The second and final part of Valdas Bieliauskas’s harrowing rescue hits ABC on Monday, July 7, at 8:00 PM. This concluding chapter of Australian Story picks up where the first left off: with Lithuanian rafter Bieliauskas trapped in Tasmania’s Franklin River, and a rescue effort pushing the limits of human endurance and medical possibility.
What started as a routine retrieval rapidly became one of the most taxing rescue operations Tasmania has seen. The real power of this episode lies in the footage—some of it never aired before—from the cameras of the rescuers themselves, alongside the helmet cameras worn by Bieliauskas’s fellow rafters. It puts you right in the middle of the raging rapids, facing the same impossible choices as the team on the ground.
The situation became so dire that retrieval specialist Dr. Jorian Kippax prepared to amputate Bieliauskas’s leg underwater, in the torrent. Dr. Kippax gives a raw account of the moment his saw snapped mid-attempt!
Even after being freed, Bieliauskas faced another crisis, going into cardiac arrest. His survival of the helicopter flight and subsequent recovery in a Hobart hospital borders on the miraculous. Bieliauskas himself voices profound thanks to the Australian people, convinced he wouldn’t have made it anywhere else. The program features discussions with rescuers, medical teams, Bieliauskas, and his rafting mates, recorded in both Tasmania and Lithuania.
