
35:45
Speaker 1: five years time, they'll never remember it. It really doesn't matter.
35:48
Speaker 1: We don't have to deal with it too much. I
35:50
Speaker 1: can tell you right now that is life and death
35:53
Speaker 1: to that five year old child that I have been excluded.
35:56
Speaker 1: Oh my, it's the biggest thing that's happening to them.
35:59
Speaker 1: It needs to be given the reality that they perceive
36:02
Speaker 1: it to be and then put into context and everything else.
36:05
Speaker 1: But what I talked about these days is universally applicable,
36:08
Speaker 1: and I love putting it into scenarios for absolutely anybody.
36:14
Speaker 2: Indeed, police officers and soldiers on that ilk use black
36:18
Speaker 2: humor to get through things. Oh yeah, in your case,
36:22
Speaker 2: your colleagues had a nickname for you, which I think
36:25
Speaker 2: is I wouldn't say it to you, but I guess
36:27
Speaker 2: they could.
36:28
Speaker 1: What was it had so many holes? Well, I welcome
36:32
Speaker 1: anybody to be able to say it to me because
36:34
Speaker 1: I embraced the dark sense of humor as well. And
36:37
Speaker 1: they certainly called me Sprinkler for a little while and
36:40
Speaker 1: after another drink of water.
36:42
Speaker 2: It's just terrible image, but it's quite funny.
36:46
Speaker 1: Somebody else came up with and it was a female
36:49
Speaker 1: police officer came up with the nickname of Donald, and
36:52
Speaker 1: I've gone away, Hang on, my name's Derek. She's gone No.
36:54
Speaker 1: From now on, it's Donald because you forgot to duck
37:01
Speaker 1: and the name has become creative. And the thing I
37:04
Speaker 1: love is it is dark sense of humor, and it
37:06
Speaker 1: is light hard, and it does break tension, but nobody
37:09
Speaker 1: has done it disrespectfully, and they've always said in their minds,
37:14
Speaker 1: is Derek capable of managing this? The other thing that
37:16
Speaker 1: I'd like to say about the dark sense of humor
37:19
Speaker 1: is I have seen too many police officers dark sense
37:21
Speaker 1: of humor absolutely crack up laughings, crack jokes, then fall
37:25
Speaker 1: over with depression. Because the dark sense of humor can
37:28
Speaker 1: break the tension for the moment, but we still need
37:31
Speaker 1: to do the work in the background to manage those
37:34
Speaker 1: experiences and put them into context. Dark sense of humor
37:37
Speaker 1: alone is a very dangerous thing, but it certainly has
37:41
Speaker 1: its place, and I completely embrace it and love it,
37:44
Speaker 1: and it's continuing today.
37:47
Speaker 2: At the time of this incident, I don't think people
37:49
Speaker 2: were even talking about PTSD. I talked about shell shock
37:52
Speaker 2: or depression or different things. Do you think we're managing
37:56
Speaker 2: to get better these days? Is there a recognition that
37:58
Speaker 2: it is such an insidious thing PTSD?
38:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first mention of PTSD was by military and
38:05
Speaker 1: it was certainly surface level. But the first mention of
38:08
Speaker 1: PTSD goes back to the seventies. You know, we've still
38:12
Speaker 1: talked about shell shock and not recognizing that it was
38:16
Speaker 1: actually something that we could manage. We are managing a
38:20
Speaker 1: lot better these days. It's very much accepted and people
38:23
Speaker 1: understand what they're going through, and that understanding creates insight,
38:28
Speaker 1: creates comfortableness. Okay, what I'm dealing with is actually reality.
38:32
Speaker 1: It's not just me, it's other people as well. There
38:34
Speaker 1: is a way to manage it, and we are more
38:36
Speaker 1: open to talking about mental challenges, mental health issues, and
38:40
Speaker 1: our mental well being. The challenge that is still out
38:44
Speaker 1: there is that employers are not employers are paying lip
38:47
Speaker 1: service to it. Yes, we understand it, and we want
38:50
Speaker 1: to give you help and all the rest of it,
38:52
Speaker 1: but we still see those members being pushed aside and
38:55
Speaker 1: not given opportunities, not given promotions, and not embraced completely.
39:00
Speaker 1: It certainly needs to be managed, but it needs to
39:03
Speaker 1: be embraced and supported. Going back to my model of
39:07
Speaker 1: what are the choices we're making, What are the consequences
39:09
Speaker 1: we can find ourselves in. What does the future look like?
