September 2000 Volume 81 Number 9 "serving the protectors"
By Brett Williams

Bravery in a Lunchtime inferno

Evelyn Riessen gasped for air amid thick, billowing smoke as she crawled across the floor of a burning caravan in Coober Pedy last September. Tears streamed down her face, and her throat burned, as she searched for a man whose faint voice she had heard only moments earlier. But now, Riessen had to feel her way through the blinding smoke to save both herself and the man from incineration.

Stationed at Coober Pedy as a police aide, Riessen, 37, was first alerted to the fire during a lunch-break visit at her parents’ home. Two neighbours knocked frantically at the Riessens’ door and warned of the caravan’s shrieking fire alarm.

Riessen burst from the house to see dark grey smoke pouring out of the caravan’s roof. She knew that Joseph Berka - the man who lived in the caravan - was most likely inside, as his truck was parked nearby.

She immediately radioed Coober Pedy police station officer-in-charge, Senior Sergeant Phil Hanley. He urged the mother of four to establish whether Berka - or anyone else - was in the caravan.

“I didn’t actually expect her to have gone in,” says Hanley, “(but) she obviously took me literally when I said: 'See if there’s anyone inside’.”

Riessen, with only two-and-a-half years’ service behind her, charged toward the caravan door, and yelled: “Is anyone in there?” When she heard a softly muttered response, her instincts took over.

“I went in,” she says, “and there was smoke everywhere. I couldn’t see him (Berka) but kept singing out. I got down on my hands and knees and (crawled), and then I saw him sitting on the floor.

“He had a garden hose but the water was just dripping out – it was terrible. He must have been in there for some time because the kitchen was all charred.”

Riessen immediately sensed Berka’s desolation. “He did look like he was exhausted and disorientated,” she says. “I don’t think it really registered to him who I was.

“He might have been just holding on to the hope that everything was going to be all right.”

But this was a life-and-death struggle in which hope was misplaced. Riessen knew she could only save Berka’s life with fast, incisive action. She urged him to “get out of here!”, but he refused to leave.

Riessen, however, “sure as hell wasn’t going to leave without him” – even if he resisted.

She could draw only short breaths amid the increasingly oppressive smoke, but continued pleading with him to escape. She prized his tightly clenched fingers from the hose as a potentially flame-fanning southerly wind gathered strength.

Then, Riessen spotted flames close by in the kitchen. She was instantly struck by the chilling thought that it wouldn’t be long before “this whole thing’s going to go up”.

“I got him by the scruff of the neck,” she says, “and I was basically dragging him across the floor. He was hanging on to things (as I dragged him), not wanting to come out. All he was saying was: 'I can’t leave; I’m putting the fire out; everything is okay’.”

But Riessen wasn’t dissuaded by Berka’s resistance - or the raging fire. Doggedly, she continued dragging him until finally reaching the caravan door, through which she pulled him to safety. Hanley and a CIB detective arrived just at that moment.

“The place was just beginning to erupt in flames,” says Hanley. “(We) jumped out of the car to see her assisting this bloke away from the caravan. Their eyes were watering and they were coughing and spluttering. They weren’t able to speak for the first few seconds, and it was all pretty scary for a while.”

Riessen remembers Hanley remarking: “Well done!” And, within only moments, she watched as the fire razed the caravan to the ground.

Miraculously, she had emerged uninjured, but Berka would later that day require hospital treatment for smoke inhalation.

Riessen simply put a few drops in her eyes and continued the rest of her shift. Back at the station, she was surprised by her colleagues’ response. “People came up and congratulated me and shook my hand,” she says.

“I was thinking: 'Why the big fuss' I just helped someone, and that was it’.”

But others, it seemed, felt the same way as Riessen’s colleagues. For her actions, she was last month awarded the Police Bravery Medal during a graduation ceremony at Fort Largs.

Hanley - who describes Riessen as “a real asset to the station” - says her effort was “fantastic”, especially with her then limited experience. Her medal, he insists, was greatly deserved.

But Riessen simply loves her job, which she describes as “building a bridge between Aboriginal people and police”. She never expected such high-level recognition but was honoured to receive the award.

She hopes to use her medal as inspiration to her children in times of personal hardship. “At the end of the day,” she says, “I’d like to show them the medal and say: 'I got this because of what I’ve done. It doesn’t matter how hard something is, just don’t give up’.”

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