- When Trevor Dalitz suffered a freak accident on his sheep farm he thought he was going to die.
- While handling one of the sheep, Trevor’s stomach was sliced open.
- Now 18 months on, Trevor knows how lucky he is to be alive.
Here Trevor tells his story in his own words.
As the first light beamed through my bedroom window, my dog, Bella, pawed at me.
‘Good morning, darling,’ I smiled.
It was December 2023 and living alone on a nine-acre farm, I was up bright and early each morning tending to my sheep, goats and chickens.
I spent my days hand-rearing livestock and tending to my bountiful vegie gardens.
After downing a coffee, I pulled on my hat and boots and made my way out the door.
‘I should quickly put one on.’
Bella jumped in the passenger seat of my ute, and we drove out to start the feeds.
Pulling up to the sheep sheds moments later, the hungry flock crowded around me as I shovelled feed into their trough.
That’s when I noticed one of the sheep was missing its ear identification tag.
I should quickly put one on, I thought.
Grabbing hold of the sheep with my left arm, I went to stamp its right ear, when something spooked him.
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Still holding on tightly to the sheep, he spun me around and up against the corrugated iron roof of the feeding trough.
Checking myself over, I discovered a patch of blood seeping through the left side of my white T-shirt.
It’s just a scratch, I thought.
Pulling my shirt up to wipe the blood though, I reeled in horror.
There was a 20cm gash which was so deep it’d torn open my stomach.
‘It’s just a scratch.’
I could see my intestines, and a large flap of my skin was hanging down.
I fought to stay calm as warm sticky blood gushed from the gaping wound and pooled on the ground.
In shock, I couldn’t feel any pain but knew I had to apply pressure to stem the bleeding.
Making my way 300 metres down the hill to the house, I clutched my bleeding waist with a whimpering Bella following closely behind.
I found gauze in my first-aid kit and wrapped my waist in a compression bandage.
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But within minutes, it was soaked through. This is really bad, I thought.
As I thought to call emergency services, I realised I’d left my phone in the truck back at the sheep shed.
By the time I made it there and back to where there was better reception, my footy shorts were saturated, and I’d left a trail of blood in my path.
Feeling woozy, I knew I’d lost a dangerous amount of blood and was sure I didn’t have long left.
Lying down on the back verandah, I phoned for help.
‘I think I’m dying.’
‘I think I’m dying,’ I told the dispatcher who stayed on the call until paramedics arrived.
As I faded in and out of consciousness, a very frightened Bella licked my face to keep me awake.
When she heard the sirens approaching after 20 minutes, she met paramedics at the front gate before leading them to where I was lying in a pool of blood.
By now the adrenaline had worn off and excruciating pain seared through my body.
Paramedics worked to control the bleeding, but it just kept coming.
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That’s when I heard one of them make a call to MedSTAR – an emergency medical retrieval service in South Australia.
‘He has about 10 minutes left,’ the ambo said on the phone.
Thankfully, one of my neighbours named Carly saw the emergency vehicles at my place and stopped to check in.
Fearing I might not make it out alive, I gave Bella one last cuddle and asked Carly to look after her and call the kids, and their mum, Klair, who were all out.
‘You’d lost half the blood in your body.’
With too many trees on the property to land a helicopter, though, the ambos transferred me onto a gurney and drove me to a nearby park, five minutes away.
There I was given pain relief and a MedSTAR doctor repaired my severed main artery at the scene, before airlifting me to Royal Adelaide Hospital.
After a CAT scan, surgeons whisked me into theatre where they repaired my muscles and tendons, flushed out my wound and stapled me back together.
Coming to afterwards, Klair was by my side.
‘You’d lost half the blood in your body,’ one doc said, adding I’d needed to be given 2.5 litres of blood to stay alive.
I was discharged later that night.
Back at home, the kids Molly, then 24, Ellie, 21, Angus and Noah, both 19, and Mia, 17, came to visit.
Klair helped me with everyday needs, like showering and getting dressed, while my neighbour, Fernie, 37, and his son Hunter, four, kindly fed the livestock.
I also had a nurse visit me daily to clean and dress my wounds.
The month after my accident, in January 2024, I was reunited with the paramedics who’d saved my life and gifted them a framed photo of Bella
Thanks for saving my Dad, it read.
Without them, I’m sure I would’ve died.
After three months of bed rest, I was doing much better.
Eighteen months on, I’m back out on the farm, tending to the many animals and the vegie patch, scars and all.
Since my accident, I’ve taken more precautions around the corrugated iron roof and lifted it out of arm’s reach.
When I see a MedSTAR helicopter fly over the farm, I hope the person they’re picking up is as lucky as I was.
A freak accident nearly cost me my life, but my scar reminds me just how lucky I am to be alive.
