Australian Story: Season 23, Episode 18

23 - 18: Running from Empty

Introduced by chef Alastair McLeod

By Christmas 2011 Queensland chef Matt Golinski was on top of his game. He had a successful catering business and a national media profile courtesy of the Ready Steady Cook television show.

But when a fire tore through his Tewantin home on Boxing Day his life and career plans were destroyed in minutes. Matt woke from an induced coma two months later to the news his wife and three children had died in the fire and that he had serious burns across his upper body. "I just sort of went, God, really?You spent eight weeks keeping me alive? Why would you bother," he recalls.

A painful and protracted rehabilitation followed and many of Matt's friends and family doubted he would find a passion for life ever again. But almost even years on, his career is flourishing and he's found new love and a second chance at fatherhood.

For the first time on television he describes how he overcame the unthinkable and found a new passion for life.