‘It’s just a disaster’: GP shares moment car ploughs through clinic

Dr Rafid Hamdan knows he is lucky to be alive.
 
It’s been just over a week since a car ploughed through his general practice in the Melbourne suburb of Niddrie, claiming the life of a pedestrian on the footpath outside and injuring a female patient in the clinic.
 
‘I’m very lucky, and very happy to be alive and coming back to my wife, my kids, my friends and extended family,’ Dr Hamdan told newsGP.

The pedestrian, a 36-year-old Melbourne man, died at the scene.
 
‘The poor guy, the poor person who was standing out the front of the clinic … my heart, my thoughts and feelings, go with him and his family,’ said Dr Hamdan.
 
Police are still investigating the incident, saying the 63-year-old male driver was taken to hospital and has since been interviewed and released pending further enquiries.
 
Dr Hamdan says he is ‘holding up, getting better’.
 
‘It was really unexpected, not something you can plan for in your life – it’s just a disaster,’ he said
 
The incident occurred at 9.30 am on 8 December, while Dr Hamdan was consulting at his practice, Essendon Health Medical Centre.
 
He had opened the clinic less than four months earlier, after spending more than 20 years practising in the nearby suburb of Broadmeadows.
 
Dr Hamdan had already seen a couple of patients that morning. One of them was still on site, having bloods taken in pathology, while he was consulting with his next patient.
 
He had just sat down at his chair after examining the patient when, in his words, ‘she was suddenly flying to the roof’.
 
As plaster and steel from the ceiling and roof fell on Dr Hamdan and his female patient, who had landed about three metres away from him, he thought there had been an explosion.
 
What he didn’t realise was that an out-of-control car had just driven through his consulting room, passing just behind him and missing him by a mere two centimetres.
 
‘We didn’t know it was a car until the emergency crew came in and they started handling the patient,’ he said.
 
‘I asked, “what happened?” And they said, “you don’t know?” I said no, so they said, “just look at the end of the clinic”.’
 
It was then Dr Hamdan saw the car 30 metres from his front door, having ploughed through the reception area, his consulting room, another room behind that, the computer server room and, finally, the staff and patient toilets.
 
The impact also brought the ceiling down in the staff room.
 
‘Everything was destroyed,’ Dr Hamdan said.
 
‘The only thing I was thinking about was just trying to get to my receptionist and trying to stay with my patient, make sure that she’s alright, because she also started choking from the dust.’

 Dr Rafid Hamdan at his clinic soon after its opening in August 2025.

Beyond that, nothing in his years of training could have prepared him for the devastation and chaos, Dr Hamdan said.
 
‘I didn’t really think what to do next,’ he said.
 
‘For example, when you study for emergencies and things, and you have … all these things you can apply it to, you can’t apply that because you don’t know exactly what hit you.’
 
Dr Hamdan’s patient suffered multiple fractures and was airlifted to hospital. But incredibly, no other staff or patients were injured.
 
‘We had the receptionist sitting at the front. We had the pathology collector, she was in the other room, and I believe we had also that lady who was doing her blood test. None of those people were hurt,’ he said.
 
‘It’s really a miracle. When I turned [in my chair] to my right side, what I now know is the car passed two centimetres away from me because the path of the car was straight with my computer desk, which is exactly next to my body.’
 
In the aftermath of the incident, and despite his own ordeal, Dr Hamdan was determined not to leave his patients without care.
 
Just two days later, he began conducting telehealth consultations.
 
‘We didn’t want to completely discontinue providing services,’ he said.
 
However, from next month Dr Hamdan will temporarily relocate his practice to the nearby Niddrie Medical Centre.
 
The clinic managers heard about the incident and contacted Dr Hamdan with the offer of an empty floor in their building.
 
‘It will still be the Essendon Health Medical Centre, so nothing is going to change, only the physical location for the three to four months, and then back to our normal location,’ he said.
 
Despite the tragic event, Dr Hamdan is committed to rebuilding and staying put in Niddrie.
 
‘I actually like practising there and working there,’ he said.
 
‘I was very lucky, very blessed. In the last few months, I met a lot of patients, very nice people, very nice families, very welcoming.
 
‘And I really honestly want to just continue working with them and just serving them and doing what I like to do most and just stay there.’
 
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