I Had A Bone To Pick With Burglars

My night started out normally enough, but this was soon to change. I drove into town with my girlfriend at the time (Joanne) as we were going out to dinner at Stanley’s Fish Restaurant in Gouger Street. I parked my Holden VK Commodore station wagon a few streets away from the restaurant as town was pretty busy that night. We liked eating at Stanley’s as the service was fast and the fish was always sensational.

I ordered my usual 2 pieces of battered whiting with crumbed prawns on the side, and was amazed how fast our meals were served this night. I had my first big bite of the fish, and as I was chewing it I felt a really sharp pain in the back of my throat.Uh-oh I thought to myself, here comes trouble. Sure enough I had a large fish bone caught in my throat, and it was lodged well and truly. I told Joanne I was in trouble and the panic then started. I tried the usual tricks to dislodge the bone by eating heaps of bread and washing it down with water, no luck. I then decided to go to the toilets and tried to throw up by sticking my fingers down my throat…ewwwww. No luck here either.

I walked back to our table and informed Joanne the meal was over RIGHT NOW, and we needed to get to the hospital. We paid the bill and I was quite annoyed that I had to pay for two meals, after only 5 minutes, and having only a single bite of the fish. I rang Mum straight away to tell our family friend Derek (who happened to be the Dean of the Adelaide Medical School at the time) to see if he could help. He advised me to head to the Emergency Department of the RAH and he would meet me there.

As we quickly walked back to my car, something was not right. There were 2 guys next to my car, with another one running his hand under the front of my bonnet. Oh Shit….My car was being stolen in front of me! I remember yelling out from across the street “HEY!!! ” at the top of my voice and leaving Jo and running after the two guys next to my car. My adrenaline was pumping by now, and was further shocked when another guy ran out of the driver’s side door as well. He was obviously interrupted in the middle of ‘hot wiring’ my car. I was chasing them down the street when I realised one guy stayed near the car and may hurt Jo. I stopped chasing the 3 guys and ran back to the car. The 4th guy that stayed behind then took off in another direction.

I yelled at Jo ” GET IN THE CAR!!!”. I was outta control at this stage and all I could think about was catching these guys. I fired up the car and tore after the thieves, screeching around the city streets. I was on a mission to run them down with my car, and in hindsight was lucky I could not find them as I may have got myself in trouble with the law, or alternatively had them turn on me and beat us up. Is amazing what goes through your head when challenged.

I still had the bone in my throat and the pain was pretty bad, and I had trouble swallowing. We then headed for the RAH emergency department, where we were greeted by Derek, and also an ENT Specialist (Ear, Nose & Throat). I remember seeing carnage in the ER that night with an aboriginal man laying on a bed with his foot hanging off, and blood everywhere. It was chaos in emergency as it was Saturday night and the drunks were already lined up and the busy room had a feeling of war zone about it, with bodies everywhere and people screaming out in pain. As it was my first time in emergency I could not believe how all the patients were being worked on in the same room, with no privacy.

I was then ushered to a secluded corner of the ER by the specialist who opened up his bag of long tongs and started trying to hook out the fish bone. My gag reflex was not good and I started to almost throw up whenever the utensils entered my throat. He then sprayed my throat with an anaesthetic spray to numb it to help with the gagging, but failed miserably. He had used 3 different types of tongs and was on his last pair, when he said to me ” if we can’t hook it with these, I will need to admit you to hospital and perform surgery to remove it. “You have got to be kidding me?” I thought to myself. Then all of a sudden he yelled out “Got It!”, which was music to my ears. Was a relief to be de-boned, but one more thing to do – the police report at Angas Street station.

Another strange but true story!