FOR THREE hours, scuba diver Aimee Merlino floated alone at the mercy of rough seas near Seal Rocks.
She had lost her group, lost one flipper, and was focused on keeping calm while she waited to be rescued.
She didn't know the shoreline was flooded with emergency services and hadn't seen the many boats sent out to search for her.
Then came the Westpac Rescue Helicopter.
"There were people looking the whole time, but it wasn't until the helicopter arrived that they could see me from above," she told the Newcastle Herald.
"I saw them appear over the headland, and I was like 'yes!' and started waving at them."
Ms Merlino and dozens of other 'Rescue Club' members gathered at the Belmont base on Sunday to thank the entire Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service team and share powerful stories of survival.
From snake bites and horrific car crashes, to urgent hospital transfers and search operations, the chopper has been taking to the sky in Newcastle for almost 50 years.
Like many other patients, Ms Merlino was never expecting to need it.
A group of six divers headed from Newcastle to Seal Rocks one December day last year to try their luck spotting grey nurse sharks.
By the time they realised things had gone wrong and came to the surface, it as already too late.
"The waves were getting bigger and we were quite far out from the beach, you could very easily just drift apart from each other, and that's what was happening," Ms Merlino said.
"We were trying our hardest to just kick and get back to the shore, but probably an hour or so we were kicking and we weren't going anywhere."
Ms Merlino found herself alone and didn't know who had made it to shore, but saw her partner had scrambled onto an island and could get help.
At Sunday's event, Ms Merlino reunited with air crew officer Nathan Langham, who spotted her that day. The crew had earlier found a second missing diver some distance away.
The helicopter hovered over Ms Merlino and directed rescue boats to her location.
"I couldn't really cry or anything, my body was just trying to keep me calm," she said.
"The feeling before that was just helpless, like I couldn't do anything."
When Stuart McBride set out on one of his regular motorbike rides a year ago, along the renowned Oxley Highway route between Walcha and Wauchope, he didn't know his life was about to change.
"Apparently somewhere along the way, everything went wrong," he said.
His bike and a trailer collided, and Mr McBride slashed both arteries in his leg, broke his arm and neck, and suffered bleeding on the brain.
"If it hadn't been for the helicopter coming up with blood products on board, then they probably couldn't have done much for me ... I wouldn't be here," he said.
The chopper's critical care team landed at the remote Gingers Creek location at almost the same time as paramedics.
He doesn't remember that day, or about three weeks afterwards, but knows from working at Tamworth hospital and seeing the helicopter come and go for 15 years that he was in very capable hands.
"I already knew that, but I'm proof of it," he said.
"I'm grateful to be able to come and thank the crew, and thank the background crew as well."
It's been a longer journey for Roslynd O'Shannassy, who has made it her mission to support the Westpac helicopter for the past decade, even as she worked hard on her recovery and re-learning to speak.
She suffered a deadly bleed on the brain while living at Marks Point in 2014 and was airlifted from John Hunter Hospital to Sydney for surgery.
Ms O'Shannassy visits the base every December to decorate a Christmas tree with handmade 'flower angels' for each staff member. The crew that saved her are very special, she said.
"Every day is an absolute celebration ... I find something every single day that I can say, 'I'm here'," she said.
"I'm lucky enough sometimes the aircraft flies over exactly where I live, which is really, really great.
"I love meeting people and find out their stories ... we're not an exclusive club, we're a group that wouldn't be here without the helicopter, and I just love them all."
Read more:
- The incredible stories behind half-a-century of rescue helicopter
- Rescue helicopter's humble heroes reflect on a combined century of service
