Australia’s only one-armed competitive woodchopper, Nick Fredriksen, celebrated his new association with LifeFlight in 2017 with two blue ribbons at the Stanthorpe Show Woodchopping Competition earlier this month.
Kilcoy resident Nick hopes to continue this winning streak at his next competition at the Killarney Show tomorrow, Saturday 25 February.
The champion woodchopper knows from personal experience the lifesaving benefits of aero-medical services and is a proud supporter of LifeFlight, the helicopter rescue service which has saved more than 45,000 lives over 35 years. Nick has pledged to fund-raise for the charity in 2017 as well as donate some of his prize money from this year’s events.
Incredibly, Nick has been rescued twice by aero-medical services.
On April 6, 1994, aged just eight years old, Nick’s life changed forever when his shirt was caught in a hay baler accident which resulted in the loss of his arm.
He was working on his family farm at Sheep Station Creek, near Kilcoy.
Nick’s father, Alan, described how he grabbed Nick and ran to the house after seeing the horrific accident, then quickly returned to the shed to collect his son’s arm.
“I placed Nick (and his arm) in the car to drive towards Kilcoy,” he said.
“Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) met me just outside of Kilcoy and I drove the ambulance myself to the hospital while the QAS paramedics treated Nick in the back.”
The young boy was then airlifted from Kilcoy Hospital to Brisbane’s Royal Children’s Hospital, where Nick began his long recovery for the weeks that followed.
Check out the video to see Nick in action…
Nick cheated death a second time when he fell through glass louvres almost exactly nine years later, at the age of 17.
His other arm was injured as a large piece of glass deeply punctured the vein above his elbow.
This second accident came only three days before the nine-year-anniversary of his first experience with helicopter rescue services.
This time it was his mother, Marie, who was involved in his medical retrieval and administering initial first aid.
Today, Nick is a qualified heavy plant operator, an accomplished swimmer competing at national swimming titles, and Australia’s (and possibly the world’s) only competitive arm amputee woodchopper.
“It’s so important to me to give back to aero-medical services, like LifeFlight, because I’ve needed them myself and know how much of a difference they make,” Nick said.
“It’s a service that I’ve donated money towards in the past and I now want to put the word out a bit more and get more people involved.”
The woodchop at the 2017 Killarney Show gets under way from 9am tomorrow.
Click on the link for the Killarney Show program
