The face of victory

By Melissa Grant
A PHOTO of Ranald Webster’s charred face hangs on a wall at The Alfred hospital as a sign of hope to bushfire burns victims.
The Ash Wednesday survivor has made a complete recovery despite doctors giving him just a 4 per cent chance of living.
He first made Gazette headlines in 1983 after he was badly burnt when fire engulfed his vehicle, which ran off the road in blinding smoke after a sudden wind change in Cockatoo.
When Mr Webster appeared in the Gazette’s special edition 20 years after the Ash Wednesday tragedy, he had become The Alfred’s “star patient” and a well-known spokesman for burns victims.
He still visits the hospital’s burns unit on a monthly basis and will travel there today (Wednesday) to inspire those burnt in the Black Saturday fires.
Mr Webster, now 87, expects the patients to still be in a state of shock but wants to give them a glimmer of hope.
“I show them a picture of me and I say, ‘if I can do it, you can’,” he said.
“There’s a photo on the wall in the burns unit – people can look at that and say there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
And the photo hardly goes unnoticed as Mr Webster discovered while on a Kids Foundation camp at Stradbroke Island last year.
“A man came up to me and said I want to shake your hand,” he remembered.
“He had a teenager in the (Alfred) hospital that was burnt and another kid burnt in another hospital.
“When he went to The Alfred he saw the photo of me and he said, ‘I just couldn’t believe it’.
“He said that every time he visited his kid he would have a look as he went past – that really shook me.”
Mr Webster will pass on a heartfelt message to the Black Saturday burns victims.
“You can get better, life goes on and it’s up to you, and you only, if you want to be in it or not,” he said.
“My philosophy is that if something happens and you can’t change it, accept it.”
Mr Webster said he and wife Rae – who have been busy collecting funds for the Red Cross fire appeal this week – had been moved by Victoria’s bushfire tragedy.
“Ash Wednesday was very bad but there weren’t as many lives lost as there were in this holocaust,” he said.