Derrick McManus on The BEYOND Podcast

From 0:00 to 8:10 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (0:00): The 3rd of May 1994 was actually a nice day, so nothing out of the ordinary. But it became a very out of the ordinary day. My name is Derrick McManus. I'm a South Australian special forces police officer. I was shot 14 times with high-calibre rounds.

News clip (0:31): McManus was attending a house at Nuriootpa to arrest wanted man Tony Grosser when he was shot 14 times.

Derrick McManus (0:40): We were going there to arrest him. The next thing I know, I'm just falling to the ground.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (0:48): Did you know what happened to you?

Derrick McManus (0:49): I feel two bullets hit my left thigh, and it felt like a sledgehammer just driving into my thigh. I lost about 30 per cent of the muscle in my thigh. While I'm lying on the ground, he is still shooting. He fired 18

Aleksandra King (1:00): Was he still shooting you?

Derrick McManus (1:01): Yeah, he fired 18 times. No, he was committed to finishing that job. It doesn't stop me doing what I need to do. I missed his head by just millimetres. I fired 13 times.

Aleksandra King (1:12): You were really in a bad state, and brave enough to still fight.

Derrick McManus (1:17): Brave enough, well trained enough. My forearm was broken in two places, folded backwards along my forearm. I was on the ground for 3 hours. He fired 2,000 rounds. Dust is falling into my eyes. Believe it or not, I relaxed in that moment.

Aleksandra King (1:33): This is serious mind control.

Derrick McManus (1:36): The doctor said I was 30 seconds from death, and I would have died. Anything better than death is a bonus. He stayed in the house for another 38 hours. It's the longest siege ever in Australia. And today he walks amongst us.

Aleksandra King (2:00): Derrick, let's go back to Tuesday the 3rd of May 1994, in Adelaide, near the Barossa Valley. You wake up in the morning: what does it feel like? An ordinary day.

Derrick McManus (2:22): That day was a very ordinary day. I had my cousin, who was a builder, finishing off a veranda at the back of my house. It was going to be finished that day. I had a conversation with my wife before I left for work, and she said to me, "When you get home tonight, we're going to have a cup of tea, scones, jam and cream underneath our new veranda." It was a very ordinary day. Good weather, beautiful weather, and it was May, so it should have been cold, but it was actually a nice day. So nothing out of the ordinary, but it became a very different type of day. It became a very out of the ordinary day.

Aleksandra King (3:05): So at what point did things change?

Derrick McManus (3:10): The majority of the day was a very ordinary day. Even when we got called to say we had a high-risk arrest, that was our job.

Aleksandra King (3:20): Who called you?

Derrick McManus (3:24): I laugh wildly, because I was actually at work, but I had a lot of sporty involvement while I was at work, because we got paid to stay fit. So I was actually out playing police basketball at the time that the boss of my section made a phone call and said, "Derrick, you need to get back here, we've got a high-risk arrest in the Barossa Valley." And they said it was with the offender, Grosser. I had been involved in two jobs with this person in the past, so I knew exactly who it was.

Derrick McManus (3:56): When that call came in, most people think, "Oh my gosh, that must have been scary." Not a chance. We were trained for this, and this is the work we love to do. So when I got told there was a high-risk arrest with Grosser, it was, "Excellent, more work."

Aleksandra King (4:14): You thought "excellent", despite knowing Grosser. Tell us about Grosser. What is he like?

Derrick McManus (4:21): So he's an innocuous character, essentially. He had been investigated for fraud offences probably 3 years prior to the 3rd of May, and when he was being investigated by the detectives at the time, we got a small hint that he might be violent, because he said, "Any cop who comes to my house is going to get shot." So we had a small hint. But we went to his house on that occasion, a midnight raid on his house, because that's the time that he made the threat.

Derrick McManus (4:57): It was late at night, so we went straight there to take his weapons off him. We did a belly crawl through his paddocks and up to his house, and we were listening at the doors and the windows to see if he was preparing weapons.

Aleksandra King (5:14): Okay, okay. So let's just take it a bit slower. You knew that he might be violent. He's obviously a baddie; you've dealt with him before. You weren't afraid; it's business as usual to get called to this high-risk situation that's going on. You stop the basketball, you go and get changed. What do you have? Vests? Do you have special equipment that you're putting on before you go there?

Derrick McManus (5:38): Yeah, absolutely. We went back to base, which was in the city, an hour away from the Barossa Valley. We had a very good briefing there. We drove out to the Barossa Valley police station and had another briefing with the police who were on the ground, who wanted to arrest him that day. Then we started putting on our special equipment: our vests, our drop holsters for our weapons, and other little bits and pieces.

Aleksandra King (6:10): Was there a part of you that felt some protection from putting these vests on? I mean, did it, psychologically, when you put on a bulletproof vest and the outfit for combat?

Derrick McManus (6:21): I really love explaining bulletproof vests to people, because they ain't bulletproof, and I am living proof that they ain't bulletproof. We call them flak vests. They stop a certain type of bullet, but only up to a certain limit. So we know what their capability is, and that's the most important thing: we know what they do, and we know what they don't do. So yes, there is some protection from them, but they only cover the vital organs. They don't cover your head, they don't cover your arms, they don't cover your legs. So there is some protection from them.

Aleksandra King (6:52): Okay, well, that's quite scary then. I'm a bit like, right, because you can't bulletproof your whole self. But okay. So you get dressed, and how many of you are there?

Derrick McManus (7:03): There were five STAR Group officers, and we picked up a guy along the way, another police officer with a video camera. The video of this is online, and I'm sure you're going to be putting it alongside the podcast as well. We took the videographer because we knew that Grosser was a complainer. Every time we went there, he complained about what we did and how we did it, and it was his word against our word. So we thought: if we've got a video, it's the first time ever in South Australia that an arrest has been caught on video. We then went, thank God, to body-worn cameras after that, many years after that.

Aleksandra King (7:44): Okay. So that was probably the start of everyone wearing a body cam. So you get in the car, there are five of you, you pick up the videographer, and you're driving there. What's going through your head, going towards this violent guy?

Derrick McManus (7:58): Still excitement, absolutely.

Aleksandra King (8:02): Why are you excited?

Derrick McManus (8:03): Because that's what we train for, and that's what we love to do. And yes, it sounds bizarre that you're going into this high-risk situation, but we know that's what we take on when we take on that job.

From 8:10 to 24:15 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (8:15): In fact, just a little anecdote: we were sitting watching TV in the meal room of the STAR Group office, and there was a news briefing of a hijack of a plane in Indonesia, and they said they were going to fly the plane to either Perth or Adelaide. Everybody in our office started going, "Adelaide, Adelaide." Now, we know it's dangerous, we know it's high-risk, but we train for it, and we want to be able to use those skills. If you go into these things nervous, then you're not going to be at the high performance that you need to be. So you need to go in there with full confidence, trained.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (8:56): And all of you are feeling that? Even the poor videographer?

Derrick McManus (9:01): The videographer knew that he had our protection. He was never going to go in deep; he was always going to stay back. So he had our protection. Now, I've just been thinking through what I've just said, that we're all excited, but we are risk managers, not risk takers. There is always that edge of, "This is dangerous, it needs to be treated seriously." But we go in confident, knowing our skills, our training, the distractions that we have, and our tactics.

Aleksandra King (9:33): Okay. So what time is it now, when you're driving?

Derrick McManus (9:35): So we leave the city at around 12:00, we get to the Barossa Valley at around 1:00, we have a very in-depth briefing, and we get out to his property at probably 2:15. In fact, it was 2:15.

