Nurse Louise McCabe had just finished playing rugby union for West Wyalong in a game against Boorowa one Saturday in April and was getting ready to meet her husband so she could collect her uniform, have a shower and go to work on the night shift at the local hospital.
The men's game was underway on the West Wyalong oval and one of the players for the Boorowa Goldies was former NRL player Nathan Stapleton, who had retired to the country after a career with the Cronulla Sharks and Sydney Roosters.
Louise, "a Canberran through and through", had left the national capital a couple of years earlier to also pursue a rural life with her husband Scott Cumming, on their mixed crop and sheep farm near West Wyalong, with their two young children.
She was almost to the showers when the play on the oval suddenly stopped.
"One of the girls said, 'That player's not moving out there' and kind of drew my attention and I noticed the player wasn't moving much," Louise said.
"Usually I don't go out if it's the opposition team, they've got their own strappers and stuff. But for whatever reason I went out and sort of noticed straight away that he was in a bit of trouble."
The player was Nathan Stapleton who was not breathing. His neck had been fractured in a ruck and he had suffered a heart attack.
Louise, used to dealing with all kinds of emergencies in the little country hospital at West Wyalong, went straight into nurse mode.
"He wasn't in a very good position, so I was able to get a couple of the guys to help me log-roll him, with spinal precautions, to get him in a better position and then it was quite evident he wasn't breathing regularly. So I started CPR straight away."
She literally saved his life, with the help of those around her.
"It was amazing because it was a whole team effort," Louise said.
"There was a gentleman who's a stock and station agent, a gentleman who's in the air force and the ref, all assisted in the CPR, we cycled through.
"And people were giving mouth-to-mouth as well, which, now I know, from what's happened, is that oxygen really saved Nathan's brain. There was no brain damage which was unbelievable considering he was down for 16 minutes.
"He went into cardiac arrest so he was pulse-less for 16 minutes before we could get it back. So he needed that air in there to keep his brain and other organs doing what they should be doing."
Someone from the crowd rushed to the local golf club, about a kilometre from the oval, to get its defibrillator to send a charge through Stapleton's heart.
Louise said she had yet to speak to Stapleton but she is working to raise funds for his rehabilitation, now forever tied to his story.
"His wife Kate rang me probably the Thursday after the event and thanked me and I'm in regular contact with other family members," she said.
"I haven't spoke to Kate or Nathan just yet, given everything that has happened and that Kate recently gave birth. I'm giving them a bit of space. But they're fully aware of what I'm doing."
A McCabe-Stapleton Shield has also been created which will be a rugby competition played each year between West Wyalong and Boorowa.
"It's such an honour to be recognised with the shield but I am very aware of all the other people involved that day to achieve the outcome we did for Nathan," Louise said.
Stapleton is still in hospital in Sydney. His spinal cord has been damaged at the C4 level of his cervical vertebrae and he is a quadriplegic.
"They've just found out they won't be able to return to the farm, due to the lack of nursing support and the kind of support they need," Louise said.
"Nathan will be on a ventilator for the rest of his life. There was, initially, some hope he would be off that ventilator.
"The main focus now is to get him up to a rehab facility on the Gold Coast which is the same one that Alex McKinnon went to (the Newcastle Knights player who suffered a spinal injury in an NRL game in 2014)."
Louise and her husband Scott have two children, Matilda, 4, and George, eight months.
She grew up in Canberra, going to Belconnen High and Hawker College before studying nursing at the University of Canberra.
She worked at the Calvary and Women's and Children's hospitals in Canberra before moving to West Wyalong.
When she was younger, Louise played rugby with Uni Norths where she knew former Wallabies and Brumbies player Ben Alexander socially. And from that time he was a bouncer at the rugby hang-out, the old In Blue nightclub in Civic.
When Alexander heard about Nathan Stapleton's accident and the role Louise played in saving his life, he reached out to offer to help raise funds for his rehabilitation.
He also had personally seen Louise's amazing skills as a nurse when his wife Jen gave birth to their twins, who were two months' premature.
"My wife was looked after by Louise at the Canberra Hospital," Ben said.
"I've always been indebted to Lou for the way she looked after Jen. That was our most vulnerable night, having twins born that premmie.
"I also knew of Nathan's story and as a footballer and dad. And, yeah, it could have been anyone."
West Wyalong Rugby Union Club has partnered with Ben Alexander and PPG Events Australia to assist Nathan and his family.
They are raffling off the ultimate Bledisloe Cup experience in New Zealand on September 22, 23 and 24. The trip includes flights, A class tickets to Bledisloe Game at Eden Park, a trip to a local winery and the expertise of Alexander who is hosting the trip.
So far, the raffle has raised $9000 for Nathan but everyone hopes that figure can go higher before the raffle is drawn at 9am this Saturday.
The link for tickets is here.
Louise, meanwhile, is still processing that day on the rugby field and is passionate about encouraging everyone to learn CPR as an essential life skill.
"Initially I didn't know what to think about it, I thought I was just doing my job. But the more it went on, the more time I had to think about it, it's pretty amazing to have that skill set," she said.
"It's my privilege to help people when they're most vulnerable and Nathan was most vulnerable that day. And to be able to work in a team - those three other gentlemen who helped that day, they just followed. No one argued. You normally get one person saying, 'Oh no, don't do that'.
"I orchestrated it, once I got started, I got them to take over and then I could look and watch and add things in. It was a pretty big day."
When the accident happened, Nathan's wife Kate was pregnant with their second child Angus, who was born in July. Older son Harry is nearly two.
"Harry and Angus will get to know their dad," Louise said.
"I feel that in life we come here for our stories and I often will tell old men or old women when they come into the hospital and say, 'I'm done now', I'll say, 'But you have to tell your stories'.
"That's Nathan's legacy now. Tell your story. Tell them about the great footballer you were. Tell them how you met Kate and how you fell in love with her. You've got all these amazing stories that the boys are going to hear from their dad and not from somebody else. I think that's really special."
- Tickets for the raffle for the ultimate Bledisloe Cup experience, raising funds for Nathan Stapleton and his family, can be bought here.
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