Forever Remembered As An Earthquake Hero

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday March 12, 2008

By MARTIN DINNEEN

A FUNERAL service will be held today for Newcastle earthquake hero Norm Duffy, who has died, aged 80.

Mr Duffy was badly injured and his wife was killed in the 1989 collapse of the Newcastle Workers Club, but he soldiered on to help others in need and was commended for his bravery.

Reports after the earthquake said Mr Duffy went to the club with wife Miriam on the morning of December 28 only minutes before the building collapsed to renew his membership

Suffering extensive injuries and trapped under concrete, steel and poker machines, Mr Duffy comforted and lifted the spirit of others while waiting for rescue workers to find them.

Mr Duffy also helped to free a woman trapped under debris by taking her weight on his chest while emergency workers cleared the rubble around her.

Alan Playford, a paramedic who was lowered into the area where Mr Duffy and four others were trapped, said yesterday that Mr Duffy inspired him.

"He talked to them [trapped people] in the most stoic fashion," Mr Playford said.

"He encouraged them and said he would pray with them."

As Mr Duffy gave support to others trapped in the debris, his health dramatically deteriorated and he went into cardiac arrest when removed from the rubble.

"He thought little of himself and only of others around him, and that has always stayed with me," Mr Playford said.

Mr Duffy was clinically dead when removed from the club.

Paramedics revived him on the median strip.

He spent the next six months in Royal Newcastle Hospital.

Mr Duffy's son, Michael, said his father was a strong man who came to Australia from a small town near Newcastle, in England, as a "10-pound Pom".

"When I found out where he'd come from and what he'd been through, he was a lot bigger to me," Michael said.

He said his father suffered from a severe leg injury sustained in the workers club, but never said too much about his experience, although it seemed to play on him.

"Eventually it kind of faded away, but he missed my mother terribly and that never faded," he said.

Michael said his father spoke little of the events in the Workers Club, but had formed a connection with many of the emergency workers who helped that day.

"They had a bond over this thing that happened to them together," he said.

"It was between them and him.

"We were very proud of him."

Mr Duffy suffered a heart attack at his Whitebridge home on Thursday and was flown to Hornsby Intensive Care Unit where he died.

His funeral will be held today at Whitebridge Uniting Church at 10am.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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