NSWIS physio Bernie Petzel with NSWIS water polo player.

On Anzac Day, New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) Senior Physiotherapist Bernadette ‘Bernie’ Petzel will spare a special thought for the injured or seriously ill Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel she provided support to during her 15 years as a ‘Defence civilian’ employed by the military.

Petzel, who moved to Darwin in 2005 with the intention of working at the army’s Robertson Barracks for only six months, remained in the Top End until 2011 because she enjoyed the diversity of her work, its unique challenges, and the purpose-driven environment of the base’s physiotherapy department at a time when troops were being deployed on active service overseas.

Her planned six months stint became 15-years’ worth of dedicated service as Petzel – who was in the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve from 2007-10 – was either contracted to, or directly employed, by the Australian Defence Force as a Public Servant.

“I developed a great respect for the people I worked with, the soldiers I tried to help in their recovery journeys, because they give up so much,” said Petzel, who also worked at the Royal Military College Duntroon, Holsworthy Barracks in Sydney’s south-west, and HMAS Kuttabul at Potts Point.

“The servicemen and women spend time away from their home and family and they’re very dedicated to defending our nation. I have the utmost of respect for anyone who steps into that space.”

Petzel, who works with NSWIS’s Water Polo and Para Athletics programs, went the extra yard in her desire to gain first-hand insights into what the soldiers physically endured.

“I went to Darwin because a mate said they needed physios up there, and I loved my time there,” she said. “And I was able to do some fun things.

“When I became the physio for the NSWIS Water Polo program, I asked the coaches to try to teach me how to do the eggbeater [a technique for treading water] in the pool and other skills – which I’m terrible at – to better understand the sport.

“I’d followed the same principle in Darwin by doing things like sitting on the back of Abrams tanks as they fired, and during my time at Holsworthy, we went to the bases’ Shooting Centre and shot the various guns to get an understanding of their recoil and weight.

“I also ‘leopard crawled’ while carrying equipment, travelled in Bushmasters to understand how tight the space was in them, and I even went up in a helicopter – but that was only permitted because I was in the Reserves, a civilian couldn’t to do that.

“While they were all fun and exciting things to do, they were all relevant to understanding why injuries develop, and what the soldiers needed to do to get back from them.”

In what became an early indicator of the benchmarks Petzel would need to reach in her High Performance Sport career with NSWIS, four Australian Paralympic teams, the Aussie Stingers water polo team and other national sporting squads, her job was to ensure the injured troops met the standards required for them to be deemed fit for duty.

“Defence provided me with great exposure to exercise-related and sporting injuries,” she said. “The soldiers played sport every Wednesday, and, depending on the sports they played, they’d present with the same [injuries] elite athletes do.

Petzel discovered shin pain (whether from shin splints or compartmental syndrome), ankle sprains, ACL ruptures, Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome, lower back soreness, and shoulder problems were common among troops due to their working lives.

“There was also the risk of them overworking [a body part]; exactly what we see in elite athletes,” she said. “This was particularly so in the army where some fitness tests included pack marches with 30 kilos on their backs over difficult terrain and large distances.”

From 2013 until 2019 Petzel worked in the Intensive Rehab Team at Holsworthy Barracks which was created following a 2010 Blackhawk crash in Afghanistan where there was a large number of Australian casualties. She worked in the Unit alongside a team consisting of a rehabilitation physician, an occupational therapist, a psychologist, an exercise physiologist and a rehabilitation coordinator who liaised with Command.

The patients included troopers and commandos recovering from complex gunshot wounds, multi-trauma from motorbike or motor vehicle accidents, limb amputations, traumatic brain injury and conditions such as autoimmune polyneuropathies and cancer.

Some individuals were stricken by chronic pain, and, as Petzel discovered, these patients often had concomitant or primary mental health diagnoses, including depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This experience allowed her to appreciate the importance of acknowledging – and addressing – the psychosocial drivers behind a person’s pain experience.

“The Unit was created to be a multi-disciplinary resource to rehabilitate the most seriously injured personnel across the Army, Navy, and Airforce (or tri-services),” she said. “Many were 100 percent-like elite athletes. Most were focussed on what they could do to get better . . . very self-driven . . . and they possessed high performance behaviours.”

Petzel’s career in sports physiotherapy started in Darwin where some of the other physios she worked alongside were doing postgraduate studies. Inspired, she enrolled to do her postgrad master’s in sports physiotherapy.

Her subsequent work with Paralympics Australia (through Australian Athletics) opened an incredible world which saw Petzel attend:

  • Four Paralympic Games
  • Five World Paralympic Athletics Championships
  • Water Polo world championships and world cups
  •  The Prince Harry-initiated 2017 and 2018 Invictus Games for wounded or ill service personnel.
  • Accompanying Australia’s representatives at Wounded Warrior Games staged in the US.

“I didn’t finish school knowing I wanted to be a physio,” she said. “I was studying Occupational Therapy and saw students having more fun than me, so I joined them in doing a physiotherapy degree.

“I love working with the Para athletes for the same reason I love working with the water polo players and military . . . they’re different. They present with issues in areas that aren’t well researched like, say, groin pain in soccer or hamstring injuries in sprinters.

“But they suffer lots of weird ‘n wonderful injuries, and that keeps my head ticking over:  I like to problem solve. They have a common thread – they’re tough; they just get on with stuff and take things in their stride . . .”

While proud of her achievements in sport, Petzel conceded had she known about the military at a younger age, and the life it can provide those who join up, she would most likely have enlisted.

“If I’d discovered the military when I was in my early 20s, and not my later 20s, I would’ve signed up as a physio in a heartbeat because of the adventure and the youth; being with people who love being active.

“By the time I discovered it, I loved doing what I wanted to do when I wanted. I don’t think I would’ve coped with being told at that age. But I’m thankful for my journey and where it’s taken me.

“For Anzac Day, I think it’s important to take time to think that some young Aussies are going to make tremendous sacrifices when they enlist, and it’s important to respect them along with so many others who’ve given their all for Australia over the years.”

Mentioned in Dispatches

  • Sean Cooney,
  • Louise Sauvage
  • Neven
  • Bec
  • Rheed
  • Water Polo

Daniel Lane, NSWIS

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