Ron Drevlak Wiki

                        Ron Drevlak Biography

Ron Drevlak and his wife were walking their dog on the Gold Coast on Monday afternoon when they saw the chilling moment two helicopters collided in mid-air.

The helicopter that took off 20 seconds earlier crashed to the ground, killing Sydney’s mother Vanessa Tadros, 36, British newlyweds Ron Hughes, 65, his wife Diane, 57, and pilot Ash. Jenkinson, 40.

Ms Tadros’s 10-year-old son Nicholas, Melbourne mother Winnie de Silva, 33, and son Leon, 9, remain in hospital where the two boys are still fighting for their lives.

Not thinking of risking his own safety, Mr. Drevlak was one of the first rescuers on the scene, arriving before the pilot of the other helicopter landed safely on the sandbank.

The instinct kicked in to run and run and help,” Drevlak told the Today show on Thursday.

“In the back of my mind, I was expecting bad things, but it just didn’t occur to me at the time because I can still clearly remember that when I got to the first helicopter, the second one wasn’t even on the ground that the noise and everything just kept buzzing. around us.

Three days later, he is still traumatized by the confrontational scenes.

“It’s still very raw in my mind, particularly from the point where the helicopter broke apart and hit the ground,” Drevlak said.

“The noise, that’s something that keeps playing over and over in my head every time I go to sleep at night.

It’s not a very nice thing to see.

All seven aboard the crashed helicopter were still strapped to their seats as rescuers scrambled to cut their seat belts off, overwhelmed by the smell of aviation fuel.

“There was a lot of screaming, a lot of noise, a lot of heat,” Drevlak recalled.

Family

First we got Ron out and then along with him, his wife, we got them out and then at that point someone cut the seatbelt and pulled Vanessa out and started doing CPR on her.

Realizing that Mr. Hughes and his wife were already dead, he ran to the other side where a trapped Ms. De Silva screamed as aviation fuel spilled on her.

“I yelled for someone to bring me a bucket that seemed like an eternity until it showed up,” she said.

“Because the helicopter was so close to the water, I just started grabbing buckets of water and dumping them out the broken tail section.”

Mr. Drevlak tried to calm Ms. De Silva and ensure that help came to her as she screamed in pain from the burns all over her body.

“I fell to my knees and said, ‘don’t worry, I’m just pouring water on you to try to dilute the fuel,'” she said.

“I said, ‘I know it hurts, but help is on the way.’