When this black and white photo of four generations of the Herring family was captured, back in 2018, it would be Wes Herring’s grandfather, Fred’s, last trip to the family’s Gum Park station. The 28,000 hectare family farm, located near Broken Hill in the Central West of NSW, had been run by the Herring family since 1915. But when this photo was taken, Gum Park had been in the grip of drought since 2016 and all the dams had run dry. Wes, also pictured with his young son Angus and his father Peter, had recently taken over the running of the farm, after spending his late teenage years and early twenties ‘learning the trade’ of agriculture as a farm hand on over three million acres on a farm in SA and as a rural contractor. But Gum Park was so much more than Wes’s family farm. School of the Air, rabbit shooting and shearing in school holidays were all an integral part of Wes’s childhood. But like so many other farmers, the stress of drought and all the other random acts of Mother Nature’s wrath were pressing down upon Wes’ shoulders. In hindsight, he can see the signs of his depression building, in the form of a short temper, fatigue and turning to alcohol and solitude for support. Like so many rural men, Wes didn’t know how to ask for help or even if he needed help. His Black Dog was circling and the young father and husband felt trapped and in despair. Until the moment when, with a loaded gun pointed at his chin, Wes ‘woke up’ and knew he needed urgent mental health support. Within days, his nearby RFDS GP and RFDS Mental Health Nurse were caring for Wes’s wellbeing and getting him the support, the medication and the information he needed to recover. 

Ongoing research by the RFDS RN031 Mental Health D6.indd suggests that each year, around one in five, or 960,000, remote and rural Australians experience a mental disorder. The prevalence of mental disorders in remote and rural Australia is the same as that in major cities, making mental disorders one of the few illnesses that does not have higher prevalence rates in country Australia compared to city areas. At least not on paper. Yet suicide and self-harm rates are higher in remote and rural Australia than in major cities, with residents of very remote areas twice as likely to die from suicide as city residents. The same research models highlights that farmers, young men, older people, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians face the greatest risk of suicide. 

Want to know more about growing the conversation in YOUR community? You can find out more via We’ve Got Your Back | Facebook OR our NSW-based RFDS We’ve Got your Back Champions – who all have lived experience around mental health challenges in rural Australia – are always happy to be contacted directly:

Richard Wilson 0438 093 682 champion.richard@outlook.com or Jane Martin 0431 469 984 champion.jane@outlook.com or Brendan Cullen 0437 188 980 champion.brendan@outlook.com

But this is also the story of Hugo’s incredible family. The story of how Louise dealt with the life-changing repercussions of her husband’s debilitating stroke in 2015 – facing each day with the same courage and resilience she drew upon during Hugo’s infant years, when RFDS flights and urgent medical appointments were a regular feature of her family’s life. And it is a tale of the incredible courage and resilience shown by Louise and John, when their older son Will, became a quadriplegic after a devastating car accident in 2022.

Then, in the middle of a busy crop seeding in 2015, Louise took a heartbreaking phone call. Her son Tom told her, ‘I think Dad might be having a stroke, I can’t understand what he’s trying to say, and he can’t get over the fence’. John spent six months undergoing intensive rehab in Adelaide with Louise by his side, while their eldest children, Edwina and Tom, left University to return home and care for their younger siblings on the farm. John’s life was forever changed and the fit and hardworking farmer could no longer work the land he loves.

Then, during the pandemic in 2022, they were dealt another blow, when their sports-loving son Will, 23, was a back-seat passenger in a shocking crash not far from the family farm. Will sustained a devastating spinal cord injury and spent 216 days in ICU and then in the spinal rehab unit. Louise didn’t come home for four months. Today, both Hugo and Will compete at a National level sports (Hugo in athletics and Will in Wheelchair Rugby) and Hugo is an inspirational mentor and health ambassador for Down Syndrome Australia.