Hawkesbury SES celebrate 30 years of service

And tomorrow marks 30 years since taking responsibility for providing rescue to the region.

To celebrate, old and new volunteers were joined by family and friends at a special ceremony held at Windsor RSL on Saturday. 

Five of the original rescue volunteers were awarded for their service to the region by the state SES commissioner Adam Dent.

Mr Dent presented Kevin Jones, Michael Broome, David King, Ian Craft and Darryl Lever with a Commissioner’s Unit Citation for their ‘‘consistently exceptional contribution in providing an outstanding rescue service to the Hawkesbury Community’’.

Before their formation, a rescue truck had to respond to incidents in the region from Penrith or Blacktown.

Now, the unit is the busiest in the state with volunteers responding to more than 120 rescue incidents a year.

David King is one of the original members of the team and said he has dealt with some challenging and interesting situations over the 30 years.

‘‘As a team, we have learned that there are just so many ways for people and animals to get themselves into difficulty,’’ Mr King said. “They get caught, stuck, crushed or entrapped in, on, under, up, and around all sorts of objects. Equally, we have learnt there are just as many ways to remove people or animals from that difficulty.’’

To meet the challenging rescue operations, volunteers dedicate hours of their time training for all types of situations. Rescue operators are trained in industrial and domestic rescue, flood and vertical rescue and accidents involving heavy vehicles, buses, cars, aircraft and large animals.

The Hawkesbury SES unit controller Kevin Jones said the team had never gone ‘‘off line’’ in their 30 years.

He said members take the rescue trucks to work and home and have always been able to respond within three minutes of receiving a call from the police.

The team has a minimum of two rescue operators available to respond at all times.

Go to www.hawkesburyses.com.au.