Tim Duncan was a disillusioned young rural doctor when a series of traumatic events transformed his life.
After his critically ill patient couldn’t be properly treated at an under-resourced outback hospital, Dr Duncan was left questioning his career choice.
“I was in a desperate state of anger and frustration and sadness really. We have a great health system in Australia, but we couldn’t give someone who was possibly dying in front of my eyes the urgent care he needed.” Dr Tim Duncan.
Three weeks later the emergency doctor became the emergency patient when his car overturned on the highway at Kakadu.
Lying beside the road with critical injuries, Dr Duncan knew his only hope was receiving skilled medical care.
At that moment, he made a pact with himself. If he survived, he would devote himself to medicine.
“Everything’s crystallised, everything’s clear and it was clear to me that medicine was the job for me, and it was only at this point in my life that I thought was about to end. ‘This is right, this is you’. So yeah, here I am.” Tim Duncan.
Miraculously his life was saved – first by three Indigenous strangers, then a team of skilled remote area nurses and aeromedical doctors.
Dr Duncan has since retrained as a rural specialist and has joined the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
And he’s formed a lasting friendship with the patient whose life he saved just before his car accident.
