2012-04-01

SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS Ross Coulthart investigates the latest tragic death of a teenager at a surf lifesaving carnival at Kurrawa Beach on the Gold Coast, just two years after Saxon Bird died there in treacherous surf. And Sunday Night revisits the scourge of Lyme disease, and finds yet another Australian with symptoms of the illness, despite health authorities maintaining it doesn’t exist on our shores. SMOOTH OPERATOR Sunday Night’s Alex Cullen catches up with the smoothest of smooth operators, Lionel Richie, as he coaxes the country music star Shania Twain into singing again for the first time in seven years. Now a grandfather, Richie takes Sunday Night on a tour of his LA mansion – the scene of his famous daughter Nicole’s elaborate wedding. And he speaks openly about his 43-year career, the secret behind his famous love songs and his very costly divorce. KNEE DEEP WITH DR JOHN What started out as a story on dodgy knees, or osteoarthritis, turned out very differently for Sunday Night’s resident doctor, Dr John D’Arcy. Like many Australians Dr John has had problems with his knees for years. In his case it was being overweight and not exercising; for scores of others it is the painful by-product of a sporting lifestyle. But now an exciting new surgery and rehab program – in which damaged bone is replaced with a metal and plastic crown – is transforming lives. Patients are walking within two hours of the operation. But it is an operation that Dr John kept putting off, instead turning to pain killers – until he made a mistake with his medication that very nearly killed him.