Almost two years to the day that Lucy Vader was saved from rising flood water in Lismore by an unknown man in an orange kayak, she got the chance to meet him and tell him how grateful she was that he carried her and her dog Dotty to safety.
After Lucy managed to climb onto the roof of her house, Lucy spent hours waiting for a rescue crew that never came. She had her phone but the battery’s life was slowly dribbling away.
Kris, who had paddled across town to save some donkeys in a paddock near his workshop, stopped to save people along the way – Lucy and her dog Dotty, whom Kris dived into the watery house to save, were just two of that number…
So much has changed forever
Since February 2022 many things have changed in each of their lives – Lucy, who is a fine artist, has poured her PTSD into her paintings and bringing her ruined house up to flood code – and then made the sad decision to leave it.
Though Kristen’s house was safe in the flood, his business Big Scrub Salvage wasn’t. It took him months of hard work and thousands of lost dollars to recover aspects of his business in Lismore.
When they finally met on the weekend, Lucy, who had no idea who Kris was, just gave him a very big hug and quietly said: ‘Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for saving Dotty.’
Lucy gifted Kris one of the paintings from her upcoming exhibition Exaltation at Sydney’s Michael Reid gallery as a token of her unlimited gratitude.
Though two years have passed, for some people, like Kris and Lucy, they still live daily with the aftermath of a catastrophe they had no control over. Lucy is still fighting to stop more people being put in harm’s way when the next flood comes and Kris is still dealing with unwieldy and the often unfair division of financial support for those affected by the floods. The twists and turns of the insurance industry is making his life a misery.
As Lucy heads off to her latest exhibition in Sydney, Kris reflects on that very fateful day. Would he do it again? He doesn’t know – it’s only in hindsight that he realises how close he came to losing his own life on February 28, 2022.
I followed you Lucy at that time. I did not know you but knew who you are as I know your parents. And this write-up fails to actually depict what Kris did. The water was up to the ceiling. You did not even know if your dog was alive or not, but told this stranger, when he arrived, that your dog was still inside. I always wondered what the cold,shivering, freaked out, dog did, when it was taken into the arms of a stranger from the bubble of air keeping it alive, down into the dirty water, for several seconds, I would not know how long, to get it out, probably against the pull of the current. Did Dotty struggle, thinking s/he was being drowned? And dogs are not stupid. I see him/her there keeping a distance, sitting under the car, as s/he remembers that man, and dogs get PTSD just as humans can, either Dotty is having flashbacks or it is a hot day, and is keeping cool in the shade. I am so sorry and angry about the Insurance companies drawing it out, and govt not stepping in with a plan, a Blueprint, a Disaster Management Plan from Day 1 and I doubt they have even written one up for the future. Pods at the ready. This is a cry from all over First World countries where disasters are increasing. Countries that can afford to help their citizens but do not. I read this week a story from Hawaii after their fires. They received payments of $700! That’s it. And Insurance companies silent. The victims of these disasters become bitter when their govt gives billions to Ukraine and Israel war efforts and not help the people at home. In the Third World forget it. No one’s coming for you, you just get washed away. Unless a Kris comes by in a boat. There are hopefully more unsung heroes at times like this.
Lucy wrote the incredible account of that day in a story called “Nobody Saved Me”. I still can get a bit teary when I repeat it to friends.