Inquest into the death of Liam WOLF

19y · Male·unexpected arrhythmogenic event leading to a fall from height, blunt force head injury and hypoxic cerebral injury

PTE Liam Wolf, a 19-year-old Australian Army recruit, died after collapsing on an obstacle course at Kapooka during the final training exercise. He experienced a sudden unexpected cardiac arrhythmia while climbing a ladder in an underground tunnel obstacle, fell approximately 4 metres, and sustained a head injury with subsequent cardiac arrest. Despite immediate CPR by fellow recruits and paramedics arriving within 20 minutes, Wolf had suffered profound hypoxic brain injury. He was transferred to St George Hospital in Sydney but died 4 days later after withdrawal of life support. The coroner concluded Wolf likely had an underlying cardiac predisposition (possibly Brugada syndrome or CPVT) that could not have been identified pre-training. Key preventable factors included lack of proper risk assessment of the tunnel obstacle, absence of timely defibrillation (delayed by water hazard), and difficulties extracting Wolf from the confined wet space.