Saving Lawson, Part 1: Lawson Rankin's accident while holidaying in Bali, his rescue and recovery. A Newcastle Herald special report

Read parts two and three which reveal the extent of Lawson's condition and his inspiring determination to recover.

"ONE. Two. Three. Four. Five ..."

Blake Quinn counted as he pressed down on the chest of his friend, bloodied and lifeless in a filthy stormwater drain somewhere between Seminyak and Canggu.

Just 10 minutes ago, this was the trip of a lifetime. Twenty mates. Bali. Sun, sand, surf.

Now Lawson Rankin's life was in the hands of his friends.

Blake kept counting. Got to about 30 compressions. Then put four breaths into Lawson's mouth.

Nothing.

Blake started again. Matt Dal Molin cradled Lawson's head. Checked his pulse. Gave directions. Jay Bailey and Tarj Lyle were at Lawson's side. They watched, prayed, pleaded.

It was almost midnight. There was a shiny red helmet, grazed and cracked. Metres away, a scooter was wedged in the drain, upside down and smoking. A small crowd had gathered.

Blake was almost through another 30 compressions. Lawson still wasn't breathing.

"Don't leave us," said Jay.

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For the boys from St Francis Xavier's College, the original plan was to get through their exams and go to the Gold Coast with their friends.

"But Bali just seemed like it would be a good little overseas getaway. Something a bit different," Matt, 18, said.

It was a trip they had been planning for close to a year.

It was the end of November, 2019, and the mates were sharing two villas in Seminyak.

Each morning after breakfast, they'd hit the pool, do a day trip to explore their surroundings, or seek out a new spot to go surfing. They had been blessed with sunshine and bright blue skies. Days that ended with magical sunsets, music, and plenty of banter.

"It had been one of the best times of my life," Matt said. "It was awesome."

A couple of days in, they rented some scooters to help them explore more of the island. They paid between $5 and $10 a day for the bikes, which came with helmets.

On the day of the accident, the boys had been in and out of the pool at their villa.

"We had just been hanging out all day," Tarj, 18, said.

Late that afternoon, they headed to a beach bar in North Kuta.

They were 18. On holiday in paradise. Free. They had a couple of drinks to celebrate with their friends as the sun set.

"There were heaps of us there," Matt said. "We had two villas we were sharing with about 20 of our close mates, but there were heaps of other people from Newcastle that we knew there too."

Microphone in hand, Lawson had stood up to sing a song with the band. Everyone was laughing, smiling. Having a ball.

Lawson's friends hadn't seen him much in the lead up to the HSC exams, such was his commitment to getting a good result. The 1st division rugby league player hadn't even played much footy, after a broken arm put him on the sideline. He had missed some big celebrations that year, but his hard work had paid off.

Later, back in Newcastle, he would find out he'd graduated with an ATAR of 89. But this trip was a chance for the boys to reconnect and relax before they began the next chapter of their lives. University. Work. A gap year, perhaps.

For most of the boys, it was a reward to celebrate the end of high school. Others, already in the workforce, had also come along to share the experience with their best mates.

"Some of the other guys left to go out to some of the clubs in the main street of Bali that night," Jay said. "But Lawson had a surprise for us - he took us to this place called Black Cat Mini Mart in Canggu. It was a little convenience store - but behind a broken fridge in there, you open the door and there is this little hidden club.

"We went there, maybe for about half an hour, just to check it out. Then we all decided to head home, kick back, and meet back up with the other boys."

On their way back to Seminyak, Matt and Blake were sharing a scooter at the front of the group. Jay and Tarj were doubling at the back. Lawson was riding solo in the middle.

"I was on the back of Matt's scooter," Blake said. "I was looking at Google Maps on Matt's phone, giving him directions. Then this local guy on a pretty fast bike came past and snatched the phone right out of my hands and sped off.

"We tried to go after him, but with two people on the bike, we couldn't go very fast. Lawson was on a bike by himself behind us, so he shot off after this bloke.

"Then we lost him."

No one saw Lawson crash.

Had his scooter not been visible from the road, they doubt they would have found him in time.

The scooter was upside down, lodged at the top of a deep street drain, smoking.

"We didn't see it at first. We went past it. Then I was like, 'Matt! That's Lawson's bike'," Blake said.

"We turned around and went back, and there were some Balinese blokes that had gathered there yelling, 'Your friend, your friend!'."

But they could not see Lawson. It was pitch black as the four boys searched the area. Checked the drain, and nearby bushes.

"The drain was on the side of the road, but there was a driveway over it which had a sort of metal grate on it that you could see through," Tarj said. "We just couldn't see him anywhere, and it was so dark, so we ended up shining our phone light into the grate, and that's when we saw Lawson lying in the water under there. Water was running all over his face. The bike was kind of blocking him."

