Bill Griggs

Who is Bill Griggs?

Dr William "Bill" Middleton Griggs AM ASM, began his medical career in 1976 as a volunteer paramedic while studying as a medical student. As a paramedic he attended his 100th fatal road crash prior to graduating as a doctor in 1981. Since then he has had a long involvement in the care of the injured and has been involved in caring for the victims of many multiple casualty events, including structure collapses, bombings, bus, train and aircraft crashes. He has completed many hundreds of aeromedical retrievals including a number of maritime helicopter winch rescues. He has also been deployed, as either a Royal Australian Air Force Specialist reservist or as a civilian, to manage evacuations and tend to victims in a number of disasters including both the 2002 and 2005 Bali Bombings, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, the crash of Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 in Yogyakarta in 2007, the maritime fire/explosion at Ashmore Reef in 2009 and the Samoan tsunami in 2009. He is considered a world authority on trauma and disaster medicine.

In 1989 he invented a surgical instrument and a procedure, now called the "Griggs technique", to perform percutaneous tracheotomy and make an artificial airway for the critically ill and injured. This technique is used worldwide and was used to help Pope John Paul II in February 2005.