An outback nightmare

Agriculture runs in the blood of 29-year-old Liana ‘Lil’ Bryant, who since a young girl has lived and worked on remote stations in outback Australia.

Alongside her partner Sam, the couple manage Mount Doreen Station in the NT, one of Australia’s largest organic cattle stations spanning over 730,000 hectares, 400km northwest of Alice Springs.

“We get groceries delivered once a fortnight, the mail plane comes once a week, and we have to be pretty innovative when things go wrong – there's no mechanic nearby to call on, so it's gotta be Sam or one of the crew,” Lil explained.

Living remotely, the Flying Doctor has been a constant for Lil and her family for as long as she can remember, with almost every member of her family having had a flight at some point throughout their life.

But most recently, it was Lil who needed the Flying Doctor when she was fighting for her life just 24 hours after having her second child, Poppy.

“I woke up in the middle of the night to feed Poppy and, as I sat up in bed, I felt a lot of liquid and realised pretty quickly it was blood,” Lil said. “Sam was trying to keep me calm because I went into shock – I started shaking.

“I rushed to the bathroom – we have white tiles and it looked like a scene from a horror movie. It was horrific for me, but more horrific for Sam."

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