Date July 16, 2015 – 8:06PM
Jorge Branco
Lincoln Sherlock has spoken publicly for the first time since rescuing Shayne Wood. Photo: The Project
The man who almost died when he crashed his ute into the Brisbane River has finally caught up with the tradie who saved his life.
The driver, Shayne Wood, was reunited with Lincoln Sherlock on Thursday for the first time since the hero tradie dragged him out of his ute as it sunk into the river.
Emergency crews on Kingsford Smith Drive, where Shayne Wood’s ute crashed into the Brisbane River. Photo: Penny Dahl/Australian Traffic Ne
On Wednesday morning the 51-year-old told reporters he’d love to catch up with his saviour, saying the rescue would be “a good yarn to have over a beer”.
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He got his wish soon after when Channel Ten’s The Project brought the two men together to relive the shocking crash for an interview broadcast Thursday night.
Lincoln firmly rejected the hero tag, saying he hoped anyone would have done the same for him.
Shayne Wood has thanked the hero tradie who saved his life. Photo: Seven News
“To be honest I didn’t really think it was that much of a big deal,” he said.
“And it was all sort of done then, I thought he’s all right, they got hold of him, there’s no real need for me to be there anymore so I’ll just get going.”
But it was later when being interviewed by the panel that the 39-year-old from Springfield Lakes really stole the show.
The roofer didn’t think there was anything dangerous about the rescue but did stop long enough to remove a couple of layers of clothing to make the swim easier.
“I thought ‘I don’t want to be fully clothed and then he’s obviously going to be fully clothed unless something funny happened’,” he joked.
“I did think of that on the way in, that’s why I took the jumper and shirt off.
“I thought ‘I’ll leave one shirt on just to try and help keep me a bit warm’, that didn’t work very well either but anyway.”
The 39-year-old tradie was labelled a hero within hours of pulling a “crook”, “fairly incoherent” Shayne from the water off Kingsford Smith Drive in Hamilton on Tuesday morning.
As well as denying he was a hero, the man who swam into the Brisbane River when the air outside was less than 10 degrees claimed he wasn’t even a good swimmer.
His actions were only amplified by the fact he left the scene before even the police could talk to him and refused to speak to the media until Thursday night, when he told viewers he was just trying to make it to work on time.
“I got to the job and I was still in front of everyone. I was pretty impressed with that,” he said.
But The Project co-host and Fairfax Media columnist Waleed Aly was having none of it.
“You save a guy’s life and you’re impressed by the fact you turned up to work on time?”, he asked.
When asked about the weekend ahead and an inevitable bump in his attractiveness to the opposite sex Lincoln joked “I’ll fire up that tinder account” before saying his real plans were a little more low-key.
“(I’ll just have a) quiet one I think,” he said.
“I’ll go and catch up with me brothers and probably have a beer in the arm with them I s’pose, see what happens, just stay out of the spotlight for a while.”
– With Kim Stephens
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/hero-tradie-lincoln-sherlock-speaks-about-ute-driver-shayne-woods-river-rescue-20150716-gie58s.html#ixzz3g3dJu37Z
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