25. My Grandfather Killed His Younger Brother
The plan was they would drive to get their medical checks together, and on the way there they would drive the car into a tree. The plan was to get too injured to get sent to war, but not so injured as to be permanently crippled, and it had to look like an accident so nobody got arrested.
This was in Western Australia, so they were all going to say they swerved to miss a kangaroo, and hit the tree. … The problem was that for maximum impact, and because this was rural Australia in the ’60s, they weren’t wearing seatbelts. And nobody found them or their car for an hour or so.
And nobody considered internal injuries in this plan. My grandfather’s brother bled to death from a ruptured spleen in the back seat. He was dead before they got to a hospital.
