When the cold flow of the 1974 floods grew stronger, Dan Cochrane, a post in one hand and a small child in the other, realised he didn’t have a way out.

At 20, Mr Cochrane, who now lives up north, was training with A Squadron of the 1st Armoured Regiment in Puckapunyal when he was called to help with an evacuation in Seymour.

It had been raining for an extended period when the news broke that water levels were getting dangerously high upstream of the Goulburn at Lake Eildon.

It was a sunny, clear day when the unsuspecting soldiers got to the police station on Tallarook St.

“When we got there, there was no flood,” Mr Cochrane said.

“The first indication we got was a small wave coming down the street from the railway embankment ... We thought all thought that was pretty funny, actually, ‘This is the flood?’

“And then, the brick wall that’s along the side of the show grounds fell over.”

Quickly, they got to work evacuating civilians as water rose along the street, which is notorious for filling up quickly during flooding events.

By late afternoon, everything had been running smoothly, and the soldiers, who were “frozen”, returned to the police station to warm up with a hot cuppa.

All was well until the engine of a small boat could be heard echoing down the street.

“This guy comes flying around the corner, and he’s trying to drive upstream into this flood race, and people were yelling to him that it was a silly thing to do,” Mr Cochrane said.

“But he continued, and at some point, he didn’t have enough power, so the boat turned sideways.

“And, his son stood up, and I think he stood up at the same time, and he jumped, and he made it to the steps of the police station, but his son went the other way and fell into the water.”

At that moment, Mr Cochrane didn’t think.

“I started running from the doorway of the police station diagonally across the verandah, and dived in after him, and I’m telling you, in all honesty, that was not brave. It was just a reaction,” he said.

“It didn’t take much to catch up with him, actually. At that stage because the highway goes through town at 90 degrees, the water had an opportunity to spread to the sides, so it dropped down in height and that let me catch hold of a signpost.

“I had the post, and I had him so he was hanging around my neck. And it was at that point that I realised I was stuffed.”

Emotionally, Mr Cochrane recounted how the water rose quickly and how its temperature began to make him shiver.

“I couldn’t stand up against it, and I couldn’t swim with him,” he said.

“I had a little baby at home, I was young.

“I actually thought that I might have to let this poor little bugger go.”

That was when his fellow soldiers came to the rescue.

Tying together their gear, they made a rope to reach Mr Cochrane and the boy, who he said would have been about eight or nine years old.

And when they realised it was too short, they risked their lives, forming a human chain to reach the two and pull them back to safety.

All these years later, the incident still plays vividly in Mr Cochrane’s mind.

“About eight or so years ago now, my son and I were travelling through Victoria, and we stopped in Seymour for a night,” he said.

“I walked down to (Kings Park), and it just looked so innocent, and I just broke down.”

Mr Cochrane said, after they were pulled to the police station, the boy was whisked away by his father and he never saw the child again.

He hopes that telling his story might allow him to reconnect with the boy.

“Over the years, I’ve wondered what happened to that kid,” Mr Cochrane said.

“I really hope this will jog a memory and that someone might know about it ... That would be excellent.”

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Friday, 26th December 2025

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