ED MERTENS - OFF THE RAILS

Yarns From Aussie Rail

©copyright 2005 Ed Mertens

THE RUBBER DUCK, THE PROPHYLACTIC ZODIAC

I was at Woomera, in the mid 1970’s. The crib room was small, very small. So small that if you belched you would blow out the door or window. How ever we managed to get some twelve or fourteen blokes into that little room, I’ll never know but somehow we managed.

It was a Monday morning and a knock on the crib room door, saw a large cardboard box being man- handled by the ‘time checker’ and placed in the corner of the room. On no account was the large black handle, which protruded from the side of the cardboard box, to be touched or pulled…. No matter what!

Talk about a red rag to a bull. There was the box sitting in the corner of the room with a large black handle protruding from its side, saying, pleading, ‘PLEASE PULL’….

Tuesday came and went Wednesday slipped by, and the curiosity for some workers was mounting. By the time Thursday came along it was not a matter of when, the black handle would be pulled, but by whom. Friday was just too much to bear and by midday it was only a matter of time. The tension in the crib room was at a breaking point.

I just can’t remember who did the deed but the black handle protruding from the large cardboard box was yanked, vigorously.

What happened next was amazing. There was this whooshing noise as if air was escaping under extreme pressure. The large cardboard box sitting in the corner exploded in a violent eruption. It grew at an alarming rate in all directions invading all corners of the small crib room. There was a rush for the door but would you believe it, the door opened inwards. Too late, the ‘thing’ had a life of its own. A self-inflating, six-person rubber zodiac trapped a dozen men, and there was no escape.

One bloke drew his pocketknife but the rubber being twenty mills thick, repelled his thrusting blade and still it grew at an enormous rate. We were doomed, the door was pinned shut, the window was broken and pushed out, yet still the thing grew.

The ceiling was at this point being pushed into the rafters and we were still trapped. At last one of the victims found the deflation plug and promptly pulled it and the Zodiac monster started to deflate much to the relief of those pinned under it. What a mess, utter destruction. Window blown out, ceiling pushed into the rafters. I do not know how this lot was ‘covered up’ or who wrote out the report for the bosses, but they must have done a pretty good job of it as nothing ever came of the incident. One thing I do know is that once inflated, a Zodiac will never fit into its original box again no matter how hard you try!