K’gari (Fraser Island) is Queensland’s small slice of paradise with a massive problem.
Key points:
Residents on K’gari (Fraser Island) are concerned about the overflow of rubbish being dumped at waste transfer sites
Upgrades to the current waste management systems will occur over the next 10 years
Fraser Coast Regional Council is asking tourists to practice a “pack in, pack out” rule
The heritage-listed island threatens to become a victim of its own success as millions of tourists are lured across the water each year.
But they’re leaving piles of rubbish in their wake, and overflowing waste stations on the island need urgent upgrades.
“People go over there with cheap camping gear, and when they finish with their holiday, they just throw it in the tip,” Fraser Coast councillor Darren Everard said.
“It is a fragile location, and it needs to be respected.”
Clearing the mess does not come cheap either.
It costs more than $400,000 a year to cart rubbish from tourists and locals off the island via a barge to the mainland, prompting the Fraser Coast Regional Council to plead with the public to follow a “pack in, pack out” rule.
“If you’re taking a product onto the island, you should be taking it off with you as you go… that is best practice,” Mr Everard said.
A Wongari or dingo fence is all that separates the dump site from the surrounding bush.(ABC Wide Bay: Lucy Loram)
Not a Happy Valley with dump nearby
In the tiny township of Happy Valley on the eastern side of K’gari, a dump site lies just a stone’s throw from the nearest home.
“It is 50 meters from a house. It’s about 20m from a recreation reserve where there’s a picnic table, so it is not ideal,” said Scott Bell, who has lived at Happy Valley for 36 years.
With just a dingo fence separating the landfill from the forest, Mr Bell said the Happy Valley station was a major concern for locals.
“Properties that are very close have got to contend with the smell coming from the tip — and the flies,” he said.
“The blowflies have become quite horrendous in town … I think everyone recognizes it’s not an ideal situation to have that rubbish tip so close to the township.”
Mr Bell says it is more than just a little township’s problem.(ABC Wide Bay: Lucy Loram)
The station is one of three landfill sites on the island, including Eurong and Orchid Beach, comprised of tip bins that collect rubbish not just from the townships but from K’gari’s mass tourist population.
“We get things like commercial kitchens being dumped there, national parks have to dump a lot of rubbish just left at camp sites, so it really is more than just a little township’s problem,” Mr Bell said.
Beautiful place facing challenges
The Happy Valley Community Association is working with the Fraser Coast Regional Council to identify alternative sites for the dump, but it could take some time before the month is addressed.
The landfill is removed from the island in tip bins that are transported to the mainland via a barge.(ABC Wide Bay: Lucy Loram)
Mr Everard said waste transfer on K’gari was a work in progress that would begin with a 10-year waste management and resource recovery strategy.
“The island is a beautiful place and has a number of challenges, so we want to try to ensure that we get that waste removal more workable and less invasive on the island,” he said.
“We have got a bit of work to do, so we’re going to start with the Eurong Transfer Station, and then we’ll move to improve the facilities at Happy Valley and Orchid Beach.”
The upgraded station at Eurong will be capped to mitigate legacy waste and will feature new bays for stainless steel waste and recycling bulk bins when completed in 2024.
Participants in an interfaith memorial ceremony enter the New Mexico Islamic Center mosque to commemorate four murdered Muslim men, hours after police said they had arrested a prime suspect in the killings, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Hay
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ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Muslims in New Mexico interviewed on Wednesday said they felt shock and shame at the arrest of a Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan in connection with the murders of four Muslim men.
Police on Tuesday said they detained 51-year-old Muhammad Syed. A motive for the killings remains unclear, but police said he may have acted on personal grudges, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.
Syed denied being involved with any of the four killings when questioned by police, according to the New York Times.
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“We’re in complete total disbelief. Speechless. You know, kind of embarrassed to say he was one of our own,” said Mula Akbar, an Afghan-American businessman who said he had helped Syed settle in the city.
“His hatred of Shi’ites might have had something to do with it,” Akbar said.
