AS SHE jumped from the plane, Billinda Gibson thought everything was going according to plan.
It was September 30, 1990, and Ms Gibson, the Royal Australian Army’s first female parachute instructor, had made more than 300 jumps in her 10-year service career.
But this one would be her last.
“I woke up one morning and thought, what’s my leg doing up there and all these nurses in my room?” she said.
“And they said ‘you had a parachute accident a month-and-a-half ago’.
Leaping out at 10,000-feet, the canopy opened but as Ms Gibson turned it towards the ground the wind turbulence collapsed the canopy and caused her to fall 40 metres.
She fractured her femus, her pelvis in three places and her orbital floor, which gave her head injuries and loss of peripheral vision.
“It was a target competition, and I was more upset because they said I’d landed on the target but I couldn’t get the prize because I couldn’t walk away,” Ms Gibson said.
Her rehabilitation took three months, including the six weeks she spent unconscious.
It was a turbulent period she admits didn’t end with physical recovery alone.
“I tried to drown my sorrows with two bottles of scotch one night and wound up in Hollywood Psychiatric Hospital in February 1996,” she said.
“I’ve been sober since then, so I jokingly say I’m a sober alcoholic.”
Since then, Ms Gibson and her 10-year-old dog, Gypsie, have become a beloved part of Mandurah and are frequently seen out walking together and immersing themselves in the community.
For Ms Gibson, it is partly a tactical move.
“A lot of service people can’t talk about the past,” she said.
“The thing I’ve learned is to walk and talk; not drink and think or smoke and choke. “Walking is good exercise, you never know who you might meet and it fills the time. “If you can talk about something it certainly lets go of the reason why you’re not saying anything.”
On the Anzac Day dawn service in Mandurah, Ms Gibson marched with the Australian flag along with Gypsie; a feat she said left her feeling proud.
Never one to miss a challenge, she completed the 97-kilometre Kokoda Trail in 2009, despite her vision impairment.
“I went as a challenge to do the Kokoda back in 2009,” she said.
“I couldn’t believe it because I was able to raise enough money to go, and I always say now that Mandurah raised the money to get me off the streets, seeing as I walk them quite a bit.”
It was during the gruelling trek that Ms Gibson came across a startling sight, one not far removed from her own past.
“When I did the trek the Papua New Guineans said, ‘look up in the tree’.
“I couldn’t believe it.
“From what I could see, there was a parachutist hanging up there.
“They said he landed there in 1942 and he was so still because of the snipers, and that’s how he died.
I’m going back to finish the job.
- Billie Gibson
“But he’s still hanging up there, and they didn’t get him down because he didn’t have Australian dogtags; he was Japanese.”
On October 5, Ms Gibson will fly back to Papua New Guinea to bring the soldier down and complete a mission that has been abandoned for 72 years.
“When I qualified as a parachute jump instructor part of that job was as a drop-zone safety officer, [and] you had to make sure the parachutists landed properly,” she said.
“Here’s me after my medical discharge, still being service-orientated.
“I’m going back to finish the job.
“We’re going over to get him down and the Japanese are coming over as well as a camera crew.
“They’ll do the DNA and try and find out who he is and where he’s from.
“The thing is, even though he was the enemy, that’s passed now.
“It’s a really good thing amalgamating everyone; working together.
“It’s also given me a vocation and a challenge, apart from walking the streets to get fit.”
Ms Gibson is inviting up to 20 interested participants to join her on the seven-day trek, run through Kokoda Investment Tours.
“It’s for anyone that would love to come and help me, with the purpose of getting the man out of the tree but also for exercise and to see a bit of history there,” she said.
Ms Gibson will fly to Papua New Guinea on October 5, with the trek starting on October 7, for seven days, and costing $2,200.
For more information, call Ms Gibson on (08) 9534 8334 or 0457 722 977.