They shoved the bike out of the way, then the four friends pulled a lifeless Lawson out by the feet. Together, they lifted their unconscious, six foot three friend out of the drain.

He was bleeding, heavily, from a gash in his head. He was blue.

Matt calmly started directing the boys, giving each of them a role.

Blake started CPR. He had learned it - fleetingly - in year 9 at school.

It was a skill he wasn't even sure he remembered. One he had never expected to use.

"I just did it automatically," he said. "I am so glad that I just knew what to do in the moment I needed to.

"I did about 30 compressions, then four breaths into his mouth. That didn't work. But the second time I did it, he coughed. He was hardly breathing - he still had water in his lungs - but he was breathing.

"Matt was holding his head still, and checking his pulse, because we thought he could have had a spinal injury."

Jay tied his shirt around Lawson's head to try to stop the bleeding.

Tarj kept the area clear. He asked locals, who had gathered outside, to called an ambulance.

"We were freaking out. But even when it's happening in front of you, for me anyway, I was watching it, but it didn't feel real," Jay said. "It wasn't until we slowed down, much later, that it all sunk in a bit."

Lawson lost a lot of blood.

"There was that much blood everywhere," Jay said. "The boys went back the next day and there was still blood on the road. And it had been raining a bit that night.

"The water was gross. You're not even meant to drink the tap water over there, let alone swallow that much drain water... I can't imagine what that water would have been like."

There was an ambulance station nearby, and paramedics were at the scene in about five minutes.

"You never think, when you set out on a good holiday with your friends, that you'll end up standing next to your mate, encouraging him to keep breathing so that he stays alive," Jay said.

"We were standing there saying, 'Keep breathing mate. Don't leave us'. Just encouraging him to hang in there."

Lawson was taken to Bali International Medical Centre. Blake and Matt travelled in the back of the ambulance with him.

"We got to the hospital, passed him on to the doctors. But we weren't allowed to stay in the room, so we went out and got a message to Lawson's brother, Nelson, first," Matt said.

Nelson, based in Bali, had just finished the night shift at a mine in Western Australia, so he was still awake.

"We always say that it was a shocking accident, but that many things went right," Jay said.

"There were so many things that went in our favour - the ambulance being just around the corner, Lawson's bike being in visible sight ... If his bike hadn't landed up like that, if his bike was down in the drain, we may not have found him as quickly as we did. We would have had no idea where he was. Because no one saw it happen.

"But even Blake knowing CPR - if it was just me, I don't think I'd know how to do it - it was another lucky thing. Then we had a few people over there that he knew who could help out."

Nelson called his Balinese friend, Toekik Slemat - a tour guide operator and driver - and asked him to go straight to the hospital to help and translate information.

Nelson also called his parents, Phillip and Therese Rankin, to break the news. Blake spoke to them too, to provide them with more details.

"I had to tell Phil what had happened over the phone," Blake said. "It was hard. It was pretty full on. He was trying to stay calm. I was struggling to speak."

Blake said prior to the accident, they had felt "invincible" - like most people their age.

"You see stuff like this happen on the news, but you never think it could actually happen to you," he said.

In the days - then the weeks - after Lawson's accident, Blake was on edge - wondering if the next phone call was going to be the news that Lawson hadn't survived.

"After it happened I was constantly freaking out that I would get this call saying he had passed away or something," he said.

"When we were in the hospital, the doctors came over and said it wasn't looking good. That Lawson had a lot of internal bleeding. A brain injury. If you'd have seen him after the crash. He had a massive cut on his head. So much blood was coming out. I thought he was going to die in that hospital.

"I went back to the villa, had a shower, and I couldn't really sleep. I was stressing out. Waiting for the bad news. I thought the worst was coming."

Lawson's accident, and his family's mission to bring him back home for treatment, made national headlines and news bulletins in December.

The local, and national, community got behind Lawson to raise more than $200,000 for his medical evacuation from Bali to Australia, his international medical expenses, and ongoing rehabilitation.

"I am doing a lot better now that I know how much Lawson is improving, and that it's all looking more positive," Blake said.

"But for a fair while afterwards, I was freaking out. I can't wait to get back there to see him again. Lawson has always been really easy to get along with. And smart, super smart. Not judgmental. You can be yourself and say whatever, and he's just really accepting."

Phillip and Therese, Nelson, and Lawson's other brother, Campbell, said they could not express how grateful there were for the swift actions of Blake, Matt, Jay and Tarj that night in Bali.

"They all just jumped into their jobs. Didn't think about it," Phil said. "If they hadn't been with him, and did what they did, Lawson wouldn't be here with us today. And we are just so happy, and grateful, that he is."

Read Part 2: Bringing Lawson home.