Jamie Brockman used me up and spat me out

This incident taught me how ruthless, selfish and ungrateful some people can be, especially the wealthy. I was unemployed and sitting at home in front of my computer in Essendon bored out of my brain when I got a phone call from a lifetime friend of mine who will remain nameless. He wanted my help, or more accurately Vernon Brockman, his horse trainer wanted my help.

My mate had a race horse that he bought one night while having an all night session at the pub. Vernon Brockman trained that horse to 11 straight wins. Vernon Brockman resides in Perth, Western Australia. My mate explained to me that Vernon Brockman, had a son, Jamie Brockman who was a professional Motocross rider who had been quite successful in Australia and had gone to the United States to try his hand there. On 22nd August 2003, Jamie had unfortunately had a nasty accident while competing at the Millville track and had broken his neck and spinal cord and was now a quadriplegic.

Unbelievably Jamie Brockman had no medical or travel insurance. He was stuck in a hospital in intensive care that was costing $10,000 a day and his father Vern Brockman had asked my mate to do what he could to get Jamie back to Australia as Vern Brockman was claiming he could not afford to fly Jamie back to Australia. My mate knew what a great lobbyist I was and rang me to ask me to get on the net and contact the press or anybody that may be able to help.

I swung into action and for the next twenty four hours I did not get any sleep. I wrote an email explaining Jamie’s plight and sent it to every member of federal parliament and every member of the West Australian state parliament. I sent the letter to every single newspaper, television station and radio station in Australia. In a 24 hour period I sent over 750 emails toi help somebody I didn’t even know. Within an hour interested parties started to contact me. Wilson (ironbar) Tuckey a prominent West Australian state politician is a close friend of the Brockman family, he emailed me and said he could not help. He also asked me to keep it quiet from the public and the press that I had contacted him. Thanks for your help Wilson!

I then received a phone call from Steve Price from Sydney Radio Station 2GB who did a prime time radio slot at 5 p.m. called “Drive Time”. Steve Price asked me if I would go on radio and be interviewed in regard to Jamie Brockman’s sad plight. I was interviewed and on radio Steve Price appealed to Qantus to offer help to fly Jamie Brockman back to Australia, this would have been very expensive as Jamie needed a lot of room on the plane as well as extremely specialised medical attention. I also did a radio interview with Howard Sattler in Perth appealing once again to anybody to help Jamie Brockman.

Qantus came to the party and as far as I know, flew Jamie Brockman back to Australia for free. Around the same time friends and members of Jamie’s family set up a web page with a blog to keep people informed of Jamie’s progress in hospital. I posted the information on this web site that I had been responsible for the publicity that initiated Jamie Brockman’s free Qantus emergency flight back to Australia.

The family abused me, vilified me, ostracised me and castigated me. I was asked, “Who the fuck are you mate? You have set yourself up as a family spokesman without permission from the family”. They then continued to delete all of my posts and cut me totally off the site? I explained to an extremely abusive and angry mob that I had in fact been asked to help Jamie by his father Vernon Brockman. Vernon then promptly denied this and totally washed his hands of me, not supporting me in any way whatsoever.

A few months after Jamie returned to Australia the W.A. Turf club held a fund raiser which contributed $150,000 dollars to pay for Jamie’s flight back to Australia, something I believe Qantus did for free, so what happened to the money? At this time, Motocross rider Chad Reed donated his entire United States pay check to Jamie Brockman. Jamie then set about trying to sue the Millville track where he was injured, this did not go down very well with the MX community, a lot of people feeling that Jamie should have taken responsibility for his own actions.

Jamie then set up a MX clothing store in Fremantle called Moto Extreme, probably from tens of thousands of dollars in funds raised by various charitable organisations and given to him. Jamie then moved to the states and married his girlfriend April, he also set up another MX store in the states.

I have never been contacted by the Brockman family or Jamie for that matter for helping Jamie and in fact I have received nothing but criticism and abuse by both his friends and family, but you know what? I did the right thing and would do the same thing for any Aussie in trouble, you just don’t expect that fairly wealthy people will ask for charity and then kick you in the teeth once they have received help. Still a thankyou would have been nice.