When Lachie Samuel started FIFO, the lifestyle was hard, but not yet soul-crushing. Photo / Supplied
Lachie Samuel was just 28 years old when he was evacuated from his worksite in Western Australia after telling his superintendent that if he went back into his room, he might never come out.
At 19, he left his home of New Zealand, jumped on a plane – and ended up in Perth.
“I thought it was Penrith,” he laughed.
“I had no idea where I was going.”
But what was meant to be a fresh start quickly turned into 10 years of fly-in, fly-out (Fifo) work in the Western Australian mines – long hours, big pay packets, and silence so loud it nearly killed him.
When he started Fifo, the lifestyle was hard – but not yet soul-crushing.
At his peak, Lachie was making between A$3000 and A$5000 ($3280-$5470) a week, which was “more money than he knew what to do with”.
“You would do a 12-hour shift, come back to camp, hit the gym, then head straight to the pub and order as many drinks as you wanted,” he told news.com.au.
These days, most sites cap it at four mid-strengths per day, but the culture very much remains.
“People come to site with their problems weighing on them and, instead of fixing them and having hard conversations, they eat, drink and work as much as they can.”
And no one really talks about how they’re feeling. Especially the blokes.
In 2013, when Lachie was just 22 years old, he got a call that changed everything for him.
Lachie says he was facing a family emergency, and when he asked his team leader what he should do, received a callous response.
Lachie stayed in Kalgoorlie, a decision he now says he’s “not proud of”.
“I didn’t consider going home. Instead, I switched my swing from five days on two days at home to four weeks on, one week off,” he said.
A relationship breakdown followed, which sent him into a “dark place”.
“I eventually got a tap on the shoulder and was forced to resign. I was throwing stuff at my crew and picking fights, I didn’t understand that I was depressed at the time,” he said.
“I left that place with so much shame around being forced out.”
Not knowing what to do, Lachie returned to Perth where he had no friends or family.
“I didn’t understand how to create that support network back in Perth so I got back into drugs, alcohol, womanising and spent all of the money I had saved up,” he said.
Due to looming debts, Lachie was forced back to the mines where he stayed another three years, before it all came crashing down.
“I walked off-site one day and told the superintendent, ‘I don’t want to be here anymore, I don’t want to live,’” he said.
Lachie was put on a bus, then a flight. But that was it.
After ending his decade-long, on-and-off-again relationship with Fifo work, Lachie now shares his experiences with men and women working in the industry.
He runs a Fifo mental health group, does one-on-one coaching and is a vendor for big mining companies such as Rio Tinto.
“When I host a presentation, I ask the group to nod if they’ve been through depression and I only get a couple of nods,” he said.
“But when I ask to nod if you feel like you really struggle and that you felt you didn’t like yourself – nearly everyone will nod their heads.”
His advice for anyone looking to get into Fifo is to ask yourself why you want to be there and what about the work attracts you.
Over the last few years, social media has been flooded with content promoting the lifestyle, and the wages.
“You should know that your room will be mouldy, the toilet won’t be cleaned, there’s gunk everywhere. You just hope that the bed has been changed since the last person.”
Since Lachie’s time in Fifo he’s realised people just want to be heard, and that the stigma surrounding men’s mental health is a toxic one.
“The first time people feel seen and heard, they feel a little bit lighter.
“You realise when you talk to someone that it’s okay to feel that way, and that so many other people feel that way too,” he said.