A passion to serve

For more than seven years Stephen Burch has volunteered for Manjimup St John and although he recognises the challenges of the job, he said he would not give it up any time soon.

Steven was inspired to start volunteering with the emergency service after seeing multiple adverts from St John stating they needed more people to sign up.

Although he had no previous experience in the field, Stephen jumped head-first into his training and has not looked back.

“It was mostly the TV ads which inspired me, they made me realise helping people was something which inspired me,” he said.

“I have never had anyone in my family in the emergency services or anything like that, it was something new for me really.”

Stephen said a Matt Giles, who was a referee for soccer and hockey games in Manjimup, was the one who gave him the final push to go to training days.

“At the time he was president for the Pemberton sub-centre and is now up in Bullsbrook as one of their deputy officers,” he said.

“He encouraged me to go along to the training days and let me know when they were on, that is pretty much how I got into it.”

Just over a year into his time volunteering, Stephen also joined the committee and helped out with tasks such as rostering.

“I have been on the committee for most of the time I have been volunteering for, so probably six years in total, it definitely keeps you busy,” he said.

“They were short on numbers when I started so I was encouraged to join.”

Across the time he has been a volunteer Stephen has been to a variety of different call outs and has learnt how to cope with many situations.

“Every job is different in their own way and you definitely learn from each job, there will be some days where you go home and just think about how you could respond better next time,” he said.

“It means the next time you head out to a similar job you remember the last time and you know what to do.

“Some jobs are obviously harder to deal with than others but we have a pretty good group of officers here who help each other through hard times.”

Stephen said heading out to jobs such as car crashes were some of the most challenging because of what officers could see or have to deal with.

Despite the challenges, Stephen also said the fact he was able to help so many people made everything worthwhile.

“It is not all doom and gloom, it is not very often we get those difficult jobs, a lot of the time it is helping elderly people out of bed and things like that,” he said.

“There is also support roles such as helping out at the sub-centre and making sure all the equipment is in order, if you join up to volunteer you do not have to take on big things like car crashes.”

Stephen also applied for a trip up to Perth called The South West Metro Experience and was selected as one of 12 other St John volunteers to spend four days in Perth to see how the bigger centres and head office operated.

“We also had a tour through the call centre and we visited the helicopter base, the Royal Flying Doctor Service base and the St John museum and we also were able to go on a ride-along with some Perth paramedics,” he said.

“To be part of the first 12 on this kind of trip was a pretty great experience, the way everything is run is pretty impressive and I think it is something more regional volunteers should have the chance to do.”

Stephen said he would continue to volunteer for St John Manjimup into the foreseeable future and was looking forward to other opportunities this line of work would bring him.