Syed was from the Sunni branch of Islam and prayed together at Albuquerque’s Islamic Center of New Mexico (ICNM) mosque with most of the victims, three of whom were from the Shi’ite branch of Islam. All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, the other three in the last two weeks.
Syed, who made his first appearance in court Wednesday, was formally charged with killing Aftab Hussein, 41, on July 26 and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, on Aug. 1.
Police said on Tuesday they were working with prosecutors on potential charges for the murders of Naeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver killed on Friday, and Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, shot dead on Nov. 7, 2021, outside the grocery store he ran with his brother in southeast Albuquerque.
It was not immediately clear if Syed had retained a lawyer.
Police declined to comment on rumors Syed was angry one of his daughters had eloped and married a Shi’ite man.
The daughter told CNN that her husband was friends with two of the men who were killed, Aftab Hussein and Naeem Hussain. The woman, who CNN did not name out of concern for her safety, said her father was not happy when she married in 2018 but had become accepting more recently.
“My father is not a person who can kill somebody. My father has always talked about peace. That’s why we are here in the United States. We came from Afghanistan, from fighting, from shooting,” she told CNN.
Palestinian-American Samia Assed said the Muslim community of around 4,000 in Albuquerque had worked to do to prevent violence they left behind in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“This took me back to 9/11 when I just wanted to hide under a rock,” said the human rights activist after she hosted an interfaith memorial at the ICNM, Albuquerque’s oldest and largest mosque.
“For this to happen it’s like setting us back 100 years,” she said.
The mosque is nonsectarian, serves mainly Sunnis from over 30 countries and has never before experienced violence of this kind, according to congregants interviewed by Reuters.
Syed is a truck driver, has six children, is from Pashtun ethnicity and arrived in the United States as a refugee about six years ago from Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, said Akbar, a former US diplomat who worked on Afghan issues and helped found the Afghan Society of New Mexico.
Syed developed a record of criminal misdemeanors over the last three or four years, including a case of domestic violence, police said.
Video from February 2020 showed him slashing the tires of a vehicle at the ICNM believed to be owned by the family of the first known victim, Ahmadi, according to the mosque’s president, attorney Ahmad Assed.
“We’re in a surreal time trying to make sense of these senseless killings we’ve suffered,” he said.
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Reporting by Andrew Hay in Albuquerque; Editing by Donna Bryson, Howard Goller and Rosalba O’Brien
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ALBUQUERQUE, NM, Aug 9 (Reuters) – A Muslim immigrant from Afghanistan has been arrested as the prime suspect in the serial killings of four Muslim men that rattled the Islamic community of New Mexico’s largest city, police said on Tuesday.
After days bolstering security around Albuquerque-area mosques, seeking to allay fears of a shooter driven by anti-Muslim hate, police said on Tuesday they had arrested 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, one among the city’s Islamic immigrant community.
Authorities said the killings may have been rooted in a personal grudge, possibly with intra-Muslim sectarian overtones.
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All four victims were of Afghan or Pakistani descent. One was killed in November, and the other three in the last two weeks.
A search of the suspect’s Albuquerque home uncovered “evidence that shows the offender knew the victims to some extent, and an inter-personal conflict may have led to the shootings,” police said in a statement announcing the arrest.
Investigators are still piecing together motives for the killings of the four men, Deputy Commander Kyle Hartsock of the Albuquerque Police Department said at a news conference.
In response to reporters’ questions, Hartsock said sectarian animus by the suspect toward his fellow Muslim victims may have played a role in the violence. “But we’re not really clear if that was the actual motive, or if it was part of a motive, or if there is just a bigger picture that we’re missing,” he said.
Syed has a record of criminal misdemeanors in the United States, including a case of domestic violence, over the last three or four years, Hartsock said.
Police credited scores of tips from the public in helping investigators locate a car that detectives believed was used in at least one of the killings and ultimately track down the man they called their “primary suspect” in all four slayings.
Syed was formally charged with two of the homicides: those of Aftab Hussein, 41, and Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, killed on July 26 and Aug. 1, respectively, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told the briefing.