Aleksandra King (9:53): So at about 2:15 in the afternoon, you arrive, all of you. Describe his property to us.

Derrick McManus (9:59): His property is a rural property in Australia. He has about 20 acres, and he's only renting it; it's not his. It's got some vineyard, some orchard and some just barren land. It was an old piggery, so he's got some pigsties there as well. He's a man who has a good deal of paranoia in his personality, so he keeps his front gate locked, and he gets in by driving past his front gate for about 150 metres, and then there's a gap in the fence, and he drives in through that gap in the fence.

Derrick McManus (10:38): So people who are coming to his property think, "The gate's locked, I've got to stop here." We obviously had the intelligence that we could go in through that gap in the fence as well. So we went straight past, in through the gap in the fence, and drove through the orchard, which was a harrowed field, essentially, and very rocky. You can see this in the video as we're driving in.

Aleksandra King (11:00): Okay, okay. So you're getting really close now, and you're on his land.

Derrick McManus (11:05): You asked me what I was thinking at this time: so many things were running through my mind. First of all, what did the house look like? What were the best vantage points for us? We knew we were going to the front door of the house. We'd been to that property before, so I had a good idea of what that all looked like. But I was also going through the fact that if he starts shooting, what will I do? My role in the entry was to be the first person to the door, to pop the screen door, which would obviously be locked, and we had a special tool for that.

Derrick McManus (11:38): I was then going to step aside. Somebody was going to come in with a battering ram. Another person would be the first person in, the person with the battering ram would be second, and I was going to go in third. So if I was third in and he starts shooting, how do I give some protection to my mates further down the line? And I thought to myself, "Well, I can just fire and give him something to worry about, fire high and around my partners." And then it ran through my mind: if I just start firing randomly into the house, as I need to do to try and stop him, I may hit his wife, who was in the house.

Derrick McManus (12:12): And if I hit his wife, how am I going to feel about that? He also had two young children, aged two and four, in the house. If I hit one of them, how am I going to feel about that? And it's not just at the moment I shoot them; it is in the days, weeks and months afterwards, and then the years afterwards. This is all running through my mind.

Aleksandra King (12:31): So on this journey, you're in the car, all of you, the six of you now

Derrick McManus (12:34): Two cars, yes.

Aleksandra King (12:36): Okay, two cars, six of you. You're driving through, you went past his front gate, you went to the side gate, you're going over all these rocks and things, into all these acres of land, and this is going through your head. You're thinking, right, this is the plan, this is the process, this is what I do, these are the risks, his children, his wife, all of those really valid, very serious

Derrick McManus (12:56): Very, very serious things.

Aleksandra King (12:57): And it's getting serious now. You're approaching, and it's all landing, isn't it? You park the car: how close to the house?

Derrick McManus (13:07): Pretty much on the doorstep. Probably within 10 metres of the house.

Aleksandra King (13:14): Within 10 metres. So he's going to know you've arrived. It's clear. And you all come out: are you shouting, or are you quiet?

Derrick McManus (13:23): A little bit of background again: prior to us arriving, we put a sniper into the bush, so for the last 20 minutes he's been watching the house and radioing us with information about where he is and what he's doing. So we know he's in the house. We know he's going to hear us coming up.

Aleksandra King (13:41): So he doesn't know the sniper was there?

Derrick McManus (13:43): He did. Well, yeah, there's a deeper story to that. He had some idea that somebody else was around the place, but he didn't know it was the sniper in the bush.

Aleksandra King (13:52): So he doesn't know about that. But you arrive and you get out of the car, and you're not trying to be super quiet or anything like that.

Derrick McManus (13:57): We're not trying to be super quiet. We walk straight up to the house, and you can see in the video, we go very much into protective mode. I pull my pistol out and put it back down next to my leg, so it's not too aggressive. One of the other guys pulls his pistol out and he's got it at a 45-degree angle, pointing towards the ground, as he approaches the house. We know this guy has the potential to be dangerous, so we are taking the protective measures without being too intimidating, if we don't have to.

Aleksandra King (14:26): The videographer, right now?

Derrick McManus (14:28): The videographer has gone to a shed, which is about 10 metres from the house, and he is just filming towards the front door.

Aleksandra King (14:35): So who knocks on the front door?

Derrick McManus (14:37): The sergeant of the team knocks on the front door, and he calls out, "Mr Grosser, it's the police, we want to talk to you." There's no answer. Now, one of the things that we have in STAR Group is that we are very, very meticulous in our training, in our briefings and in our operation. We know exactly what we have to do when we get there. Everybody has their role. But we also have the ability to go, "Do you know something, I have just seen a better option, let's go and have a look at that option."

Derrick McManus (15:09): And everybody can just roll from what we planned to do into this other option, and everybody will still know exactly what they need to do, because we've been through these scenarios in training hundreds of times.

Aleksandra King (15:21): So is that what happened? You rolled into a different option? Or are you still standing at the front door, he's not answering, so what do you do?

Derrick McManus (15:27): So we rock up, the sergeant knocks and calls, and there's no answer. We know he's inside. I look down the side of the house, because I'm right on the corner of the house, and I see that there's a glass sliding door. Now, a glass sliding door is going to be easier to move through: smash the door and move into it. It could be more efficient, more effective, safer, faster. Well, I thought to myself, "I'm going to go down and make an assessment as to whether the door is open or not, and then come back and report to the sergeant: yes, it is."

Derrick McManus (15:57): It's five steps for me to get to that sliding door, and five steps for me to come back. I walk down the side of the house. I have to move out away from the house, because my shadow is being cast towards the house, so as I pass a window, I move away from the house so that the shadow is on the ground, not on the window.

Aleksandra King (16:19): Smart. Smart.

Derrick McManus (16:19): Yeah, it's all part of our training. When you're in that environment, that's a basic thing to do. I stand against a brick wall. I hear the sergeant knock a second time and call out a second time. I then roll around the corner, and I have to go close to the door to reach out, to see whether it is open or not.

Aleksandra King (16:39): Okay, so is this happening quite quickly, all of this?

Derrick McManus (16:44): Within seconds, yes.

Aleksandra King (16:46): Still no one's answering.

Derrick McManus (16:48): No, no one's answering.

Aleksandra King (16:49): Scary. You know he's home. He knows you're there.

Derrick McManus (16:52): To be quite honest, that's normal. We have done this hundreds of times, where we knock on the door and there's no answer.

Aleksandra King (16:59): Do you think he's hiding right now, or he's just buying time, or he's preparing, or getting something? What did you think he was doing at that time?

Derrick McManus (17:10): I guess we don't try to think into their logic too much at that point, because it's kind of an assumption that if he's not answering the door, then he's just playing dog and hoping that we'll go away. But obviously, with our sniper in the bush, we know he's inside.

Aleksandra King (17:31): So he probably knows you're not going away as well.

Derrick McManus (17:34): He had absolute knowledge of that. This is going back to the time when we only had VHS recorders and all that sort of stuff, but he would record every time STAR Group came on TV. He would record them and itemise, write down who the people are, and learn what our tactics were. So he was well and truly aware of what STAR Group was and what they do. He had that much paranoia in his personality.

Aleksandra King (18:04): Yeah, paranoia is dangerous.

