David Iredale’s family, including his mother, Mary Anne, excused themselves from the courtroom as a doctor gave horrific details of the 17-year-old’s final minutes of life in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

Paul Luckin, one of Australia’s leading experts in search and rescue and survivability in extreme conditions, told the inquest if the emergency operators had had medical training, they would have recognised the symptoms of severe dehydration David displayed. He said the lack of medical training among call takers was a regrettable fact, “driven I’m sure by the cost”.

Dr Luckin said he estimated David had a deficit of 7.5 litres of water when he died. He said that as David’s blood pressure dropped to critical levels, oxygen to thebrain had dropped and he had a cardiac arrest.

SEVERELY dehydrated and dying, a boy lost in the bush could have survived had emergency call operators been medically trained and sprung into action immediately, an inquest has been told.

David Iredale’s family, including his mother, Mary Anne, excused themselves from the courtroom as a doctor gave horrific details of the 17-year-old’s final minutes of life in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

Paul Luckin, one of Australia’s leading experts in search and rescue and survivability in extreme conditions, told the inquest if the emergency operators had had medical training, they would have recognised the symptoms of severe dehydration David displayed. He said the lack of medical training among call takers was a regrettable fact, “driven I’m sure by the cost”.

David could have been advised to lie with his head downwards to maintain blood flow to the brain as his body shut down, and could have been told to display brightly coloured clothing or equipment visible from a helicopter.

Dr Luckin said search and rescue teams should have sprung into action immediately after he made his first call to operator Laura Meade at 11.57am on December 11, 2006, if there was to have been any chance of him surviving.

He had provided precise details of how he had been on the Mount Solitary walking track and was heading towards the Kedumba River, but much of this detail was not recorded or passed on to police.

Dr Luckin said David would have lapsed into unconsciousness minutes after his final call to the triple-0 ambulance service and would have been dead within thehour at the outside.

During that final call, Stacey Dickens, the last person to speak to David alive, put him on hold twice. She admitted to the inquiry she did not have her mind on the job when taking the call, was abrupt and uncompassionate and, until the inquiry, had no memory of taking his calls.

Dr Luckin said he estimated David had a deficit of 7.5 litres of water when he died. He said that as David’s blood pressure dropped to critical levels, oxygen to thebrain had dropped and he had a cardiac arrest.

Dr Luckin also said that if the three teenage boys on the bushwalk, friends from Sydney Grammar School, had stayed at their overnight campsite and told someone they had run out of water, David would have survived until rescued.

The senior ambulance supervisor on the day David called triple-0, Trevor Hinton, who also gave evidence yesterday, became emotional and apologised for not taking notes, properly logging the job or passing on detailed information to police.

The three women who took David’s five desperate calls made similar apologies on Wednesday. The inquest resumes on Monday.

Credit: John Stapleton