SES Volunteers Association
The SES VA has been very helpful and supported my efforts throughout. Membership for SES members is free.
Create NSW
https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/create-nsw
Formerly the NSW Department of the Arts, Create NSW provided me with a small grant to cover some of the research and other, non- self-publishing costs..
Local Heroes
Many local people provided me with information or free use of their photographs
Photographs
Thanks to the following people and organisations for generously allowing me to use their photographs: Dorian Alegria, Janette Asche, Dennis Bainbridge, Peter Belshaw, Tom Brennan, Ian Brown, Julie Burton, Nigel Foote, Trevor Gunter, Gary Hayes, James Johnston, Clive Keenan, Jeanette Learned, Samantha Marriott, Peter Medbury, Colin Menger, Jim Mitchell, David Noble, Sylvia Orellana, Shane Sanford, Alan Sheehan, Andrew Smith, Fiona Sweeting, Will Turner, Jason Wheeler, Blue Mountains City Library, Blue Mountains City Council, NSW Ambulance, CareFlight, Toll Ambulance Rescue, NSW Police, Blue Mountains Police Rescue, NSW Fire & Rescue, Blue Mountains Historical Society, Blue Mountains SES, Oberon SES, SES Volunteers Association, Bushwalking Wilderness Rescue, Wentworth Falls RFS, Top Notch Video, Blue Mountains Gazette, Lithgow Mercury, 7 News, ABC News, 9 News, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, National Parks & Wildlife Service, Transport for NSW, Police Media, Sydney University Bushwalkers, University of NSW Outdoor Club, Heritage NSW
Text, stories, and research
I am very grateful to some individual members of the RFS and SES for their generous assistance, particularly Peter Raines, Deputy Captain of Mount Wilson/Mt Irvine RFS and David Parsons, Blue Mountains SES Planning Officer. I would also like to thank Alan Sheehan, Rescue Officer from Oberon SES, for his article about probabilistic search techniques and his help in preparing the Kanangra information. Ian Bennett, Captain of Lithgow VRA was also very helpful in providing information about the Wollemi National Park and Newnes and Wolgan canyons. The RAAF provided detail information about their helicopter operations in the Blue Mountains.
Andy Macqueen allowed me to use stories from his book “Back from the Brink” and provided additional information. I would like to thank Jeanette Learned, President of the Springwood Bushwalking Club, for her help and support. Many other individuals have kindly contributed their stories and I thank them also, e.g. Bushra Moussa, Janette Asche, Bruce Cameron. Weather information was provided by Lee Graham from Blackheath Weather (attempts to contact MasterNASA were unsuccessful though). Matt U’Brien, former Blue Mountains Police Rescue officer, also offered his support. Jim Smith provided information about the rescue clubs and the situation in the 1940s.
I should like to thank the Blue Mountains Historical Society for their assistance. Newspaper articles are not available online after 1954 and there is a large gap between then and more recent services, which only permit access via a paywall. This is why there are some decades with more incidents listed than others. For the newspapers after 1954, I have been able to search through the Blue Mountains Gazette and Blue Mountains Echo copies stored in the Historical Society library. The now moribund Australian Accident Register was also a very useful source of incidents. I would like to thank Lucas Trihey, Ian Brown, and Richard Delaney for the use of reports from that database