Participants in an interfaith memorial ceremony enter the New Mexico Islamic Center mosque to commemorate four murdered Muslim men, hours after police said they had arrested a prime suspect in the killings, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US August 9, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Hay
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The latest victim, Nayeem Hussain, 25, a truck driver who became a US citizen on July 8, was killed on Friday, hours after attending the burial of the two men slain in July and August, both of them of Pakistani descent.
The three most recent victims all attended the Islamic Center of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s largest mosque. They were all shot near Central Avenue in southeastern Albuquerque.
The first known victim, Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, a native of Afghanistan, was killed on Nov. 7, 2021, while smoking a cigarette outside a grocery store and cafe that he ran with his brother in the southeastern part of the city.
BULLET CASINGS
Police said the two killings with which Syed was initially charged were tied together based on bullet casings found at the two murder scenes, and the gun used in those shootings was later found in his home.
According to police, detectives were preparing to search Syed’s residence in southeastern Albuquerque on Monday when he drove from the residence in the car that investigators had identified to the public a day earlier as a “vehicle of interest.”
Albuquerque and state authorities have been working to provide extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer as the investigation proceeded in the city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of a total population of 565,000.
The ambush-style shootings of the men have terrified Albuquerque’s Muslim community. Families went into hiding in their homes, and some Pakistani students at the University of New Mexico left town out of fear.
Imtiaz Hussain, whose brother worked as a city planning director and was killed on Aug. 1, said news of the arrest reassured many in the Muslim community.
“My kids asked me, ‘Can we sit on our balcony now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,’ and they said, ‘Can we go out and play now?’ and I said, ‘Yes,'” he said.
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Reporting by Andrew Hay in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Rami Ayyub in Washington; Tyler Clifford in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Cynthia Osterman, Daniel Wallis and Raju Gopalakrishnan
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Aug 7 (Reuters) – Police in New Mexico on Sunday asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of four fatal shootings of Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.
Mayor Tim Keller said state authorities were working to provide an “extra police presence at mosques during times of prayer” as the investigation proceeds in New Mexico’s largest city, home to as many as 5,000 Muslims out of some 565,000 total residents.
The latest victim, police said, was gunned down on Friday night, in a killing that local Islamic leaders said occurred shortly after he had attended funeral services for two others slain during the past couple of weeks.
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All three of those men, as well as the very first victim who was shot dead in November, were Muslim men of Pakistani or Afghan descent who resided in Albuquerque.
Police have given few details of the latest murder but described the first three killings as ambush shootings. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has characterized them as “targeted killings of Muslim residents.”
US President Joe Biden posted a message on Twitter on Sunday expressing solidarity with the Muslim community, adding, “These hateful attack have no place in America.”
Albuquerque police officials told a news conference hours later that they were following a number of leads and issued a bulletin with photos of a four-door, dark gray Volkswagen sedan with tinted windows that they described as a “vehicle of interest” in the investigation.
It was left unclear how the car was tied to the case, and police said they had yet to determine whether they were seeking one or more suspects in the investigation.
Mayor of Albuquerque Tim Keller speaks to the public during an event to mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, October 11, 2021. REUTERS/Mostafa Bassim
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The three latest victims belonged to the same mosque, according to Tahir Gauba, a spokesperson for the Islamic Center of New Mexico. Officials were withholding the identity of the man killed on Friday pending notification of next of kin.
But Gauba said he was killed shortly after attending the funeral for the two previous victims.
Muhammed Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who immigrated from Pakistan, was shot dead on Aug. 1 outside his apartment complex, less than a week after Aftab Hussein, 41, from Albuquerque’s large Afghan community, was found slain on July 26 near the city’s international district, police said. Hussain also worked on the campaign team for US Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico.
Police said they were treating those two slayings, along with Friday’s killing, as linked to the Nov. 7 murder of 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi, also a Muslim from Afghanistan, who was shot to death in a parking lot outside a halal supermarket and coffee.
“There are several things in common with all four of the homicides,” city police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told reporters on Sunday.
Asked whether investigators consider the killings to be hate crimes, Gallegos said, “Hate is determined by motive, and we don’t know that motive at this point.”