Derrick McManus (18:04): Yeah, absolutely. Now, we were going there to arrest him for

Aleksandra King (18:07): Right, so it's not as if it's one or two insignificant

Derrick McManus (18:13): And he'd been in court the day before, and feigned an attack of fainting and had to be taken to the hospital. As soon as he got to the hospital, he signed himself out and went home, because he knew he was going to be sentenced to jail. So he's now at home, and that's the reason we've been asked to go and arrest him: to bring him back to court so that he could face the judge.

Aleksandra King (18:34): So he's playing the system.

Derrick McManus (18:36): He is, absolutely.

Aleksandra King (18:38): You know, he's like a fine violin. Lots of crime committed. He knows it; he knows he's in trouble, but he's always trying to find his little way out, isn't he? It's his thing that he can do. So he's somewhere. At that point, you've gone to make an assessment of this door, and you're watching carefully to make sure you're not giving anything away here. In the meantime, the second knock has happened, and still no answer. What happens next?

Derrick McManus (19:04): So I move up to this glass sliding door, and I know that there's a gap in the curtain; it's about 400 millimetres.

Aleksandra King (19:17): 400 millimetres?

Derrick McManus (19:19): Yeah, about that. And I know that there's a possibility that I could be seen, but it's a minor possibility: risk manager, not risk taker. The chances of being seen are minimal. However, unfortunately for me, where we were going to come in through his office, he was standing in the hallway at the back of that with a loaded rifle, waiting for us to come in. From his vantage point there, he could also see the sliding door where I was, which was just fortuitous for him. He's glanced across there, and he saw me in the gap.

Aleksandra King (19:56): Did you see him? You didn't see him. So he saw you, but you didn't know that at the time. So according to you, there's no one there.

Derrick McManus (20:03): In the back of my mind, there's always a chance. But the sun was coming from my right-hand side, the window's on my left-hand side, and it's dark inside the house, so that door, that glass door, becomes a mirror. So I can't see in. And that's just an assessment that I knew was a thing. But the next thing I know, I'm just falling to the ground.

Aleksandra King (20:32): Okay. So you now know, years later, and in the process of going through it, where he was. At the time, you didn't know. But you felt there's a chance that he could possibly be there. But you needed to check; you had to make that assessment. So you made the assessment, and then you're on the ground. That was the only association in your head at this point: I'm on the ground. Did you know what happened to you?

Derrick McManus (21:03): So even before I reached the ground, I'm starting to fall, and I'm berating myself. This is happening in slow motion, and I'm falling, and I'm berating myself for being so stupid. How can I be falling? There was absolutely no reason for it, in my mind. And halfway to the ground, I looked at that sliding door again, and there were small round holes in the glass. And then I heard the sound of gunfire in the distance. But I hadn't felt any pain, I hadn't felt any impact, anything.

Aleksandra King (21:36): No pain. Just the feeling of falling, and getting all worked up and angry with yourself that you're falling.

Derrick McManus (21:41): Absolutely, berating myself. Before I tell you this next bit, remember, we are highly trained for what we do. We know exactly what we're doing, and we're allowed to have thoughts outside the square while still doing everything we need to do. So I'm falling, I'm berating myself, I have no idea what's happening, and I hear the sound of gunfire, the small round holes, and before I hit the ground, the thought that runs through my head is: small round holes, sound of gunfire, me falling stupidly, I must be getting shot.

Derrick McManus (22:14): And the thought that runs through my head then is: "Derrick, don't be too hard on yourself, because if you're getting shot, it's quite acceptable to fall over." That is literally what I thought. As I say, it's thinking outside the square while still doing everything you need to do.

Aleksandra King (22:29): So it's incredible, the human body, that you didn't even feel it, in a way. When it was happening, in that moment, all you felt was the sensation of falling.

Derrick McManus (22:38): Yeah. The human body is strange, very strange. We have had incidents at STAR Group where people have been high on drugs, feeling no other pain whatsoever, walking through paddocks with thorns in bare feet, and they're not feeling pain. They had two rifles and were walking towards town, and they had to be shot. They were shot once in the hip and, not feeling any other pain, started screaming like a stuck pig because of the pain of this. They were high on drugs and weren't feeling anything else.

Derrick McManus (23:11): Lots of people have lots of different experiences. I've been to many car accidents where you go, "Oh my gosh, that must hurt," but they're feeling no pain. And other people, with extremely minor injuries, are screaming. So that's bizarre. That is real for them, and I don't take anything away from them for that pain. But the human body is unusual.

Aleksandra King (23:34): You've just been shot, and the only way you've made that association is because you saw the bullet holes, you heard the gunfire and you were falling. And then you landed on the floor with a thump. Was that painful?

Derrick McManus (23:47): I don't remember the pain of falling. But the next bit that I remember, which will have your eyes amazed as well, is that I'm lying on the ground with my feet pointing in the direction of where he is and my head facing away. And while I'm lying on the ground, he is still shooting. He fired 18

Aleksandra King (24:03): You?

Derrick McManus (24:04): Yeah, he fired 18 times. No, he was committed to finishing that job. And while I'm lying on the ground, I feel two bullets hit my left thigh.

From 24:15 to 34:05 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (24:15): I do feel these two bullets. They're the only two bullets.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (24:19): How did it feel?

Derrick McManus (24:21): It took about 30 seconds for those two bullets to hit me, in my mind. In reality, it was that space of time. But time slowed down, and I just analysed everything. It felt like a sledgehammer driving into my thigh, that first bullet. Then I felt a shockwave slowly go up through my body, and then slowly come back down through my body to the point of impact. Then I felt the second individual hit, and it was shockwave up, shockwave down.

Aleksandra King (24:50): So true shock, shocking your body. Everything has moved.

Derrick McManus (24:53): My body is writhing on the ground. I could feel that shockwave just passing through me.

Aleksandra King (24:59): And the bullets go in, and they stay in?

Derrick McManus (25:01): Well, no, the bullets didn't actually stay in. Why, I have no idea. But they came down at probably about a 30-degree angle, because he's standing up and I'm on the ground. At about a 30-degree angle they entered my thigh, and then turned around and came back out again. How that works, I have no idea. I'd like to think I've got thighs of steel.

Aleksandra King (25:25): But ripped through, completely ripped through, and ripped back out again.

Derrick McManus (25:30): Out again, yeah. I lost about 30% of the muscle in my thigh as a result of those two bullets.

Aleksandra King (25:37): Okay. So let's just go back to the guy who's doing this. When he threatened, "I'm going to shoot you coppers if you go on my property", he meant it. He really meant it. He meant that threat.

Derrick McManus (25:51): It's hard to say whether he meant it or just wanted to be threatening. Part of his history that we knew was that anybody who confronted him, he would threaten, he would intimidate, he would try to make them back away for fear of getting injured or dying themselves. So we know that's part of his personality. We have that in mind when we approach the house, but always knowing he has made that threat, so he cannot be disregarded.

Aleksandra King (26:27): Well, the association was made between you guys and bullets. So he did load his gun, and he shot at you, and the bullets went through your body, and you felt them; boy, did you feel them. And you're lying down, and your feet are pointing up.

Derrick McManus (26:43): Correct.

Aleksandra King (26:43): What are you thinking?

Derrick McManus (26:45): So for those 30 seconds, part of me is feeling this, and part of me is also thinking to myself, how can I possibly lie here? Again, I'm berating myself: how can I lie here for 30 seconds and just let this happen to me? I'm highly trained; I should be doing more. But as you say, my feet are pointing up, and I know that I need to fire back. I've already got my pistol in my hand. I know that I need to fire back. But as I line up to take that first shot of return fire, I realise my feet are sticking up at the other end of my body, and I know that I need to lift myself up.

