WIMMERA generosity has brought a community dream to fruition.
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Work on the Horsham Aeromedical Transfer Station at Horsham Aerodrome started this week.
The station, which Wimmera businesses and community members have paid for, will protect patients and ambulance members from the elements while they wait for medical aircraft to transport them to metropolitan hospitals.
Horsham Concrete Company truck driver Chris Jorgensen helped transport one of the first loads of concrete for the station’s slab on Monday.
Mr Jorgensen said the project was crucial and something he would have benefited from after a near-fatal truck crash at Antwerp last year.
A tyre blew on Mr Jogensen’s truck while he was driving through the area in February, sending him flying through trees into Antwerp Cemetery.
The husband and father of three broke almost every bone from the waist down, and his wrist.
‘‘There were a couple of times they didn’t think I’d keep my legs,’’ he said.
Mr Jorgensen was flown by helicopter to Horsham Aerodrome and waited for an air ambulance to take him to Melbourne.
He was flown to Essendon Airport from Horsham, then by helicopter to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Mr Jorgensen had 38 screws and pins placed throughout his body, as well as bone grafts and a plate in his wrist.
His rehabilitation has been extensive – he started walking again in July last year and was finally able to get back to work in November.
‘‘I’m only on four hours a day at this stage, and after three to four days I’m feeling it,’’ he said.
Mr Jorgensen now goes between a wheelchair and a crutch to move around, and has permanent nerve damage in the left side of his body.
He said despite his condition, he was raring to get into the truck to help with transfer station work.
‘‘I think it’s a great thing. We should have had one years ago – it’s really needed here,’’ he said.
Wimmera Masonic Lodge and Horsham East Rotary Club led fundraising for the $160,000 project.
Horsham’s Locks Constructions, McDonald Steel, Westvic Concreting and Horsham Concrete Company are among the businesses involved.
Lodge member Philip Nicks said it took just six months to raise the money and organise labour for the station.
‘‘We started fundraising last year and we couldn’t believe how generous people were,’’ he said.
‘‘A lot of stuff we got at cost or below cost.’’
‘‘We started fundraising last year and we couldn’t believe how generous people were.’’
- Wimmera Masonic Lodge's Philip Nicks
Ambulance Victoria Horsham Auxiliary president Paul Burton said the transfer station would be a temperature-controlled building with two bays.
‘‘We have about 425 transfers a year and about 55 double transfers, so it will be built to accommodate that,’’ he said.
‘‘It will make patients more comfortable and give them a level of privacy.
‘‘We are tremendously grateful for the service clubs, community members and trades that have been involved.
‘‘It’s a wonderful community asset.’’