‘I should be dead’: GP recounts the moment a car crashed through his consult room

It was, without question, lucky because it was the desktop computer that saved the life of Dr Rafid Hamdan on Monday morning. 

Just as he turned to his computer to write an imaging request, shifting his body slightly, an explosion ripped through his consulting room, sending his patient, sitting in front of him, flying into the air. 

In the aftershock, debris rained down as the ceiling fell in.

Utterly bewildered by what had just taken place, he later learnt that an Alfa Romeo had careered off the road, through the front of the practice, on through the waiting room and into his consultation room.

“It was about 9.20am,” he says. “I had just turned to the computer to write that imaging request when the noise erupted, a huge noise.

“It felt as though the room was collapsing around me, all the steelwork and ceiling falling apart.”

As the media reported earlier this week, the vehicle also fatally struck a pedestrian just outside.

His patient, one of his long-term patients, was also seriously injured.

Dr Hamdan described those early chaotic moments, his own narrow escape and his relief that no staff or patients in the waiting room were harmed, as well as his determination to rebuild his new practice:

“My patient was covered in rubble and screaming in pain. My first priority was to get to her. My second was to make sure my staff were safe,” he said.

“I was luckily able to move the material around my patient to get beside her.

“She was conscious, but she was screaming and in pain and shock. And like most of us, she did not know what was going on.”

He said, although the paramedics arrived within minutes, it felt like time had stopped.

“The first thing my patient said was, ‘How is my doctor? Is he okay?'”

As the media reported, Dr Hamdan’s patient was 51-year-old Jorjina Odisho, who was airlifted to The Royal Melbourne Hospital. She later said her first thought was that the practice had been hit by a bomb.

Dr Hamdan said he escaped serious injury, and even death, only because he had moved to his computer screen moments before the impact.

He later learnt that the car had passed 2cm from where he was sitting. 

“If I had not turned to my right to write the imaging request, I would have been in his path. So yes, I am lucky to be alive, and I am glad to be able to talk to you today.”

The car had gone on through to the staff room, demolishing the computer server, before finally lodging in the toilet at the end of the building. It had travelled something like 30 metres into the building.

The police said they believed the driver at no point touched the brakes once he had left the road.

The main reason the tragedy was not greater was simply the time of day it occurred, Dr Hamdan said. It was early, and not many patients were around.

One woman had done a blood test minutes before and so had left the waiting room and gone to the other side of the clinic just before the accident.

“I saw her in the street and caught up with her after the accident, and she said, ‘I am lucky nothing happened to me.'”

Dr Hamdan said his heart went out to the pedestrian who was killed.

But amid dealing with the emotional and physical impact of what had happened, Dr Hamdan — a veteran GP — was also thinking about mundane logistics.

On the morning AusDoc spoke with him, he was doing telehealth consults.

He had only opened his clinic in August and was planning to provide bulk-billing services to the community.

“We wanted to offer a different way of practising. We have very limited bulk-billing in this area, so we were really proud of it.

“Now, the clinic is destroyed. It has been distressing and chaotic.”

Dr Hamdan is now scrambling to find temporary premises.

His biggest concern is the paperwork and red tape involved in moving for a medical practitioner. 

“It can take months. I am just hoping the process can be hastened somehow so we can get back to seeing patients properly while the building is being repaired. 

“I am very thankful and grateful that my staff are good and that my patient is good. 

“We are very keen to get back to helping the patients, but we hope there are not too many hurdles from Medicare or the health department.

Footnote: A 63-year-old Maribyrnong man behind the wheel of the Alfa Romeo has been interviewed by police and released, as investigations continue into the accident.