Derrick McManus (27:22): But my upper body's got a flak vest, it's got weaponry, it's got equipment, and the upper body is heavier than the feet anyway. As I lift my upper body up, my feet come up to counterbalance, and the thought that runs through my head is, "I'd better not shoot myself in the foot." Because the guys at work will give me shit for the rest of my life. That is the thought that ran through my head. Now, I reiterate, it doesn't stop me doing what I need to do.

Derrick McManus (27:47): But we're able to have these thoughts outside the square while still doing it, because we're so highly trained for what we know we can anticipate in the job that we do. So I know that I don't want to shoot myself in the foot, and I do fire back, and I do miss my feet. But it's only when I fire back that he stops, and that was my whole intention. I couldn't see him. I could hear where the bullets were coming from, so I fired in that direction. I hit a brick in the wall next to his head, and missed his head by just millimetres.

Aleksandra King (28:20): Good shot.

Derrick McManus (28:21): Yeah. A little bit of shrapnel goes into his head, and there's another bullet that skips across his back, and nobody knows at what stage of the siege that bullet skips across his back. But he feels threatened at this point, because two bullets have gone in his direction and he's got shrapnel in his head.

Aleksandra King (28:37): So he must have moved from there. He probably thought, "Right, well, great, I'm leaving this." He took protection.

Derrick McManus (28:43): So when I'm lying on the ground, I consciously fire back, and I consciously want to fire just six or seven times, because I'm aware I can't see him. In the video analysis afterwards, I'd fired 13 times. So I just got a little bit excited at that point.

Aleksandra King (28:58): But some of those bullets went past him; he was getting what was coming to him. And you were really in a bad state, and brave enough to still fight.

Derrick McManus (29:12): Brave enough, well trained enough. Experienced, well trained, with the right mindset to be able to manage those things. And that's mostly part of our training as well.

Aleksandra King (29:22): So that's incredible.

Derrick McManus (29:24): It's one of those strange things with police officers generally, whether they're in the special forces area or just general duties. The normal person, when they hear gunfire, will run away. Police officers will go, "What's going on? How can I get closer?" It's part of our training. It's probably part of our personality as well. We want to do something to negate the threat.

Aleksandra King (29:48): So the threat's being negated, and he's now stopped. He's gone; you don't know where he's gone, because you're lying there.

Derrick McManus (29:54): Correct.

Aleksandra King (29:54): What's next?

Derrick McManus (29:55): I rolled to my right a couple of metres.

Aleksandra King (29:59): Why?

Derrick McManus (30:00): Just to get out of the line of fire. Rather than trying to get to my feet, which would be cumbersome at that stage and take extra time, I needed to get out of the line of fire and be protected. I knew the layout of the house. If I rolled left, I would still be within the family room, and further in past more of the glass sliding door. I knew that if I rolled to my right, there's a wall there that goes into the laundry, and he would not be able to see me through that from where he was at that time. So I rolled to my right, because that gave me the most protection.

Aleksandra King (30:35): Well, how did that feel, your roll to the right?

Derrick McManus (30:38): No feeling at all.

Aleksandra King (30:39): Nothing? You were able to do it?

Derrick McManus (30:40): Yeah. And just on that point, at this stage there is no pain. No pain at all. Doctors are not able to explain to me why there's no pain. A bit like I was explaining before, about how some people feel pain from minor injuries and others don't, for me there was just no feeling of pain. I knew that I had been shot. I could feel discomfort, more than pain.

Aleksandra King (31:08): Blood?

Derrick McManus (31:08): Yes, absolutely. I rolled to my right, and I managed to get to my feet. Now, I should probably give you an insight into the injuries I was dealing with at that stage. I had a broken left forearm and a severed radial artery; my forearm was broken in two places, and a bullet went straight through it. I've got some great photos of that. That's a policeman's dark sense of humour, I'm sorry. I've got a piece of shrapnel in my right wrist, and that severed the ulnar artery in my right wrist.

Derrick McManus (31:40): I've got two bullets in the stomach, and I can feel this discomfort, like somebody's hit me in the stomach; that's as much pain as it was. Two bullets in the left thigh. Three bullets or bits of shrapnel skipped across the back of my left calf. One bullet went through my right Achilles tendon and took out 80% of the thickness of my Achilles tendon. Another bullet, or bit of shrapnel, went in behind my right knee. And there were three bullets that hit me that didn't penetrate. One of them hit a ceramic plate on my chest. The two bullets that went into my stomach actually went through the flak vest.

Aleksandra King (32:16): Not a bulletproof vest after all.

Derrick McManus (32:18): No. It's this type of bullet that is able to go through the soft body armour.

Aleksandra King (32:24): Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Derrick McManus (32:25): But I've got a ceramic plate on my chest and a ceramic plate on my back. With these ceramic plates, people say, "Oh, why weren't you wearing them all over your body?" The one on my chest weighs 7 kilos, so putting them all over your body is just completely impractical. But we've got them over the vital organs. A bullet hit that ceramic plate, and the ceramic plate stopped it. That was just underneath the heart and lung area, so the greater trauma from that, the expansive trauma from the bullet entering, would have affected my lungs and heart.

Derrick McManus (32:56): Another bullet hit my left thigh but hit a piece of equipment, so it didn't penetrate there. And the last bullet hit an area of the flak vest called the groin flap, and it hit the groin flap and stopped in the groin flap.

Aleksandra King (33:11): Well, you know those exactly and precisely, as you would; it's absolutely horrific. But at the time, when you were rolling over, you saw blood, and you didn't know how many.

Derrick McManus (33:19): No, absolutely not.

Aleksandra King (33:20): Were you aware of any specific injury at this point that you definitely knew you had?

Derrick McManus (33:25): Yeah, absolutely. I knew I'd been hit in the stomach. I could feel my thigh; obviously I knew I'd been shot twice in the thigh. As I got to my feet and staggered around the corner, I put my hand on the dog kennel, and I saw that there was a blood stain where my hand was. And my forearm had been broken in two places, and the bone was sticking out. One of those obvious ones.

Aleksandra King (33:55): What were you thinking at that point, then?

Derrick McManus (33:59): At that point, I was purely focused on finding myself a safe place to get to. My aim was to go around the house and back to the cars, because that's where I knew I would be able to get out, or to safety, or whatever else.

From 34:05 to 40:10 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (34:15): And I'd only gone about seven or eight metres; I leant against the wall at one point. There's a good, interesting story there, but it'll take too long.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (34:26): No, no, tell us the story. You leant against the wall.

Derrick McManus (34:29): I leant against the wall because my legs started to feel weak.

Aleksandra King (34:34): Yeah, I don't know how you're walking seven metres, with the knee, and getting shot. How are you walking? And the Achilles tendon is basically gone. You don't have an Achilles tendon.

Derrick McManus (34:45): Yeah, I've only got 20%, and I still only have 20% of my Achilles tendon now. But I am walking, and I'm not feeling the extreme pain that you would assume somebody would have.

Aleksandra King (34:58): But you're bleeding, and you're weak.

Derrick McManus (34:58): I'm bleeding, I'm weak, there's shock setting in. I just leaned against the wall to try and get out of my thoughts, but I leaned against the wall with my left forearm, which is broken in two places. Now, as I leaned against the wall, my mind goes to the movie The Naked Gun. Yes, I know, The Naked Gun. Yeah, I've a twisted sense of humour as well.

Aleksandra King (35:21): I like that.

