PBF Speakers

Greg Willmott

Workplace

“Work hard and enjoy life but make sure you’re getting enough sleep.”

Greg grew up on a farm, learning from an early age that work was hard and hours were long. This mentality continued throughout his life, in particular when supporting his young family.

In the lead up to his incident Greg was only getting 4 hours sleep per night. He always felt tired but was used to it, so continued to push himself. Early one morning Greg’s fatigue finally caught up with him. He fell asleep at the wheel, his car left the road and collided with a tree. Greg was only 2km from his destination.

Sustaining life threatening injuries, overtime Greg made a decent recovery. However he lives with quadriplegia from his C5/6 spinal cord injury. Greg shares his personal story so that others can see how important healthy sleep patterns are, and avoid the risk of fatigue related incidents.

Rollo Craib

Workplace

“Encourage safer choices in the workplace.”

Rollo’s working career began at the age of 15 spanning the hospitality, transport, oil and gas and agriculture industries. Over the years, he experienced many varied workplace safety systems and cultures. Rollo made the decision to invest in his own business managing and driving road trains across Australia.

Drawing on his previous workplace safety experiences, Rollo implemented his own approach to ensure safety at work was always a focus and compliant. Unfortunately, this did not protect him from sustaining a permanent injury. Rollo was riding his motorbike on a Saturday morning when he was hit side on by a car, being driven by a distracted driver. As a result, Rollo lost his leg and sustained significant spinal damage.

As part of PBF Australia’s Injury Prevention workplace team, Rollo shares his experience of adopting different workplace safety systems, along with his own story and experiences of a serious incident resulting in permanent life altering injuries.  Engaging with his audience, Rollo’s presentations aim to initiate constructive conversations regarding workplace safety cultures, to encourage safer choices in the workplace.

Myreesa Hurtado

Workplace

“When you’re least expecting it, it can happen to anyone”

As a young, adventurous woman, Myreesa lived a full and busy life surfing, snorkelling, riding bikes and exploring. Working as an instructor at an adventure camp, safety was Myreesa’s number one priority. Four years later at 29 years old, she sustained a spinal cord injury whilst working at a day-care centre.

Myreesa’s message to the community is simple: no one is invincible. There was always a risk of sustaining a permanent injury with her adventurous lifestyle, but never did she think she would sustain an injury in her workplace.