A friendship that spans almost 30 years was rekindled when former exchange student Espen Fevang returned to the south-west this week.
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Mr Fevang is a doctor in Stavanger, Norway and will present at an emergency medicine conference in Sydney next week.
While in Australia, he caught up with Warrnambool residents Frank and Margaret Beattie who he spent time with when he was an exchange student in 1989/90 and attended Brauer College. “I really loved it here,” he said. “I love the whole atmosphere. I really enjoy the sea and surfing.”
Mr Fevang is now an emergency doctor who works on helicopters and took the opportunity to see inside Warrnambool’s HEMS 4 air ambulance on Friday.
He said his workplace had a rescue helicopter and an air ambulance and the equipment and HEMS 4 helicopter was similar to the one he used in Norway.
He said his crew responded to 60 per cent medical cases and 40 per cent trauma cases. “Trauma’s going down due to safer roads and safer cars,” Mr Fevang said. “I’ve been working on the helicopter for 12 years and when I started out we had a lot of serious car accidents but that’s not the game anymore.”
He said while 20-year-old motorbike riders made up much of their earlier calls, the new trauma patients were middle-aged men on pushbikes who crashed while travelling at 70 kilometres an hour.
Mr Fevang said the city hadn’t changed much since he lived here and he enjoyed a run along the beach and a swim on Friday morning. “It’s so green and beautiful. It looked familiar. It was my best morning in a while. At home there’s no light. It’s dark, wet and cold. This is very different.”
Mr Fevang’s wife Sheila has visited Australia but his children, aged six and eight, are yet to make the long trip over. “We hope to bring them in a couple of years.”
Mr Beattie said both families had kept in touch, visiting each other’s home country three times each and it had been a great experience.
The visit was organised by Mr Beattie’s friend and Warrnambool-based Retired Ambulance Association state president Ray Lougheed.