Derrick McManus (35:22): In one of the scenes of The Naked Gun, one of them breaks into a room on a boat, and he's getting shot by half a dozen offenders, getting shot full of holes, and he falls backwards, puts his hand out to balance himself, puts it on a hot combustion heater and burns his hand, and he's more worried about his hand. Then he falls against paint, and he's worried about his new jacket getting paint on it. That's the scene that ran through my head.

Aleksandra King (35:45): That's crazy.

Derrick McManus (35:45): As I leaned against the wall, because my forearm's broken in two places, my hand folded backwards along my forearm. I just look at that, this scene runs through my mind, and I think to myself, "Damn, this is not a good day." Now, this is not a disregard of the seriousness of the impact. It's just that I was so well trained physically, mentally and emotionally that I had a realistic expectation this is a possibility that could happen. And if it does happen, there are four things that I need to do to be able to control my mind, my body, my physiology, and remaining calm was one.

Aleksandra King (36:28): Because, let's be really clear, anyone else, when you're putting your hand and it's going, would go screaming, absolutely freaking out beyond belief, and probably fainting, literally losing their mind. Just the sight would make some people pass out. Naked Gun, or whatever it was: this is not a good day.

Derrick McManus (36:51): I've just been shot, and my hand is folding back along my forearm; this is not working out well for me. But I never disregard the seriousness. It's at this point that I really need to set my mind on making sure that I'm going to be okay. I've come up with a philosophy of sustained optimal performance. The thing that kept me calm at that time is that in STAR Group, in any special forces, we are trained to operate at 100%, 100% of the time.

Derrick McManus (37:26): If I had tried to sustain that peak performance at that time, I would have been pushing myself, I would have been rushing, I would have been trying to do more than I was capable of. My heart would have been racing, my blood would have been pumping, and because of two severed arteries, I would have been dead within minutes. But I knew that I needed to control panic, control shock, slow down my heart rate, slow down my breathing. By doing that, I was able to logically think through what I needed to do to sustain that optimal performance.

Aleksandra King (38:00): Okay. So you had the hand back, and you were now going, "Right, we need to focus here on keeping calm." So you actually made that decision to be absolutely rational and calm and logical.

Derrick McManus (38:11): Where I was at that stage, I was still exposed to another glass sliding door, underneath another veranda. So I've gone, "This is not a good place to be." I started moving to the next corner of the house, to see what I could find around there and potentially get around the house. I only take about two or three steps away from the wall, and my legs collapse. I fall to my knees. I crawl along on my knees for about two or three metres, getting weaker all the time.

Derrick McManus (38:39): I fall to my hands and knees, pistol in one hand, and I'm crawling along on my hands and knees. I get around the corner and look up, and there are gas bottles and a fence in front of me. I don't have the energy to get up and climb over this fence. I collapse to the ground, roll onto my back, and that's where I stay for about the next 3 hours.

Aleksandra King (39:01): Oh, okay. So you know you can't travel any more, you're certainly not walking, and you're now on your back.

Derrick McManus (39:09): Correct.

Aleksandra King (39:09): Okay. And you're weak, and you're vulnerable.

Derrick McManus (39:13): That's exactly what's running through my mind. So going back to the point that I was shot: I rolled to my right, I got to my feet, and I called out to my mates, "I'm hit, I'm hit." I go around the corner of the house, and when I lean against the wall and see my hand folding back along my arm, I call to my mates, "I'm hit, I'm hurt, I need help." Now, I know that he's hearing this as well. I can hear him inside the house, and his wife, well, de facto, is screaming at him, "Tony, stop. Tony, don't." I can't hear him respond, but I'm aware of what she's saying.

Aleksandra King (39:55): She's begging him to stop this.

Derrick McManus (39:58): Stop, absolutely. And they've got two young children.

Aleksandra King (40:01): There's kids in the house?

Derrick McManus (40:01): Yes, two kids are in the house.

Aleksandra King (40:02): Kids are in the house.

Derrick McManus (40:04): Yes, absolutely. So when I'm firing back at him, I have this thought: if I hit one of the children

From 40:10 to 45:25 in the recording.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (40:10): Oh my word.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (40:11): It goes even deeper. One of the things that ran through my head as we approached was: if I shoot him and kill him, how will I feel when I see those kids 18 years later and they say, "You killed my father"? These are the things we need to contend with, and we need to be able to deal with them emotionally, and not wait until it hits us to go, "What do I do now?" So I was very fortunate to think through those things. But I've called out, "I'm hit, I'm hurt, I need help."

Aleksandra King (40:42): Thoughts, momentous decisions. They literally are life and death.

Derrick McManus (40:46): They are, yeah, absolutely. I would like to think that most police officers have these thoughts running through their minds. Unfortunately, I know that many don't. Many are just going, "I hope it never happens to me, and I never have to deal with it." And that's very unfortunate, because when it does happen, that's the part that causes us the most mental stress: "I didn't see this coming. I wasn't prepared for this. I didn't imagine it was going to happen to me; all this happens to somebody else." So the fact that I was able to think this through beforehand and be prepared allowed me to deal with it better.

Aleksandra King (41:24): Yeah. There's something that I know about you that we haven't said up until this point, but it relates strongly to what you've just said, and it's part of the preparation. So can you leave that scene for a bit and go back to before the scene, when you had a conversation with your wife at the time?

Derrick McManus (41:49): Yeah. So 5 years prior to the shooting is when I joined STAR Group. And when I joined STAR Group, I don't know why, I'd never been taught, I'd never been coached through it or advised to do it, but I sat down with my wife and had what I call an open, honest, confronting conversation: confronting, done with care and compassion, but really addressing the reality of what we were looking at. And I said, "I'm going into STAR Group. There's a real chance I may be shot and injured.

Derrick McManus (42:19): I may be shot and killed." I wanted her to be on the same page as me. I wanted her to be able to make informed decisions about how this action might impact her as well as the family, so that she would have more chance of being supportive rather than angry. And I know exactly where she is. So I said, "Real chance, I may be shot and injured, I may be shot and killed." My first question to her was not about me, it was about her: "If I die, what's your life going to look like? Do you want to go on and get married? Do you want to stay single?" All those sorts of things.

Aleksandra King (42:59): Difficult topics to be raising.

Derrick McManus (42:59): They are difficult topics, to think ahead like that. One of the reasons I did that was that I could imagine that if I died and we hadn't had this conversation, the thoughts running through her head would be, "What would Derrick have wanted? And if I don't know what Derrick wanted, what would his family say if I went on, got married, and somebody else is looking after the children?" So by having this conversation, it was completely unambiguous what I wanted for her in the future. And it wasn't about me saying, "I want you to do this." It was about me saying, "Whatever you choose to do, I support it. I want you to just live your life."

Aleksandra King (43:42): Compassionate, kind and empathetic person: even approaching the scene, you were thinking about how to keep others safe. It wasn't, "How am I going to keep myself safe?" You're thinking about the others and protecting them: where you need to be in the group, for everyone collectively, as a whole. You put yourself into a dangerous situation so that you can protect others, so that you can find the best route for others. You're thinking about your wife, and allowing her to go and be with someone else, when you're clearly in love with this woman and you know you want her, but you're not being selfish; you're not thinking, "This is about me."

Aleksandra King (44:14): You're always thinking about other people. And I just find that an incredible thing in your character. I'm just going to put that out there: I think it's just amazing. Amazing. So you've had this conversation with her, and she has permission to live her life without you. Is that going through your mind at the time, when you've now hit the floor? And are you completely out of it at this point, or are you still in it, because you don't know if you're going to survive?

