The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 42

WORLD Australian surfer nearly loses arm in savage ambush at holiday campsite nn nn i By DAVID KNOX BALI BALI and nearby 4 6vV sN I islands are rapidly BALI and nearby islands are rapidly descendins from heaven 7 ft descending from heaven i lone Indonesian with a machete, but managed to ward him off with a stick. The attacker fled and Mr Falahey, of Melbourne, made a decision that almost cost him his arm and his life. "I wanted to make this guy pay. All I remember is running after the thief and torches being shone in my eyes. Somehow I was knocked to the ground.

"I tried to push myself up with my right arm. Instead I just fell over and rolled into the sand. "It was then 1 realised my right arm had been almost severed." A friend frightened the attackers away and then began the nightmarish saga of coming to terms with the extent of his injuries and making the long, painful trip home to family and proper medical help. Mr Falahey plans to return to Desert Point this year "to exorcise the Massive blood loss. Makeshift surgery by staff wearing thongs.

Operations at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, including one to clean out sand and twigs in the wound. Foul infection. Deep depression, caused by the prospect of the arm being amputated. Permanent muscle, nerve and bone damage. The keen surfer has been undergoing physiotherapy after the attack, which also left him with two broken ribs and deep cuts on his back.

Mr Falahey and friends were camping at a remote surfing spot called Desert Point. Worried about thieves, the surfers hired a local man to guard their camp as they slept. Mr Falahey woke to hear the guard blowing a warning whistle. He ran to warn a friend at the beach, where he was attacked by a to hell as holiday destinations, according to an Australian traveller who had his arm almost severed in a horrific attack by thieves. Blair Falahey.

28. admits folly contributed to his bloody nightmare but warned that increasing poverty was making Bali a more violent place. Mr Falahey said many Indonesians, hit hard by a deepening economic crisis, flocked to Bali in the hope of cashing in on tourist dollars. When they couldn't get work serving tourists, they robbed them, he said. The incidence of theft, muggings and assault in the teeming areas of Kuta and Legian were growing all the time.

"You can see the writing on the wall," he said. "Bali isn't the end of the rainbow anymore." A seven-year veteran of trips to Indonesia and a worldwide traveller for 10 years, Mr Falahey had his right arm mangled when one of a group of thieves attacked him with a machete in a jungle on the island of Lombok, east of Bali. He then survived: Ll A 13-hour dash on a makeshift stretcher: through raging surf, by car over corrugated roads, a stormy plane trip and a hair-raising taxi ride the driver agreeing to take him only after being shown the gaping wound to a hospital in Denpasar. HORRIFIC MEMORIES Blair Falahey plans a return trip this year to the scene of the brutal attack. Future: double pr makin re ally Your positive action as a World Vision supporter has helped turn an Ethiopian dust bowl into a fertile green valley.

Of? an impac Just over a decade ago. the Valley of Antsokia was a scene of desolation -a famine-wrecked dust bowl, in Eastern Africa where several million people died. Who can forget those faces of starving Ethiopian children on our television screens? But today the Valley has blossomed because World Vision worked in partnership with the local community to transform lives through development. Through the effective harnessing of water, desert has bloomed with trees and terraces filled with crops. Where people were starving in the mid-80s, they have now exported surplus food to neighbouring areas in need.

Your help has started to create food security and the impact of that on the lives of the people is immeasurable. The key was not simply relief, but rehabilitation and development where the local people participated in all phases of the project to transform their world for themselves. The decision not to tolerate poverty has the greatest impact of all. i .4. -v.

fcnm riiiir titrim tmr frif ii liirrtiii-in-i'ff'-" World Vision GPO Box 9944 Melbourne VIC 3001 Telephone 1 3 32 40 Facsimile 03 9287 2425 lnternecwww.worldvision-org.au A CHRISTIAN RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP REACHING OUT TO A HURTING WORLD 44 THE SUN-HERALD www.sunheraid.com.au February 14, 1999.