At 20. One of the jobs I had that very literally nearly killed me, in the most awful way imaginable.

So. I was 19 when I started cutting wood with Bill Heald and Geoff Rawson. Bill was a huge, hard man, rough and terrifying, in your face in an instant, but actually a kind person. Geoff Rawson was.... a fucking idiot

Anyway, we were way out the back of Wal Westcott’s property Honey Springs, near Alectown in central west NSW. Wal was a distant relative of mine; I once saw him grab a sizeable wild pig out of a trap by its back legs and brain it against a tree

So we were cutting firewood. A lot. Bill would pick the trees and drop them, Rawson would cut them up. My job was to help lift the trees to cut, either with a crowbar or the fork of a tractor. And load/unload the damn F250

Rawson was using a mobile saw, called a Mobilco. It was essentially a 3-4 foot diameter circular saw on the end of a metal arm, powered by belts and a huge motor. The whole thing balanced on wheels and the operator guided it through what were oversized bicycle handles

They are now, and have been for many years, banned, for the reason that they are death machines without much competition.

Two farmers using one to fell trees by turning the blade horizontally were killed when it jammed in a tree. One leant on the tree to free it whereupon it kicked back, slicing him in two and hitting the man behind him, who later died

So here was idiot me with idiot Rawson. I was using a bar to lift the trees clear of the ground, while Rawson would slice them like cabanossi, moving towards me. It was, dear reader, an inevitable tragedy playing out

Now as I said, Rawson was an idiot: a braggart, part time trotting trainer, door to door insurance salesman, grifter and full time loudmouth. He was, as my dear friend @KALHolman will avow, full of shit.

But work was work. So I watch this squat, beanie headed know it all heading towards me, not fully capable of controlling this screaming, thousands of rpm, saw on a shopping trolley... when IT happens

A piece of firewood he’s cut drops the wrong way. The saw hits it and hurls it like a missile straight back at Rawson behind the machine. It hits him with the sound of a bowling ball striking a pin, right below the knee, directly on the shin

With an anguished banshee shriek, Rawson is felled as surely as any tree. He drops the saw, the blade of which is no more than three feet from me, kneeling on the ground, holding an iron bar

It’s marvellous how the body reacts, even at 20: the blood chilling rush that you’re about to be killed, stupidly, in a matter of microseconds, and yet you have time to wonder how it’s going to happen: sliced in half? Or will the blade hit the ground and shatter, splintering me?

I remember clearly thinking the crowbar was suddenly so much heavier as I was trying to get up and keep it from the saw’s teeth, how bright and loud the sun was, how Rawson seemed to be screaming louder than the saw, though that wasn’t possible

The sawblade hit the ground. Somehow it didn’t shatter. Instead, the whole damn machine took off like a demented, deadly tricycle as I half-leapt, half-crawled backwards from its direction. I saw earth flying at me as it sliced into the ground

And then it stalled, died. Rawson’s leg was fractured. He was moaning on the ground. Bill Heald had seen the whole thing happen in seconds, unable to do a thing. It was a terrible accident, which now seemed unimaginably funny

We loaded poor Geoff onto the truck for the trip back to Parkes hospital. He was moaning so much at point Bill pulled up and asked politely if it would be easier for us to finish him off out here, bury him on the side of the road and let us get back to work.

He didn’t moan so much after that.

Somebody invented this. Someone thought this was a good idea