Plane crash survivor 'lucky to be alive'
A survivor of a plane crash at Tooradin at the weekend has told how he cheated death.
Not many people are able to say they are a plane crash survivor, but Cameron Davey can.
He was among the group of skydivers on board the Cessna which crashed at Tooradin on Saturday.
"I'm lucky to be alive and lucky to walk away from it," he said.
Incredibly, soft tissue damage in his neck and some burns from the fuel are the only injuries he sustained.
"All the bones are good, I've had CT scans and X rays...just got to have an MRI scan now to make sure everything is okay."
He says it was only a few seconds before the crash that he realised the plane was in serious trouble.
"It wasn't till I heard the trees hitting underneath the plane that we knew things were pretty bad and I muttered an explicative and then just hit."
In a complex rescue effort involving more than 20 paramedics, police, the CFA and SES, rescuers had to dodge snakes and walk through mud, mangroves and water sometimes waist-deep to reach the plane, which ditched into a swamp beside a river leading to Western Port Bay.
Amazingly, all five skydivers who had just abandoned their jump because of bad weather and the pilot escaped alive.
Pilot Errol Featherstone, 65, who was trapped in the aircraft cabin for two hours before being freed, is still in hospital in a serious condition and Tandem master Sam McKay is awaiting pelvic surgery.
Cameron's three other skydiving mates suffered minor injuries and have all been discharged.
The investigation will continue once the plane is winched or floated from the crash site.
As for Cameron, he says he'll be back up there in no time.
"You can keep yourself safe skydiving, this was a plane crash, not a skydiving accident.
"Skydiving is an amazing thing to do, it's rewarding, and it's exciting."