Derrick McManus (44:41): No, that's right, absolutely. I'm just going to go back to that conversation for a moment, because what I also said to her was, "I may be shot and killed, but I need you to know right now that if I don't die, anything better than death is a bonus. Even if I have a spinal injury and I spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair," and this was a conversation we had, "as long as I am able to interact with my children, I will find a way to enjoy life."

Derrick McManus (45:09): Now, in my mind, I had to have that conversation with her right there and then, so that it could be, again, completely unambiguous that I will find a way. If I say it after I get shot, and after I'm in a wheelchair, it could sound like just platitudes, or "I'll try and make the best of it", or whatever.

From 45:25 to 50:40 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (45:27): No, this is a conscious decision, and I know the risks before I go in.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (45:33): You meant it. Okay, wow. So you actually even foresaw that you might be in this wheelchair, you might have to look after it, but as long as you can see your kids, it's all good.

Derrick McManus (45:40): I'm going to blow your mind, because it goes one step further.

Aleksandra King (45:42): Okay, go on.

Derrick McManus (45:44): I said, "If I die, what are you going to tell my children about the person I was, who decided to go into this knowing that that was possible?" And so we had a very clear discussion about what I would like her to say to my children.

Aleksandra King (45:57): Wow. Talk about preparation. You're preparing emotionally, physically, everything.

Derrick McManus (46:05): I think that's just the reality; that's the reality of the situation I was going into. What I talk to people about is that we need to prepare for what we can realistically expect to encounter in our lives. Now, you wouldn't need to make those sorts of conversations happen, because you're not going to be facing weapons.

Aleksandra King (46:25): But you know what, Derrick, as you're speaking, I'm thinking how much all of us aren't prepared. We're not having those conversations. How many of us don't have wills? How many of us haven't spoken about what could happen if you die, if I die, if this happens, if that happens? We don't talk about these things. We don't prepare for them. Really, no, we don't. Maybe a pension, maybe.

Derrick McManus (46:44): Yeah, that's right. So I have a whiteboard exercise. We can all die. We can all get hit by a bus.

Aleksandra King (46:52): Anything can happen. We're all in danger all the time, not to mention cancer and all those diseases that are out to get us. So we're all vulnerable.

Derrick McManus (47:00): And I have a whiteboard exercise where I say, "What are the challenges and changes you can see in the next 12 months to 5 years?" That's in your life, in your work, in your family, in your sport, in your community, and people come up with cost of living, losing a parent, children going through school, new children coming into the family, all those sorts of things. And then I say, "How does that make you feel? How are you going to feel when you face these challenges and changes?"

Derrick McManus (47:30): And then I jump to the fourth column, and I say, "What are the resources for you to be able to deal with these?" And then, at the end of the workshop or presentation that I'm making, I say, "What are the triggers, the behaviours and the thoughts that tell you that you need to access those resources now?" That's just looking at how I prepared myself, and realising that that model can help others to start thinking about their challenges.

Aleksandra King (47:59): You're on the floor, that's it, you can't even walk any more, and you're on your back, and you're bleeding. How are you using this?

Derrick McManus (48:09): How was I using that model? So the first thing I had to do was ensure my safety at the time. Instantly, I'm on my back, I'm feeling absolutely useless, and my mind instantly peaks to panic. And that's when he starts shooting through bricks in the wall.

Aleksandra King (48:27): Oh, so he's still going for it.

Derrick McManus (48:30): I was on the ground for 3 hours. He fired 2,000 rounds.

Aleksandra King (48:33): Even though the wife was shouting at him, going, "Tony, stop."

Derrick McManus (48:38): Yeah, she was shouting. The videographer kept the video running, but he only had a certain amount of battery life. It was back in 1994, so batteries weren't great, so he would take video, then stop video. But the video shows that she left the house with the two children 7 and 12 minutes after the shooting started.

Aleksandra King (48:55): So she's out of there.

Derrick McManus (48:56): I have no idea about that, nope. But she is not my concern.

Aleksandra King (49:00): She did the right thing.

Derrick McManus (49:01): Yeah, absolutely. But she was never my concern. What I knew about her was that she was no threat. She was never going to be that kind of person. So I was worried about where he was. He starts shooting through the bricks in the wall, directly above me. Dust is falling into my eyes from those bricks, and I have to cover my eyes to stop myself from being blinded. And my instant panic was, I was lying under the kitchen window. I felt like he was standing in the kitchen.

Derrick McManus (49:27): And if he looked out that kitchen window, he would see me on the ground. So as much as I can't move a lot, I've shimmied closer to the wall and put myself at a 45-degree angle, so that I would lower that profile if he did look out. But eventually I look at the dust that's being distributed by these bullets being fired through it, and I see that the dust is on a very flat trajectory, going straight out. So that means that he is at that level, and firing straight into the brick and straight out.

Derrick McManus (50:01): And I also see that that's well and truly above the kitchen window, and he must be in the attic of this old farmhouse. And so at that stage I go, "I can relax." Believe it or not, I relaxed in that moment. I could actually wind down and start thinking about my body. And that's what I said: "Got to control panic, got to control shock, slow down my heart rate." So I was going through this in my mind the whole time. And part of that comes from the fact that I was a highly trained recovery and tactical diver.

Aleksandra King (50:32): So why are you saying, "Slow down your heart"? I just want to know the logic, the rationale behind it.

From 50:40 to 56:30 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (50:40): Controlling panic and controlling shock were important so that, by controlling panic, I could have clear thought about what I needed to do. If I'm in panic, that's fight and flight: no logical thinking at all. Controlling shock: part of the shock response is that the body sends blood to the major organs of the body, the legs, the arms, for running, fighting, all that sort of thing. But part of that process is that it drains blood out of the prefrontal cortex. And when we lose blood from the prefrontal cortex, that's where we do our higher-level thinking, our planning, our processing, our creativity. And so by controlling shock, I can get that blood back up there and do that higher-level thinking again.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (51:27): Wow. You're actively pumping blood to your brain.

Derrick McManus (51:28): It was just a process that I knew I needed to go through. And as I say, I was a highly trained diver, and we only have a certain amount of air on our back when we go diving. And if we get stuck, one of the things we are trained in is, "Slow down your heart rate, slow down your breathing, stay calm," because that'll make that air last longer.

Aleksandra King (51:49): How can you stay calm if you're stuck diving?

Derrick McManus (51:52): Well, you have to.

Aleksandra King (51:53): Oh my own word.

Derrick McManus (51:54): And that's where you don't panic as well. Most of the water that we dive in is black water, so a foot below the surface, you can't see your hand in front of your face. So everything has to be done by feel. And if you're in panic, you can't logically work out what's around you, where your line is tangled, what's holding you down.

Aleksandra King (52:17): So that's a very big ask: mind-control stuff on a level that's elite.

Derrick McManus (52:24): Thank you, thank you. I like to call it mindset and mind management, because we really need to manage our mind.

Aleksandra King (52:33): We've heard about mindset from people here before, but this is world class.

Derrick McManus (52:39): Thank you. Okay, so I'm lying on the ground, I'm controlling my body, I'm getting that blood back into my brain. And one of the thoughts that runs through my mind is that he's now shooting just continuously. I'm vulnerable. I'm on the ground. I can't do anything. I've called out to my mates that I'm hit. I've called out to my mates that I'm hurt and I need help, and I know that he's heard this as well. So with the blood flowing back into the prefrontal cortex, I've been able to start getting creative in that moment.

