How Garry was saved

By Kath Gannaway
FROM the converted classroom Garry Rogers now calls home, he looks out over a stunning fiery-red sunset.
The Skyline Road resident who lost everything in the Black Saturday fires is finding it hard to be philosophical about winning the battle to stay alive on 7 February, only to be caught up in what seems at times a crushing weight of red tape.
His story, like so many others, is unbelievable. Mr Rogers still finds it hard to believe he survived.
He was alone in his 40 square, five-level house high above Yarra Glen when the fire raged up the steep hillside.
He had been monitoring the conditions all day, but had no idea that the fire was on his doorstep.
“I got a phone call saying Yarra Glen was on fire two minutes before it hit me,” he said.
With flames surrounding the house, he made his way down to the laundry. “I could see the flames everywhere, at every door and window.
“I could hear beams falling and windows smashing above and within 20 minutes the ceiling started to burn.”
He braved the flames, making his way to a driveway below the house and within minutes the whole house came crashing down.
“My instincts were to run into the flames, but everything was on fire, the ground, the air, the houses, everything,” Mr Rogers recalls.
Then he saw a spot, in front of a tree which was not enveloped in orange.
“Everything around me was surrounded by flames, but they were not directly hitting me. I had about a foot of space around me which was not burning,” he said.
With just his wallet and his phone, he phoned ‘000’, but got no response. Standing with his hands covering his face, he rang his mum.
“I thanked her for my life, for looking after me, in a really calm voice I thought, and I just said ‘I’m not going to get through this’.
“I thought I just had to thank her.”
Fearing that every call might be his last he rang an ex-girlfriend, “the love of his life”.
That five-minute call gave him the will to live.
“It seemed to give me a bit more strength. I had been struggling to get breath, had to keep squatting down to get air,” he said.
He realised that about 10 metres away was a water tank overflow. It proved to be a life-saver.
“There’s always water in the overflow and I was just praying it was still there,” he said. One outlet had melted and he burnt his hands getting the cap off the other, but the water which gushed out drenched him, relieving the burning.
Mr Rogers went four times from the tree to the pipe, soaking himself and drinking as much as he could to stay hydrated.
The images in his mind, of the orange world, air so hot it felt like breathing flames, his steel shed flaming, the twisted iron of his tow truck and first, second and third degree burns to his legs and arm are all fresh in his mind.
“I knew I as lucky to be alive, and am lucky to be alive,” he says.
But the red sunset is a nightly metaphor for the red tape which he fears he may not survive quite so well.