Ballina couple save Australian’s life in Japan
A Ballina husband and wife have been credited with saving the life of a young Australian man who came close to dying of hypothermia in a Japanese ski resort town.
The Brisbane Times reported that the young Australian, identified only as Daniel, has revealed how close he came to dying of hypothermia in the Japanese town where Brisbane man Scott McKay went missing.
Daniel said he would have died wandering the streets in Niseko if not for the intervention of total strangers – Ballina nurse Angie Llewellyn-Sare and her GP husband, Dr David Sare.
Daniel – also from Brisbane – said he was on holiday in the ski resort just weeks after Mr McKay’s disappearance when he left his friends after a night of drinking in the local bars.
Mr McKay, a 27-year-old IT business owner, who helped developed a skier-tracking system, sparked a massive, ultimately fruitless search when disappeared en route between a bar and his accommodation in February.
Daniel told the Brisbane Times the beginning of his story was eerily similar to Mr McKay’s situation.
“The last thing I really remember is drinking at the pub, saying goodbye to a girl I was talking to, then going outside,” he said.
“I had heard about what happened to Scott, but I didn’t realise that this was almost exactly the way he went missing.
“Its pretty hot here in the bar, so I was only wearing a t-shirt and had a light jacket round my waist.”
About 6am the same day, Ms Llewellyn-Sare was sitting in her room at a local guest house when she spied Daniel walking in circles, staggering and crying out.
“I wondered why he was out there: it was early, really cold and he didn’t look right,” she told the Brisbane Times.
“Yes, he had been drinking alcohol but when I found him (in the foyer of the building), that clearly wasn’t his problem.
“He wouldn’t have been seen in the foyer he had crawled into and he was only a couple of hours away from dying.”
Taking quick action, the Ballina couple took Daniel into their room and gave him warm drinks and blankets, despite having no idea who he was or how he had come to be at their doorstep, suffering severe hypothermia.
Ms Llewellyn-Sare said humans normally feel cold because blood flows from our skin into the major organs to keep our core body temperature warm, but after alcohol consumption, blood flushes the skin, giving a warm feeling but leaving core body temperature to decrease rapidly.
“I don’t think people are aware of the effect of mixing alcohol and the cold,” Ms Llewellyn-Sare said.
