[woofa.express]

Has any reader not had FOOD POISONING? If not, read this.
Flying and Health.

Food poisoning in flight. It’s not nice.
Departing Tawau (Borneo) for Adelaide, Darwin being the first leg (or league ??; what ever). With a very heavy fuel load for the long flight and allowing for extra endurance with massive tropical thunderstorms enroute. It had to be a daylight only flight- 11 hours if I incurred no diversions or delays so one must leave at first light. There was no fresh food available prior to departure and no refrigeration in our hotel rooms so I purchased cooked chicken from the market place prior to departure. You, the reader know where this story is going don’t you?

Only a little over an hour into the flight I knew why my tummy was rumbling and it wasn’t goodo time. Shortly afterwards and it was very shortly afterwards was my very first chuck followed by a liquid shit in the plastic carry bag provided with the chicken. It was more vomit and more shit for another eight hours and this continued until I was about 90 minutes from Darwin and boy it was on the nose. I wasn’t able to competently able to fly. I couldn’t hold an altitude nor a heading. I really didn’t know which way to point the aeroplane and I really didn’t care, infact I wouldn’t have cared if I had have died. I am quite serious. And being an ag plane it was all hand flying; there is no auto pilot.
The only place to land was the Indonesian island of Celebes but on a previous occasion two of our crew had landed there waiting for weather to clear and were met by military youths with automatic guns who followed them demanding money.

After arrival at Darwin I found accommodation with great difficulty as the military had booked the town out for their takeover of East Timor. I found a restaurant for a meal and when the waitress presented it I nearly chucked across the table and I left. About 2 in the morning I took a cab to the hospital and asked for help. Following a lengthy delay I was given a few pills which they assured me would clear my problem. I asked if they should give me a drink of charcoal and they figured that would be a good idea. Following that drink I never shit for 6 days and that was as bad as the condition as the illness I have described.
I departed Darwin about midday feeling poorly and tired. Without planning Birdsville came up on the horizon so I stayed there. Still couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep so at 2.30 in the morning departed for my destination of Leeton. Arrived at the pre-organised time of 7 in the morning. My friend John Haynes picked me up to take me home to Tocumwal and although I had showered on the previous two nights and dressed in clean clothes both mornings he said he could smell me and it wasn’t like roses in the morning dew. That smell stuck with me for another two days. Whether flying or not, be cautious with what goes down your neck; the consequences can be quite horrible.