Gauba estimated there are 3,000 to 5,000 Muslims living in and around Albuquerque, accounting for about 85% of the entire state’s Islamic population.
New Mexico State Police, the FBI and the US Marshals Service are among the agencies assisting in the investigation.
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Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Edwina Gibbs
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Houses reach the edge of the desert on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico, US, July 5, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
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Aug 6 (Reuters) – Police in New Mexico and federal agencies were probing the murders of four Muslim men to determine if the killings, the latest of which happened on Friday evening, were linked while the state’s governor described them as “targeted killings.”
Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina told reporters on Saturday that a “young man who is part of the Muslim community was murdered.”
The victim’s name and the circumstances of the murder were not disclosed. In the previous three cases, the victims were ambushed and shot without warning, police said.
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Medina said the killing was possibly linked to the previous three murders.
Police in New Mexico had said earlier that the other three Muslim men murdered in the state’s largest city in the past nine months appeared to have been targeted for their religion and race. read more
“The targeted killings of Muslim residents of Albuquerque is deeply angering and wholly intolerable,” New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham tweeted late on Saturday. She also said she was deploying extra state police officers to Albuquerque to assist in the investigation.
Two of those murdered men were members of the same mosque, who were shot dead in Albuquerque in late July and early August. Police said there was a “strong possibility” their deaths were connected to the November killing of an Afghan immigrant.
Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, a planning director for the city of Espanola who came to the United States from Pakistan, was shot dead on Monday outside his Albuquerque apartment complex while Aftab Hussein, 41, was found dead of gunshot wounds on July 26 near the Albuquerque’s international district.
Those deaths are likely linked to the shooting of 62-year-old Mohammad Ahmadi in a parking lot by a halal supermarket and cafe on Nov. 7 last year, police said.
New Mexico State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Marshals Service are among several agencies involved in probing the murders.
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Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
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KABUL/WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – The United States killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a “precision” strike in the center of Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, President Joe Biden said, the biggest blow to the militant group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.
Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who had a $25 million bounty on his head, helped coordinate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Zawahiri was killed when he came out on the balcony of his safe house in Kabul on Sunday morning and was hit by “hellfire” missiles from a US drone.
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“Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on Monday. “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
He said he had authorized the precision strike in downtown Kabul and that no civilians were killed.
Three spokespeople in the Taliban administration in Kabul declined comment on Zawahiri’s death.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had previously confirmed that a strike took place in Kabul on Sunday and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of “international principles.”
A spokesperson for the interior ministry said a house was hit by a rocket in Sherpoor, an upscale residential neighborhood of the city which also houses several embassies.
“There were no casualties as the house was empty,” Abdul Nafi Takor, the spokesperson, said.
Taliban authorities threw a security dragnet around the house in Sherpoor on Tuesday and journalists were not allowed nearby.
A senior Taliban official told Reuters that Zawahiri was previously in Helmand province and had moved to Kabul after the Taliban took over the country in August last year.
US intelligence determined with “high confidence” through multiple intelligence streams that the man killed was Zawahiri, one senior administration official told reporters.
“Zawahiri continued to pose an active threat to US persons, interests and national security,” the official said on a conference call. “His death of him deals a significant blow to al Qaeda and will degrade the group’s ability to operate.”
Zawahiri succeeded bin Laden as al Qaeda leader after years as its main organizer and strategist, but his lack of charisma and competition from rival militants Islamic State hobbled his ability to inspire devastating attacks on the West. read more
There were rumors of Zawahiri’s death several times in recent years, and he was long reported to have been in poor health.
SANCTUARY
Osama bin Laden sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian linked to the al Qaeda network, during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured) in an image supplied by Dawn newspaper November 10, 2001. Hamid Mir/Editor/ Ausaf Newspaper for Daily Dawn/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The drone attack is the first known US strike inside Afghanistan since US troops and diplomats left the country in August 2021. The move may bolster the credibility of Washington’s assurances that the United States can still address threats from Afghanistan without a military presence in the country.