Derrick McManus (53:14): And I thought to myself, and I did call out, "I'm hit, I'm hurt, but I can still shoot." I don't know whether he heard me, but it made me feel better. And I yelled that out as loud as I could, so that I would intimidate him, so that he would know I was a threat if he came out to hunt me, which was one of my big concerns. I was completely vulnerable.

Aleksandra King (53:41): He was? All of you?

Derrick McManus (53:42): He was certainly hunting all of us.

Aleksandra King (53:45): He was out to get all of you.

Derrick McManus (53:45): Fortunately for me, he's a coward, and he did not expose himself to threat. So he went up into the roof of the house and stayed there. So that was fortunate for me. The part where my emotions started rising, and I started worrying and going back to panic, was when he stopped shooting. Because when he stopped shooting, I didn't know where he was. And there were moments of several minutes where he wasn't shooting. And I was like, "Oh, he must be coming out and hunting now. Is he?" In the analysis afterwards, I now realise he stayed up in the roof, and what he was doing during that time of silence was reloading magazines.

Aleksandra King (54:30): What, does this guy have a stash of bullets in all the rooms?

Derrick McManus (54:33): I mean, he fired 2,000 rounds.

Aleksandra King (54:35): Where does he get all these bullets from?

Derrick McManus (54:37): He had 3,000 rounds left in the house.

Aleksandra King (54:40): Absolutely.

Derrick McManus (54:41): He used to be a firearms dealer, and so he had

Aleksandra King (54:44): Explains it.

Derrick McManus (54:44): A lot of very nice firearms. We took the firearms off him when we first saw him. In a court system bungle, he got the firearms back. We then went out and grabbed them again; we only got half of them back, because he'd hidden the other ones and wouldn't tell us where they were. So we always knew that he was potentially going to have those. But he had also acquired another 5,000 rounds, and he still had 3,000 rounds in the house at the time of his arrest.

Aleksandra King (55:17): Okay. So there are some waves, and you're working now to control the brain.

Derrick McManus (55:24): When he's not firing, I'm starting to peak. As soon as he starts firing again, I can relax again. And that's when I start thinking about my body. And going back to that conversation with my wife: I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. The one thing that kept me going was wanting to get back to my children, wanting to get back and interact with them. And I consciously accepted that I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, because of the injuries I had.

Aleksandra King (55:54): You're thinking this at this point?

Derrick McManus (55:55): Yeah, absolutely. And it was a conscious acceptance. The time that I've been out there, the injuries I've got, the amount of blood that I've lost: there's probably going to be muscle that's starting to waste and die from oxygen deprivation, and I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. But I absolutely focused on getting back to my children. But I also started thinking, while I'm on the ground, while he's shooting, "I may spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. How am I going to make that interesting? It's not going to be anything like STAR Group, jumping out of helicopters, going abseiling, doing all these exciting things." And I started thinking, "I play basketball."

From 56:30 to 1:01:15 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (56:33): I could put basketball together with a wheelchair and play wheelchair basketball. And I thought, at least that'll be an outcome. And this is while I'm on the ground, bleeding out, the blood pooling on the ground next to me. As I tell people, my ego started to kick in at that point, and I've gone, "Play basketball? Actually, I'm damn good at basketball." I'd made the national police team, and we'd toured different places in Australia playing basketball. And so I've gone, "Actually, I'm damn good at basketball."

Derrick McManus (57:08): If I'm damn good, and I put it together with a wheelchair, I may be able to make the Paralympic team. And the Paralympic team travel the world playing basketball. And in my life at the moment, I'm not travelling the world. So this actually might not be a bad thing.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (57:21): You're thinking very positively, when you're bleeding and you've been shot.

Derrick McManus (57:26): And my body is closing down; I can feel my legs getting cold. But my ego took me to another level as well. I say it's the special forces ego. So ego's good.

Aleksandra King (57:38): I like it, I like it a lot, at a time like that.

Derrick McManus (57:41): I encourage people to embrace their ego. We've got to have that confidence in ourselves that we can build a life for ourselves. It doesn't have to be an arrogant ego, but it has to be a self-confident ego. And so this huge self-confident ego started thinking, if I'm damn good at basketball and I can add that to what they're already doing well in the Paralympic team, we might be able to make the Paralympic finals, and I may end up with a gold medal as a result of getting shot.

Aleksandra King (58:10): Now, that's great. I love

Derrick McManus (58:11): I have reflected on this, and most of my reflection has come from people asking me questions, and I have to go deeper into my mind and go, "What was I thinking? How did I get there?" Because when I first thought it, it sounded strange to me as well. But I realised that it was building a sense of optimism for the future. If I'd just gone into pessimism, "I've been shot, my life's going to be terrible", I wouldn't have had the strength to keep on fighting.

Derrick McManus (58:40): Not the physical strength, the mental strength. Because there's nothing to look forward to, so why bother fighting? This sense of optimism, that I'll get back to my kids, I'll be able to interact with them, and maybe I'll get a gold medal, gave me that something better to look for. In my mind, at that time, I was never going to go back to what I had at the moment, but there was still something better than where I am right now.

Derrick McManus (59:04): And that's where we need to get that sense of optimism. We may not be able to get perfection, but what can be better than where we are now? And then keep building from there.

Aleksandra King (59:13): And then do you get some help after? Do they eventually come scraping you off? Does the ambulance come?

Derrick McManus (59:19): I'm lying on the ground for two and three-quarter hours. And at two and three-quarter hours, I've been consciously monitoring my body. My legs have closed down, my arms have closed down, and the pistol has fallen out of my hand because I don't have the strength to hold on to it. So I know that blood is coming into short supply. And at 2:45, my vision closes down. Now, instead of my vision going to shades of grey or black, as a pragmatic copper expected it to, my vision went to an absolutely pristine white.

Derrick McManus (59:52): Not a white tunnel, just this absolute white, a white-out, an absolutely pristine white. And at that point I started thinking, "Is this what they talk about in religion?" I'm not a religious person, but it runs through my mind, "Is this what they talk about, heaven?"

Aleksandra King (1:00:13): You've seen heaven?

Derrick McManus (1:00:14): Absolutely.

Aleksandra King (1:00:15): But you were going, at this point.

Derrick McManus (1:00:17): Absolutely, and that's what's running through my mind. From the moment I got shot, I was absolutely omni-aware that this is life and death. I could die within moments, or sustain optimal performance and last as long as I can. But this was the crux: I am now either going to die, or, because my vision's closing down, there's not enough oxygen going to my brain, and I could have oxygen deprivation of the brain, and my brain's going to start deteriorating. Many of my mates say it did, but I don't think so.

Derrick McManus (1:00:52): But this is the point where I start fighting my hardest. I start moving my body the little bit that I still could, and I start speaking out loud to myself, saying, "Derrick, don't give up. Derrick, keep on fighting." And at that point, within 30 seconds to 2 minutes, two rifle shots are fired from outside the house, back towards the house. A dump of adrenaline into my body: this is my mates on their way back.

From 1:01:15 to 1:06:10 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (1:01:18): I know they're coming to get me. And my vision comes back up, but I'm passing in and out of consciousness. The boys came in under a hail of gunfire, because the shooter heard the truck coming up, and he starts shooting even faster. But the boys are with me. They pick me up, there's a moment of humour in the moment they pick me up, and they get me out to the doctor. And he treats me, gets me to hospital and literally saves my life.

