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ADELE Lingard said she had some of her most memorable experiences while working with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in the Isa in 1971.
The retired flight nurse said she met her husband, Graham, at work and the two married in 1972.
“He was a charter pilot and we quite often did a lot of emergency work together,” she said.
Looking back, Mrs Lingard said she still couldn’t believe how they managed all those years ago, after touring the modern Mount Isa RFDS base for its 50th birthday on Tuesday.
“You look back and think ‘gosh, how did we manage,’ but this is fantastic,” she said.
“It’s just nice to see when you mention RFDS, people respect the organisation.”
Mrs Lingard said there were always plenty of emergencies to attend during her years of service but one particularly memorable job took place while a young reporter was on board.
“I can remember when we got an emergency call out to the Northern Territory in the middle of the night, we had a very sick baby,” she said.
“By the time we decided to put it on the aircraft we had to operate on the back of the cattle truck.
“Next thing we looked up and the runway was on fire because one of the flares had tipped over.
“We had to bundle the baby in with the mother and after we took off the reporter said, ‘Wow this is a really exciting time’.”
The former flight nurse said emergency calls weren’t the only responsibility of the nurses – sometimes they just needed to be a friend.
“It brings back great memories, I think everyone respected each other and we went to a lot of places where there were women on their own in some of the hotels and I had to make friends with them,” she said.
“I’d take clothes out for them and do their hair for them because they never used to see another woman in those days.
“It wasn’t just the medical side of it but public relations side as well.”
Adele and Graham Lingard now live at Bowral in New South Wales.