39:12
Speaker 1: The more we prepare ourselves beforehand for the reality that
39:16
Speaker 1: I'm going into the army, I may be shot and injured,
39:18
Speaker 1: I may be shot and killed, or as you said,
39:21
Speaker 1: I may shoot someone. How's that going to make me feel?
39:25
Speaker 1: We will get taught. You know, you're allowed to justify it.
39:27
Speaker 1: And I don't have a religious background. People with religious backgrounds,
39:31
Speaker 1: this is affecting them morally, and they're making choices that
39:35
Speaker 1: they're not comfortable with. But the better we can prepare
39:39
Speaker 1: them for that physical as well as the mental and
39:43
Speaker 1: emotional challenge, the better chance we've got of them having
39:46
Speaker 1: good outcomes afterwards.
39:48
Speaker 2: Certainly, May five, nineteen ninety four was a pivotal day
39:52
Speaker 2: for you, and I wonder whether, given what you're doing now,
39:57
Speaker 2: you could almost give a perverse vote of thanks to
40:00
Speaker 2: Tony Grosser, that vivid moment as because part of your
40:05
Speaker 2: toolbox as you do what you do now.
40:09
Speaker 1: I smile, Riley. I love the way you have put that,
40:13
Speaker 1: and it describes it perfectly. I actually spent another twenty
40:16
Speaker 1: three years in the job. I retired in twenty eighteen,
40:19
Speaker 1: but having a perverse sense of thanks to him, I
40:23
Speaker 1: completely embraced that he did open up opportunities for me
40:27
Speaker 1: to have a look at my own behavior, my own
40:30
Speaker 1: thought process, which my personal overview of this, and it
40:35
Speaker 1: fits within that philosophy. My personal overview is I went
40:38
Speaker 1: to work, I got shot, I fell down, I got up,
40:40
Speaker 1: I got better, I went back to work, and that's
40:43
Speaker 1: how I saw it when I spoke to my wife,
40:45
Speaker 1: That's how I saw it in my visualizations. But because
40:48
Speaker 1: of what's happened to me, people have said to me,
40:51
Speaker 1: what were you thinking? How did you do that? How
40:53
Speaker 1: did you know to do that? And as a result
40:56
Speaker 1: of me being shot, thank you, Tony, I've now been
40:59
Speaker 1: able to share that with other people. Very quickly. I
41:02
Speaker 1: got approached by corporates to come and tell the story,
41:05
Speaker 1: and I literally said, no, not a chance. I don't
41:07
Speaker 1: want to. I do not want to stand on stage
41:09
Speaker 1: as a hero, because the heroes are the people that
41:11
Speaker 1: saved me. The Blood Service came to me and said,
41:14
Speaker 1: I used a stack of blood. Would I like to
41:17
Speaker 1: say thank you to Blood? Donors and I've gone absolutely
41:19
Speaker 1: I can say thank you all day long. And that
41:21
Speaker 1: was telling the story, given the details, all those things
41:24
Speaker 1: the corporates wanted. But this wasn't about me. It was
41:26
Speaker 1: about me saying thank you to the blood donors. And
41:29
Speaker 1: it was the blood donors that started asking these questions
41:32
Speaker 1: what were you thinking and saying, oh my god, you
41:35
Speaker 1: have changed my life, and I'm going, no, you changed
41:37
Speaker 1: my life. But it gave me the insight that there
41:40
Speaker 1: is greater, deeper messages in here that I'm able to share.
41:44
Speaker 1: So I stand on stage, I run workshops to share
41:47
Speaker 1: that with other people, because you.
41:49
Speaker 2: Do bring this message to a diverse range of audiences.
41:52
Speaker 2: And one thing I noticed in your material is you
41:54
Speaker 2: delineate between resilience, which most people are familiar with, it's
41:57
Speaker 2: a common term now, and durability.
41:59
Speaker 1: What's the difference, So resilience as it's commonly accepted, is
42:04
Speaker 1: there a ability to encounter problems in counter failures, breakdowns
42:08
Speaker 1: and bounce back. And most people are going, I will
42:12
Speaker 1: be resilient when something goes wrong, I'll activate my resilience.
42:15
Speaker 1: And we are now hearing in corporate impersonal in schools,
42:19
Speaker 1: you need to be more resilient people are now getting
42:21
Speaker 1: resilience fatigue because they're hearing it all that often resilience
42:25
Speaker 1: is accepted as their ability to bounce back. What I
42:28
Speaker 1: talk about with human durability is our ability to sustain
42:32
Speaker 1: optimal performance, and optimal performance is the very best you
42:36
Speaker 1: can possibly do in the circumstances. I just wrote a
42:40
Speaker 1: post today for LinkedIn and my other socials that in stargroup,
42:44
Speaker 1: I was trained to perform at one hundred percent one
42:47
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the time absolute peak performance. If I
42:50
Speaker 1: didn't do that, it was not acceptable and people would
42:53
Speaker 1: possibly die as a result of it. But at the
42:55
Speaker 1: time I got shot, if I'd tried to sustain peak performance,
42:59
Speaker 1: that would have meant that I kept on running, fighting, shooting,
43:02
Speaker 1: trying to break into the house I would have done
43:05
Speaker 1: because I would have exhausted my body. Intuitively, I had
43:09
Speaker 1: this vision, what's my mind going to want to do?
