How Carrie Bickmore lost her Order of Australia medal less than an hour after receiving it
It was a proud moment for Carrie Bickmore as she received her hard-earned Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for services to broadcast media and brain cancer awareness from the Queen in June.
However, what was meant to be a momentous event quickly turned into one of chaos.
The Project and Hit Network radio presenter told co-host Tommy Little about what happened after Bickmore realised that she had lost her OAM.
“I got one where they give you a little pin that clips on to your top, and I was wearing mine very proudly,” she recalled of the Victoria Government House ceremony today.
“My mum and dad had come and Oli had come out of school and Chris was there, and we thought ‘Why don’t we go and get a coffee together afterwards?’”
It was here when things started to get a bit dicey.
“About five minutes before we left at the end of the coffee my mum said “Did you take your medal off?” and I said “No” and looked down and I had lost my medal,” she said through hysterical laughter.
“I hadn’t had it for an hour and I lost it already!”
“So then we started looking under all the chairs (at the cafe), at one point I was bending down in the gutter … We had to drive all the way back to Government House where we got it where we were looking under all the cars.
“Then a lady comes out and says “are you looking for this?” and I said yes and she said ‘I was hoping it was important enough for you to come back and get it!’”
Bickmore said she was “so embarrassed” that the lady gave it back to her.
“She’s probably thinking I don’t care and I’ve driven off without it … It was found in the carpark, it must have popped off.”
“It was an emotional rollercoaster … Anyway I found it and I won’t be wearing it around anymore.”
She shared the story with her Instagram followers, saying that the medal had been found and it was going “straight to the poolroom”.