Injured teen winched off Tabletop Mountain

When Stephen Mudge began to climb Toowoomba’s picturesque Tabletop Mountain he expected to feel exhausted on his descent, but cetainly not crippled with pain only just capebale of crawling a few metres.

In July, the St Peters Lutheran College student was coming down the mountan with his group of friends when dislodged rocks came straight for him.

“We were navigating down an awkward rocky part and a guy behind me lost his footing and sent rocks cascading down towards me,” he said.

“I moved out of the way of the falling rocks, grabbing a tree as I went. The rest of my body twisted out of the way but my knee cap didn’t.”

Stephen knew right away he had seriously damaged his knew, having dislocated his knee four times before playing AFL. He was very familiar with the awful pain.

“My friends immediately called an ambulance and were told to move towards a section of the mountain to meet the paramedics. My friend’s dad and my dad helped me limp but it just became too difficult,” he said.

“I tried to crawl another 200 meters through rough terrain but it was really difficult, my knee was throbbing and I became really tired. I couldn’t put any weight on my knee, it was so frustrating.”

Due to his location, the only way Stephen was going to get out, was to get winched out by helicopter.

“It would have taken me several hours to get down, and considering it took all my energy to crawl that small distance, I thought it was awesome that CareFlight was on their way,” he said.

RACQ CareFlight doctor John Davis was winched down to rescue Stephen.


“It wasn’t scary at all, I’m not afraid of heights so it was fun,” he said.

“I’d never been in a chopper before so, even though I was in a lot of pain, I was excited at the same time.”

“The CareFlight crew were fantastic! I was a bit cold going up the winch as it was very windy, and two of the crew offered me their jackets which was nice.”

Stephen was airlifted to Toowoomba Base Hospital, where he was treated.

“It’s really good to know that CareFlight is there. It’s one of those things you hope you never need but I’m really happy that they were there,” he said.