Accident hero happy with the quiet life

Sarah Schwager
TWELVE years ago Kooweerup farmer Paul Johnson helped save the life of a driver trapped in a van, which had collided with two runaway horses outside his house.
Mr Johnson said he hadn’t thought twice before running to get his tractor and chain and connecting it to the front of the van, pulling the steering wheel clear of the driver, Lindsay Hanson, allowing him to breathe.
“Everything seemed to happen pretty quickly,” he said. “Somehow I knew where everything was. The chain was in the shed and the tractor was right there. That’s the first time in my life that that’s happened.”
He said Mr Hanson, who he has known all his life, was grateful.
“It was nothing out of the ordinary,” Mr Johnson said. “He would have done the same for me.
“It was just lucky that it happened where there were people and not down a quiet street.”
But the beef farmer said he was glad things had stayed quiet since.
“I’m glad I was there to help but I hope I don’t have to do it again,” he said. “Things like that don’t happen every day and I’m glad of that, too. You might say you’re bored but when anything exciting like that happens you wish it would go back to normal.”
Mr Johnson lived with his mother Priscilla on the property where he grew up in Main Drain Road, but has since built his own house.
He spends most of his time on the farm and also does some work building fences, target shooting on weekends as a hobby.
Mr Johnson, then 33, said it had been windy and dark when two horses had escaped from a nearby paddock about 7.30pm on 25 May, 1994.
The horse’s owners had chased them down the street, but unfortunately they jumped out in front of Mr Hanson’s van before he saw them.
Mr Johnson said one of the horses was killed on impact while the other smashed the windscreen, luckily missing Mr Hanson before landing in the back of the van.
“He’s a very lucky bloke, let me tell you,” he said.
Mr Johnson then called the ambulance and got the tractor, pulling the front clear, then stayed with Mr Hanson, relaying information to ambulance officers over the phone.
“It’s a lot worse when it’s someone that you know,” he said. “His wife and daughter came down and it was pretty emotional for them.”
After spending some time in hospital with a broken leg and lacerations, Mr Hanson recovered well and Mr Johnson said he still saw him now.