Two Toowoomba doctors killed in the MH17 Malaysia Airlines disaster were remembered as dedicated doctors and “beautiful” people ahead of a memorial service in their home town.
Doctor Roger Guard was the head of the Toowoomba Base Hospital pathology unit and had worked for Queensland Health for 44 years.
His wife, Jill, was a general practitioner in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.
The couple were returning from a European holiday and a medical conference when the Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down over Ukraine on July 18.
Toowoomba Hospital Foundation CEO Peter Rookas said the Guards’ deaths had devastated many of the city’s residents, especially those within the medical fraternity.
Toowoomba Regional Council is streaming the memorial live through its website.
Mr Rookas said he wanted people attending a service today in Toowoomba to celebrate the couple’s lives.
“People who gave so much to Toowoomba, so much to the medical fraternity,” he said.
“It will be a celebration of two beautiful people’s lives within our community.
“It’s very hard to comprehend the tragedy, the travesty, the shock.
“To think that Toowoomba in Australia could be touched by an event that had ramifications around the world was almost surreal.
“This was just a terrible, terrible, unfortunate occasion. Any aircraft in the air at that time could have been hit by that ground-to-air missile.
“It just happened to be a passenger aircraft and it also just happened to be two lovely people from our city of Toowoomba.”
Roger Guard – funny, quirky, dedicated – loved running
Mr Rookas said Roger Guard was a passionate person who was very dedicated to his work in the Toowoomba pathology unit.
“He’s a rather funny character, Roger, he’s a bit quirky like a lot of doctors are and they have their mannerisms and ways,” he said.
“Roger loved running and he was the president of the Toowoomba Road Runners for many years.
“I’ve had a long association with Roger and the road runners long before I came to the hospital.”
Mr Rookas said members of the Road Runners and Jill Guard’s Toowoomba Philharmonic Society would feature in the service.
The Guard family asked that people not bring flowers but rather make donations to the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.