Derrick McManus (1:01:50): But I've just got to mention that the doctor and the medical team stood in the direct line of fire for 10 minutes, treating me. If they hadn't done that, the doctor said I was 30 seconds from death, and I would have died. So they risked their lives for 10 minutes to stabilise me.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (1:02:09): Absolute dedication.

Derrick McManus (1:02:12): That is dedication. It's being human at its finest.

Aleksandra King (1:02:15): At its absolute finest. And the worst of humanity, and the best of humanity.

Derrick McManus (1:02:19): Yeah, absolutely. In one session. Wow.

Aleksandra King (1:02:22): They really came at the right time for you, because you were going.

Derrick McManus (1:02:26): I do like to quip that STAR Group is well known for its timing, but that was a little bit too close for me.

Aleksandra King (1:02:35): It was a little bit too fine. Yeah, it was a little bit too fine. But better late than never. On time, just in time. And then you got to the hospital. How was that, in the hospital? How were you?

Derrick McManus (1:02:39): Apparently I was still talking as I was going into the hospital. I don't remember it at all; I was passing in and out of consciousness. The first thing I know is, I wake up in the critical care ward, with machines going beep and all that sort of stuff. But I wake up, and believe it or not, I'm happy. I'm just relaxed, and going, "I'm here." And that's it: anything better than death is a bonus. And I think the anything-better-than-death-is-a-bonus is part of the reason I was able to be relaxed at the time I was on the ground, and able to have these thoughts outside the square about basketball and anything else like that.

Derrick McManus (1:03:26): I'd already prepared myself. I say that I did my therapy for the shooting 5 years beforehand. I had that conversation with my wife. I totally prepared myself for the risks that I knew I was taking. And again, I've got a model that helps people go through that process. But I prepared myself, so that when I came out of it, I was just happy and looking forward to what's next, knowing that it was going to be a huge challenge. There was no doubt I was in pain at that stage as well, huge amounts of pain. I was on morphine, and I couldn't press that morphine drip often enough. It's regulated to once every 5 minutes, but I was pressing it every minute. Pain.

Aleksandra King (1:04:16): So you're battered, you're bulleted, you're lying there, you're happy to be alive. They're working on you, they're trying to sew you up, fix you up, stitch you up as best as possible. You're getting some support from your friends, from those who were there.

Derrick McManus (1:04:30): Yeah, absolutely. In and out of surgery, back in several times to try and fix up what they weren't able to address in my first surgery, which was 6 hours. I used 24 units of blood, so blood donors are absolute heroes in this scenario as well. I'm getting medical attention, and I'm getting attention from my family. Apparently, in the corridor outside my critical care ward, because they couldn't bring them into that area, there were flowers and cards just choking the hallways. So I feel very, very privileged to have had that.

Derrick McManus (1:05:08): The nurses couldn't do more for me; I was treated extremely well in the critical care hospital I was in. But once I got to the point of being stable, and that was after about 5 days, the nurses said to me, "You need to go to a better hospital, a more comfortable hospital; this is pretty much a basic hospital." And I could go to a private hospital. And I did, and had further treatment and did my rehabilitation.

Aleksandra King (1:05:35): And what about the baddie? He stayed in the house?

Derrick McManus (1:05:39): I was on the ground for 3 hours. He stayed in the house for another 38 hours. It's the longest siege ever in Australia.

Aleksandra King (1:05:51): Wow. He really locked himself in there, in that attic.

Derrick McManus (1:05:52): Absolutely. And police had the operational sense at that time, through learning that we'd done, that he was the only one in the house, so there was no reason to risk any more people going in to try and coax him out or arrest him.

From 1:06:10 to 1:10:44 in the recording.

Derrick McManus, founder of Human Durability (1:06:13): They did try; they used some tactics which made him surrender after the 41 hours all up. But nobody actually entered the house to risk their lives.

Aleksandra King, host of The BEYOND Podcast (1:06:27): Prison now? He must, is he in there?

Derrick McManus (1:06:29): This happened in 1994, which is about 31 years ago. He got 22 years' jail. So he's served his time, and today he walks amongst us.

Aleksandra King (1:06:42): That's our court system.

Derrick McManus (1:06:44): He has never accepted responsibility for the shooting. He's never apologised for the shooting. He's never said it was the wrong thing to do. And he walks amongst us. He walks amongst us today.

Aleksandra King (1:06:59): So if you go to Adelaide, maybe he's still in Adelaide, near that region, you could encounter him.

Derrick McManus (1:07:06): I know exactly where he is, which is a bit of an irony as well, because as a victim of crime, I'm not allowed to know where the offender is. But, to cut to the end of the story, I went back to policing, fully operational. I went back to STAR Group.

Aleksandra King (1:07:22): That's good.

Derrick McManus (1:07:22): But because I was still a policeman up until 2018, I had to know where he was; because of operational safety, every copper was told where he was. So the irony is, as a victim, I'm not allowed to know where he is, but I knew exactly where he was. And I still know where he is now.

Aleksandra King (1:07:39): And you still know. And the question that gets asked most here is, how do you feel about that?

Derrick McManus (1:07:45): 85% of my personality, my mind, is very relaxed. He's a coward. He will not be proactive in taking offensive action against anybody, and so I feel quite comfortable. I also have the privilege of having third-party removal from it: he didn't shoot Derrick McManus. He shot the cop who was walking down the road side of his house. Once it got to court, it became very much about Derrick McManus, but he didn't shoot Derrick McManus. So there's that little bit.

Derrick McManus (1:08:20): So 85% of my mind is very comfortable that he's probably never going to be a threat to me. 15% of my mind says, "don't be complacent." Never give up on that vigilance: you cannot predict what a coward's doing. A brave person has predictable actions. A coward is not predictable.

Aleksandra King (1:08:40): Erratic.

Derrick McManus (1:08:40): Absolutely erratic. They act in the moment. They take opportunities that you just don't expect. A scared animal is a very dangerous animal.

Aleksandra King (1:08:49): A cornered animal.

Derrick McManus (1:08:50): Yep. And that's exactly what he was: he was a cornered rat, and he responded that way. The people I'm more concerned for, with him walking around Adelaide, are my children. Because I know that if he runs into my children, and we don't hide on social media or anything, if he meets my children, I feel that he would want to get right up into their faces and say, "I want to tell you my side of the story." And so I have sat down and discussed this with my children: "If this happens, this is how you might feel, this is how you might be able to respond, these are the things that you can do."

Aleksandra King (1:09:24): I'm sure they're well trained in mindset, and in controlling our own minds.

Derrick McManus (1:09:28): My mind sometimes goes out of control, and my kids start lecturing me: "Dad, this is what you teach, this is what you need." Absolutely, they pull me back into line every time.

Aleksandra King (1:09:40): Natural, it's only human. And I know, I'm sure, that in your life you've had, since then, moments where you've had to use that process.

Derrick McManus (1:09:51): I like to think that I use it every day, but for everyday scenarios. That process applies: I talk to kids in schools about the challenges of being bullied and getting through your maths work and all that sort of stuff, and the process applies as much to their challenges as it does to the SAS; I've got to talk to the SAS in February. I talk to CEOs about their challenges. The process is universal. And it's about going beyond resilience, and it's about sustaining optimal performance.

Aleksandra King (1:10:25): Derrick, it's been incredible, mind-blowing in every way, and I want to thank you for your time.

Derrick McManus (1:10:33): Aleksandra, it's been an absolute pleasure. This has been one of the most pleasurable, in-depth interviews, and I really appreciate the way your mind works as well. Thank you.