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MAKING IT DOWN UNDER

Making it Down Under - Con O'Sullivan Image Name: Making it Down Under - Con O'Sullivan Description: Making it Down Under - Con O'Sullivan
Making it Down Under - Con O'Sullivan Image Name: Making it Down Under - Con O'Sullivan Description: Making it Down Under - Con O'Sullivan
Making It Down Under 5 Image Name: Making It Down Under 5 Description: Making it Down Under - Dr Matthew Mulkeen, RACQ - Life Flight. Sunshine Coast LifeFlight Base, Picture - Patrick Hamilton Copyright: Picture - Patrick Hamilton
Making it Down Under 2 Image Name: Making it Down Under 2 Description: Making it Down Under - Dr Matthew Mulkeen, RACQ - Life Flight. Sunshine Coast LifeFlight Base, Picture Patrick Hamilton Copyright: Picture - Patrick Hamilton
Making it Down Under 1 Image Name: Making it Down Under 1 Description: Making it Down Under - Dr Matthew Mulkeen, RACQ - Life Flight. Sunshine Coast LifeFlight Base, Picture Patrick Hamilton Copyright: Picture - Patrick Hamilton
Making it Down Under Flight Nurse Alan O'Riordan Image Name: Making it Down Under Flight Nurse Alan O'Riordan Description: Making it Down Under Flight Nurse Alan O'Riordan

Making it Down Under, Episode 3 of 6, RTÉ One, September 21 at 8.30pm

In this episode of Making it Down Under:

We meet Alan O’Riordan, a flight nurse originally from County Cork. He’s working with the Ambulance Service of New South Wales and is attached to one of their air ambulance units. His daily duties include the handling of patient transfer duties from outlying communities in NSW to Sydney hospitals.

This week  Alan is dealing with an elderly patient who has suffered a cardiac arrest. Alan and his crew can cover the vast distances in Oz by air in about a quarter of the time it would take by road.

During the transfer Alan becomes aware that the patient has severe bruising on the back of her neck. This could be a sign that she has suffered a fracture and it’s a race against time to get the woman fully checked out.

At a mine 600 kilometres east of Perth we meet Elaine Hayde, who headed straight to Australia after graduating from UCC to work as a mining geologist at huge gold mining operation. She spends long shift deep underground where her job is to seek out the gold seams that will bring the best results when they’re mined.

It’s a male dominated profession and Elaine has had to learn to hold her own in the roughneck world of gold mining.

Today Elaine is beginning to test an area of the mine to ascertain its suitability as a site worth exploiting for gold. Will Elaine strike the Mother lode?

Also in this episode Con O’Sullivan from Cork is on the road to Nanuturra 1,500 km North of Perth to pick up 150 head of cattle for transport down the coastal highway. During the course of his journey North, Con is held up at a roadworks site that stretches for 200km. Con is working against the clock and this is a delay he can ill-afford. Will he make it to the cattle station on schedule?

Flying doctor Matthew Mulkeen has a day off from work and he’s planned a day out with his wife Mariana and their daughter Alexandra. They’re visiting Buderim Forest Park – dogs aren’t allowed, but there are plenty of other animals around the area, most of which have the potential to hurt or kill you and Alexandra is afraid of snakes!

Biographies

Mayo born Doctor Matthew Mulkeen (38)  has been based in Queensland since 2015 and is a doctor with one of the region’s rapid response ‘Lifeflight’ helicopters. His wife Marijana is from Croatia and they met in Ireland in 2006. They have one daughter, Alexandra who is 7.

Corkman Con O’Sullivan (27) has been living in Australia for the past five years and has been driving the world’s largest cattle road train since 2013. It’s a tough job that takes him thousands of kilometres every week around Western Australia. From Bantry, Con loves the outback and the open road.

Vet John Russell (30) is from Downpatrick and is a specialist equine veterinary surgeon in Melbourne. John has been here since 2011 and despite having a great job with one of Ireland’s top stud farms, decided to take the leap to Oz to further his career with Caulfield Equine Hospital. His day-to-day job sees him work on some of the best race horses in Australia.

Roscommon native, Louise Day (22), who is training to become a jockey and has found the going easier for female jockeys in Australia compared to Ireland.

Kate Doyle from Waterford always wanted to be a Veterinary nurse but found it tough to get into it in Ireland. She moved to Perth in 2011 and studied there to become a vet nurse, a job she loves. She is engaged to be married to her partner Ian. Kate and Ian first met in Perth, and although they’re both Irish, they quickly realised just how small their home nation can be. Kate’s family home is just across the road from his in Waterford. Having traveled halfway round the world to fall in love with the girl next door, Ian’s also had to find room in his heart for Kate’s menagerie of two dogs and two cats.

Waterford native Rosie Nolan (27) applied to become a Guard back in Ireland when she was 18 and was told to go and get some life experience and try again later. She arrived in Australia as a backpacker, eventually joined the Brisbane Police and never looked back. Nine years later and she has seven children and lives happily in the suburbs with her wife Natasha.