His death also raises questions about whether Zawahiri received sanctuary from the Taliban following their takeover of Kabul in August 2021. The official said senior Taliban officials were aware of his presence in the city and said the United States expected the Taliban to abide by an agreement not to allow al Qaeda fighters to re-establish themselves in the country.
“The Taliban will have to answer for al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul, after assuring the world they would not give safe haven to al-Qaeda terrorists,” Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban had “grossly violated” the Doha Agreement between the two sides by hosting and sheltering Zawahiri.
Former President Barack Obama joined lawmakers in praising the operation.
“Tonight’s news is also proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan,” Obama said in a Twitter message. “And I hope it provides a small measure of peace to the 9/11 families and everyone else who has suffered at the hands of al Qaeda.”
ReutersGraphics
Republican US Senator Marco Rubio said: “The world is safer without him in it and this strike demonstrates our ongoing commitment to hunt down all terrorists responsible for 9/11 and those who continue to pose a threat to US interests.” said
Until the US announcement, Zawahiri had been rumored variously to be in Pakistan’s tribal area or inside Afghanistan.
A video released in April in which he praised an Indian Muslim woman for defying a ban on wearing an Islamic head scarf dispelled rumors that he had died.
The senior US official said finding Zawahiri was the result of persistent counter-terrorism work. The United States found out this year that Zawahiri’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, then identified that Zawahiri was there as well, the official said.
“Once Zawahiri arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house,” the official said. He was identified multiple times on the balcony, where he was ultimately struck. He continued to produce videos from the house and some may be released after his death, the official said.
In the last few weeks, Biden agreed to officials to scrutinize the intelligence. He was updated throughout May and June and was briefed on July 1 on a proposed operation by intelligence leaders. On July 25 I received an updated report and authorized the strike once an opportunity was available, the administration official said.
With other senior al Qaeda members, Zawahiri is believed to have plotted the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole naval vessel in Yemen which killed 17 US sailors and injured more than 30 others, the Rewards for Justice website said.
He was indicted in the United States for his role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded more than 5,000 others.
Both bin Laden and Zawahiri eluded capture when US-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban government in late 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
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Reporting by Idrees Ali and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Alexandra Alper, Eric Beech, Jonathan Landay, Arshad Mohammed, Patricia Zengerle, Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar and Reuters staff in Kabul; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Stephen Coates
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They got the job done far earlier than they expected, and one could even say their 4am wake-up may have been a little too keen.
But there is never an end to the list of jobs “station life” gives you when you first walk through the door, so 4am was probably still a good call.
Mathew Brockhurst wiped his brow, smearing sweat and bull dust across his already grubby face, his hat was resting on a cocked knee as he and his girlfriend Alice Purcell sprawled out under a tree sweaty and covered in dirt.
They had just finished processing a mob of cattle and were sharing a brief reprieve from the heat of the day.
It was around 2pm on November 4, 2021, and the harsh central Queensland sun was glaring through the leaves of the tree the couple was sitting under, casting a checked shadow over their grubby clothes.
Matt and Alice met on their family’s station in the Kimberley.(Supplied: Alice Purcell)
Matt knew they still had to walk the cattle, chilling and chewing in the yard behind them, back to a waterhole and check the bores before sundown, but if they split it, they could be looking at almost an early beer.
Now, Alice was darn capable and could handle the cattle by herself. She had cut her teeth on his family’s property Larrawa Station — a few hours from Halls Creek in the Kimberley, where they met.
They they would head east to Queensland and chase an adventure of their own decided, and here they were, almost a year into that adventure, under a tree, working out who would do what job next.
“She said she’d be right with them [the cattle] and I’d said, ‘I’ll go do the bore run then’,” Matt collected.
The 24-year-old stockman had shrugged and wandered over to his motorbike, strapping on his helmet as he went.
Alice had followed behind him watching his lanky saunter.
Neither of them could ever have guessed it was the last time Matt would walk.
Just a rock on the road
Matt and Alice working together.(Supplied: Alice Purcell)
An hour or two later and Matt had finally finished for the day.