43:11
Speaker 1: What's my body wanting to do? What can I do
43:13
Speaker 1: to influence it to be able to sustain optimal performance?
43:17
Speaker 1: Four things I needed to do. Control panic, don't let
43:20
Speaker 1: panic control the situation, control shock, our body's physiological response
43:25
Speaker 1: to physical or psychological drama. Slow down my heart rate,
43:29
Speaker 1: slow down my breathing, because if I can control those
43:32
Speaker 1: four things, I will bleed less and I will survive
43:35
Speaker 1: for longer. And this was sustaining optimal performance. I was
43:39
Speaker 1: also highly aware that as I was lying on the
43:41
Speaker 1: ground and couldn't get myself up, I still had my
43:44
Speaker 1: pistol in my hand and he was still possibly going
43:47
Speaker 1: to come out to get me, so I was prepared
43:49
Speaker 1: to shoot if he did come out. That was the
43:52
Speaker 1: very best I could do, was to sustain that optimal performance.
43:56
Speaker 1: And this goes into every other aspect of our life
44:00
Speaker 1: as well. As I say, it's a diverse audience that
44:02
Speaker 1: I speak to, and everybody can relate to I talked
44:05
Speaker 1: to hairdressers, they can relate to it. I talked to tradees,
44:08
Speaker 1: they can relate to it. Because we all have our
44:10
Speaker 1: own challenges, and as much as mine was being shot,
44:14
Speaker 1: I'm able to put it into context that what is
44:17
Speaker 1: your challenge is what can you realistically expect to encounter
44:20
Speaker 1: in your life as a result of the choices you
44:23
Speaker 1: make or the circumstances you find yourself in, And how's
44:26
Speaker 1: that going to make you feel? And how do you
44:28
Speaker 1: manage that to get the best outcome afterwards. That little
44:31
Speaker 1: bit of having open, honest, confronting conversation right at the
44:35
Speaker 1: very beginning makes a massive difference.
44:39
Speaker 2: At Poor Punka, we saw two members allegedly murdered by
44:43
Speaker 2: Dizzy Freeman. A third was wounded. We saw I think
44:47
Speaker 2: almost twenty officers pin down for that period and there
44:51
Speaker 2: now having to deal with that day. If you could
44:55
Speaker 2: speak to them, what would you tell them?
44:58
Speaker 1: A lot of them are going to be feeling survivor guilt. Now,
45:01
Speaker 1: why wasn't it me right? And that is just unrealistic,
45:05
Speaker 1: but it's very normal. The feelings of what could I
45:08
Speaker 1: have done? What should I have done? How could we
45:10
Speaker 1: have been better prepared? These are very normal thoughts, and
45:14
Speaker 1: that is the biggest challenge we have. I failed, somebody
45:18
Speaker 1: else wouldn't have, and so we need to rationalize that
45:22
Speaker 1: I was doing the very best that I could under
45:24
Speaker 1: those circumstances. I've never been in a situation where I've
45:27
Speaker 1: been shot at before, and that's a huge reality check
45:30
Speaker 1: for anybody. It was certainly a reality check for me
45:33
Speaker 1: when I didn't get shot. Fortunately, I had something that
45:36
Speaker 1: I could respond to straight away, But for most people
45:39
Speaker 1: it's something that is overwhelming The other one is the
45:42
Speaker 1: police officers who were shot in Queensland a couple of
45:45
Speaker 1: years ago. There was a survivor from that, and she's
45:48
Speaker 1: going to be going through that same emotion. What could
45:51
Speaker 1: I have done? What should I have done? How could
45:53
Speaker 1: I have saved their lives? Why did I survive? So
45:56
Speaker 1: getting around the mindset of this is actually normal is
46:01
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges. So I would be encouraging
46:04
Speaker 1: them just to eat, except that they were doing the
46:06
Speaker 1: best they could. No, I'm not suggesting anybody did this,
46:09
Speaker 1: but even if they got to the point where they
46:11
Speaker 1: were so absolutely petrified that they froze on the ground
46:14
Speaker 1: and didn't do anything, it's the first time they've been there.
