Dougie, 43, from Mornington Island, twitches and makes odd mutterings while sitting on a road near a hangout colloquially known as Dinner Camp. 

It just so happens that a police officer has stopped while on a routine check of the riverbed close to the Mount Isa hospital.

A woman sitting next to Dougie points his seizure out to the Sergeant, who contacts back-up and paramedics.

Dougie then lies near a dark stain of what might be oil on the bitumen road as several women hold him closely. 

The Sergeant offers encouragement. 

“You’re doing a good job,” he tells the women focused on Dougie as the other police officers arrive.  

Dougie regains awareness shortly after four more police officers stand around him. 

The first thing he says is; “where’s my beer?”  

A police officer laughs and another repeats the question in a disbelieved tone to make sure he heard it right. 

One of the women accompanying Dougie playfully punches him on the jaw. 

The attending paramedic warns her slowly, calmly, and coolly; “no more of that!” An officer warns Dougie to be respectful to the woman as well. 

Another riverbed dweller sits next to me on the curb. 

Her name is Georgina and she is from Alice Springs. 

She explains Dougie’s fit was caused by lack of food and too much alcohol.

As paramedics wheel Dougie in a stretcher to take him to the hospital, Georgina predicts he will be back in the riverbed drinking the following morning. 

“How often does a fit caused by alcohol happen in the riverbed?” I ask.  

“Every day,” Georgina said. 

It seemed coincidental that a seizure happened as soon as the Sergeant arrived. 

After all, local police are used to being treated as a taxi service by dwellers. 

In fact, while paramedics examined Dougie another member of the group asked to use the ambulance to get a lift somewhere. 

Dougie’s seizure seemed genuine to the Sergeant though. 

“Although he did get a bit silly at the end,” he acknowledged. 

The conversation with the Sergeant began after he asked for my identification, unsure what I was doing so close to the riverbed on my own.

I explained that I am a reporter who has written several stories in the last week about the riverbed dwellers littering and drinking in the dried Leichhardt River. 

Council, police and local indigenous spokespeople say these riverbed dwellers come from the Northern Territory to attend the Mount Isa Rodeo in early August each year but then become stranded. 

They are accused of being a drain on local resources as well as a nuisance by residents living nearby who listen to the screaming and smell the lit fires.  

I have not heard directly from riverbed dwellers themselves and it is why I am sitting on the curb talking to Dougie and Georgina. 

We meet 10 minutes before his seizure where I learn he is from the Gulf. 

He asks for cigarettes and then for an aerosol can that he can sniff. 

I have neither of these things. 

He tells me where he is from – the officially dry community of Mornington Island –  and opens his backpack for his wine cask.

It is these items he looks for when he regains consciousness but they have gone missing. 

Meanwhile, Georgina explains she has been in Mount Isa the last three months after being released from prison where she served four months for stabbing her partner. 

She preferred staying in Mount Isa to Alice Springs where there were tougher alcohol restrictions. 

Georgina did not mind living in the riverbed except when it was cold.

It was why they lit fires at night, she said. 

The police move on. After a polite request from a dweller I do too.

I leave by walking through the riverbed.

There are at least three other groups in sight of the section I am crossing. 

One group of a dozen notices me and shouts out. 

“Can you arrest me? I need somewhere to nap,” a woman said, mistaking me as a plain clothes police officer.

If I had the power to arrest her and take her to the police watch house I would be giving her the facilities to have a shower, a bed to sleep on and a roof over her head.  

According to Mount Isa Police Station’s officer-in-charge Senior Sergeant Col Henderson this is the reason why some riverbed dwellers misbehave. 

The group believe I am a photographer and tell me that they are all traditional owners. 

Their answers to the question “where are you from?” make me wonder at that.

This is Kalkadoon country but they tell me they come from various communities in the Territory.

One-by-one they walk away but come back when I tell them I will leave them alone. 

I walk along the dirt track that joins with Fourth Avenue. 

Suddenly a rock the size of my palm hits the ground beside me. I turn to see who threw it but it’s difficult to tell. 

It is the first time in the hour I have spent in the riverbed that any of the dwellers have shown aggression. 

I return to the newsroom. When I left it I assumed I would have a recorded opinion from a riverbed dweller blaming the political system or treatment from police officers for their situation.

Instead, within 10 minutes I witnessed a seizure from a man who will leave the local hospital and continue to do what brought him there. 

It stands to reason so much more happens in the riverbed witnessed only by frustrated paramedics and police officers who see the same type of assault and bad behaviour repeat consistently in the years they cover the same district. 

These dwellers seem to have a dependence on the attending police officers, the justice system and the welfare system.

In this world, crime, punishment and healthcare are sadly intertwined.