The police car accelerates and we hurtle down the on ramp and on to the Western Ring Road.
The radio spits out information.
“A 59-year-old male driver has called saying he’s been affected by chemicals,” the female voice says. “He’s conscious, breathing … he doesn’t know what chemicals are involved. He’s complaining about his throat.”
The sirens aren’t on, nor the flashing red-and-blue lights, but there’s an urgency to Senior Constable David Attard’s driving.
He and First Constable Matt Jeffs are responding to an incident on the ring road, the magnitude of which is unknown until we arrive and the chemicals are identified.
The caller, a courier, had collected two consignments, the last from an address in Reservoir, and was on his way to Laverton North when he began to feel his throat tighten.
He dialled triple-0 and managed to park his old Toyota HiAce in a median strip between the freeway and the Airport Drive off ramp.
Two fire crews are first on the scene. They’ve walked the driver about 100 metres away from his van and he’s now slumped against a concrete buffer on the in-bound side of the highway.
Three firefighters huddle around him. One, down on one knee, attaches an oxygen resuscitator mask to his face. They talk to him softly, despite the B-doubles and peak hour traffic hurtling past.
Senior Constable Attard is next in line, crouching down to find out the name of the man’s employer. Within minutes, the police officer is on to the courier driver’s boss trying to find out what the chemicals might be.
A burly VicRoads incident responder arrives and gets to work, leaving a trail of orange cones behind him as he closes off the exit ramp.
“If it’s something that’s going to explode, we’ll have to shut the whole freeway,” Constable Jeffs said. “We just need to know if it’s going to go bang. You have to think worst case scenario.”
Metropolitan Fire Brigade station officer Phil Menzies is of the same mindset.
“I’m just taking baby steps with this one,” he says.
He’s ordered two of his men to don protective wear and oxygen tanks and head down to the van. It’s their job to identify the chemicals.
Meanwhile, paramedics say the courier driver appears to have suffered an anxiety attack rather than any adverse affects from chemical exposure.
Luckily – for the team of emergency service workers and thousands of Western Ring Road commuters unaware of the potential catastrophe – the chemicals are stable.
Unbeknown to the driver, he had collected two consignments of cleaning products often used on wine vats that shouldn’t be stored together. When mixed, the potassium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide in the products creates oxygen.
“There’s no sign of them mixing. [But] These two chemicals should not be carted together,” says one of the sergeants on the scene. “He’s probably smelt something and panicked.”
While a potential crisis has been averted, the incident has been a reminder of the danger our emergency services confront every day.
The courier driver is taken to the Western General Hospital for treatment. His vehicle is driven to a nearby carpark so he can collect it later. The off ramp is reopened.
Senior Constable Attard and First Constable Jeffs are soon on their way to another job.
The particulars are read out over the police radio network: “A female has been punched in the face by her partner. There was a three-year-old present also. She was crying on the phone.”
And then details of another incident come through: “A girl is 16. Her bother is 18. He’s kicked her. She’s hiding in the bathroom and is yelling at her. She feels unsafe.”
Senior Constable Attard says mental health issues and domestic violence make up the bulk of Brimbank police officers’ work.
“But there’s a little bit of everything in Brimbank,” he says.
Their first call-out of the shift was to a fallen light pole in Taylors Lakes that had quickly led to gridlock on the roads.
Against all odds, the steel pole hadn’t fallen on a car, but it blocked off access to the Taylors Road and Kings Road roundabout.
Within minutes of arriving on the scene, the pair was directing traffic and placating angry drivers.
Despite the danger they place their lives in multiple times each day, the Keilor Downs-based officers appear to relish the job.
“I might miss Christmas every year, but I love it,” First Constable Jeffs said. “I’d do it for free.”