46:18
Speaker 1: That is normal for some people. Other people, depending on
46:22
Speaker 1: their background, their experience, their exposure, training that they've done,
46:26
Speaker 1: can respond differently. My question to them would be, if
46:31
Speaker 1: we get into this circumstance again, what would you like
46:34
Speaker 1: to do beforehand to prepare yourself better for it? And
46:37
Speaker 1: when it did happen, you know what you did on
46:40
Speaker 1: this occasion, what would you have wanted to do if
46:43
Speaker 1: you had a perfect scenario, And how can we now
46:46
Speaker 1: train you for the mindset as well? As the physical
46:49
Speaker 1: and intellectual response and what would be a better performance later. Now,
46:54
Speaker 1: the other question is do you still feel comfortable going
46:58
Speaker 1: into those scenarios, Do you feel prepared, do you feel
47:02
Speaker 1: like this is something you want to do, or would
47:04
Speaker 1: you actually like to take a different career path. Go
47:08
Speaker 1: into crime scene investigation, go into dog squad, whatever it
47:11
Speaker 1: might be in the police department. Or come and take
47:14
Speaker 1: a career break, go and become an accountant, go and
47:16
Speaker 1: become a finance breaker, become a bus driver. And I
47:20
Speaker 1: say bus driver because that's one of the things. If
47:22
Speaker 1: my children had not wanted me to go back into stargroup,
47:26
Speaker 1: I would have been quite happy to become a bus
47:27
Speaker 1: driver a solo as I was able to interact with
47:29
Speaker 1: my kids. That was my greatest passion. So the question
47:32
Speaker 1: is do you feel comfortable going into it? Do you
47:35
Speaker 1: still feel the same confidence as you were talking about
47:38
Speaker 1: the racing car driver? And if you don't make a
47:41
Speaker 1: decision to take a choice that you are going to
47:44
Speaker 1: be passionate about leaving this job now after that incident
47:48
Speaker 1: is not being a coward, it's being sensible for you.
47:53
Speaker 2: Derek, great advice. What an amazing career. I'm going to
47:56
Speaker 2: thank you for your service. It's a bit of a cliche,
47:58
Speaker 2: but I think your service continues through your work now.
48:01
Speaker 1: Thank you. I think there's something in there for.
48:03
Speaker 2: Everyone about optimal performance, about resilience and also coming back.
48:07
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time, Adam, absolute pleasure,
48:10
Speaker 1: absolute honor to be in this discussion with you. Loved it.
48:13
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much. That's Derek McManus. What
48:18
Speaker 1: an amazing story.
48:19
Speaker 2: And my heart does go out for the officers who
48:21
Speaker 2: were there at Poor Punker when Desi Freeman allegedly murdered
48:24
Speaker 2: two of their colleagues and we died another.
48:26
Speaker 1: And they're going to struggle, and I hope Victoria Police
48:28
Speaker 1: looks after them.
48:29
Speaker 2: But I think the stuff that Derek's talking about here
48:31
Speaker 2: has some applications to us all. And I'm sitting here
48:34
Speaker 2: realizing now that when I had my dear that experience,
48:37
Speaker 2: I did nothing but try to tough it out. And
48:39
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are people out there. I know we
48:40
Speaker 2: have police officers who listen to the show. Probably it
48:42
Speaker 2: is time to have that bit of therapy. I've had
48:44
Speaker 2: it since I should have it before, but it's never
48:47
Speaker 2: too late.
48:48
Speaker 1: Now, if you have any.
48:50
Speaker 2: Crime you'd like to report, please call crime Stoppers one,
48:52
Speaker 2: don't hundred, triple three, triple zero. If you don't trust
48:55
Speaker 2: the police, you can always email me and I'll send
48:57
Speaker 2: the material onto the police. Adam Shanner, writer at gmail
49:00
Speaker 2: dot com, Thank you for listening.
49:01
Speaker 1: This has been Real Crime with Adam shanned Thanks for
49:13
Speaker 1: listening to this episode and supporting this story.
49:16
Speaker 2: Independent storytelling that shapes the world is what podshape really
49:19
Speaker 2: cares about right now.
49:20
Speaker 1: There's thousands of people listening to this show and our
49:23
Speaker 1: other true Crimes, and they're completely engaged.
49:26
Speaker 2: More than ten million Australians listen to podcasts each week.
49:29
Speaker 2: If you've ever thought about advertising your business in a podcast,
49:32
Speaker 2: there's a link to reach out in the show notes,
49:35
Speaker 2: or head to podshape dot com to book a free call.