The sun was still hot as ever but the wind through his shirt was keeping him cool as he cruised home on the same Honda 250 he had ridden almost every day of the nine months he had worked on the property.
“I went around the corner, and there was a rock on the road,” Matt recalled.
“I thought, ‘Oh shit’… I hit it and I went over the handlebars… I wasn’t [going] overly fast or anything.”
Matt has lived his whole life on the land and like so many, there have been plenty of close calls before.
He’d been bucked off horses, run up rails by scrub bulls and come off his fair share of bikes, but he knew almost instantly this was different.
A young Matt pictured with his family, as they head off for a muster on Larrawa Station where he grew up.(Supplied: Matt Brockhurst)
“I hit the ground and the dust was sort of settling… I touched my leg, and I could feel it with my hand, but I couldn’t feel it with my leg,
“When you do first aid, you sort of know, once that isn’t coming back with the feeling, there’s something to do with your spinal cord.”
He lay there for two and a half hours in that Queensland summer heat, waiting for help.
“I’d said to Alice, if I’m not home by five, come looking, which is a very common thing on stations, there’s a certain time you meant to be home.”
“I was thinking flat tire, maybe bogged, there had been some rain around earlier on in the day”
Lying there waiting for Alice, Matt began making peace with his life.
“I was prepared to die out there,” he said.
“I was thinking, ‘Shit! What was the last word I said to Alice? What were the last things I said to my mum and dad and brothers?’
“I remember thinking, you know, I’ve made it this far, if I leave now with whatever I have, every moment from now on is a plus.”
They found me
Matt had shattered his T5 vertebra.(Supplied: Alice Purcell)
When Matt was eventually found by his boss and Alice, he was severely sunburnt and dehydrated, but alive.
“I could hear ute in the distance, and I’m in the middle of the road lying flat on the ground.
“I’m thinking, ‘Oh shit, this is going to be horrible, if I’ve finally made it to this point, and he comes around the corner and runs me over,'” Matt recounted.
He was eventually airlifted by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to Townsville and then moved on quickly to Brisbane.
A couple of days later, after a number of scans and operations, he was given the news he was unlikely to ever walk again.
“It was sort of water off a duck’s back. I didn’t believe him. I was probably in denial.”
“It wasn’t until a week or so later, it finally hit me.
“The nurses were saying to my mum they were waiting for me to have the realization and break down and eventually, yeah, that happened,” Matt admitted.
From day dot
Alice has stood by Matt through thick and thin.(Supplied: Matt Brockhurst )
By his side candidly, from the beginning when they met on his family property to now — eight months into Matt’s rehab — Alice has been there.
She’s 20 years old from Pittsworth Queensland and has already lived a full life as a ringer turned counsellor, nurse and carer.
“Still, to this day, actually, it’s still hard to believe,” Alice reflected.
“I was surprised I was so calm… when I got to him, I knew I couldn’t be worked up.
“I couldn’t be bawling my eyes out because there was a serious thing we had to deal with.”
The station they were working on had, only weeks before, put the couple through a first aid course.
“I just had to remain calm.”
Since the accident, Alice has supported Matt through everything.
“Before she was my girlfriend, and now she’s my absolute world,” Matt said with a smile.
“I would not be where I am without trying to impress her and show her that, I am capable of all this.”
Alice has sacrificed some of her own ambitions to stand by Matt through his recovery.
“I was heading off for a job when Matthew had his accident, but I just thought I’d put that on hold. I mentally couldn’t even think about work,” she explained.
“It got thrown at us that we were flying to WA for Mathew’s rehab, so going home and having to pack everything… was a lot.
“Still to this day, I don’t really know where we’re going to settle, but I just got to take it each day as it comes.”
Alice and Matt were engaged in Broome earlier this year.(Supplied: Alice Purcell)
For Alice and Matt, the road ahead is not an easy one, but one they are ready to take on together.
“He’s very special to me, he’s my best friend not just my fiancé,” Alice said.
“The wheelchair’s a barrier, it’s not the end of the world, we want to have kids, we want to do everything together… we’ll get there,” Matt added.
