Giving Back

When contracted to work for Department of Fire and Emergency Services here in Perth, I was invited by the Urban Search and Rescue teams to participate in an exercise they were holding called Operation Validation. The basic outline was that they had three homes that had been impacted by a car and partially demolished. The car was said to contain explosives and it was undetermined if the incident involved deceased or trapped persons.

Working alongside numerous agencies such as WA Police, Bomb Squad, St John’s Ambulance and Department of Housing it was a fascinating day (you can view a clip in another part of the blog for more details).

However, one of the agencies I also met that day was the Salvation Army Emergency Response team. The team provides refreshments and meals at incidents ranging from training to major incidents across the state such as bush fires or protracted incidents such as HAZMAT or searches.

Run by mainly volunteers, I watched as the team provided steak and salad for the teams involved and eventually headed over to chat with the volunteers to find out more about what they did.

I quickly realised that it was something that I might be able to volunteer to undertake when I had free time.

I discovered that I got far more out of working with them than I thought I would, only having to stop when I was 5 months pregnant (especially bush fires). In my time I attended Riot Police training, witnessed the SES search and rescue find a man alive in the bush after three days and provided preparation of food at one of Perth’s largest bush fires amongst many others.

It also confirmed to me that the vast majority of volunteers I work with and deal with are just normal humans wanting to make a difference to their local community.