Kimba ambo honoured

More than 30 years later, and with an Ambulance Service Medal to her name, she thinks she perhaps didn't stick to that plan - but she has no regrets.

"My second home was at the ambo station, I was there as much as I was home - it just grabs you ... well, it grabbed me anyway," she said.

Annie said she was "gobsmacked" to receive the ASM accolade, as part of this year's Australia Day Honours List.

"Someone rang me from Canberra at the end of November, saying I was being considered and I had to do some paperwork, I did it but was fairly sure I wouldn't hear anything more from them, then in early December I received an email saying I'd got (the award)," she said.

"I couldn't believe it, and it was so hard to keep it a secret for the month that followed.

"To think that the other ASM award recipient is (SAAS chief executive officer) David Place, I can't believe it's him and then little old me."

Annie first joined the SAAS at the age of 50, in 1990, but said it was something she had wanted to do for a number of years.

"I'd been volunteering for a while with Meals on Wheels, the hospital auxiliary and the racing club auxiliary, but I had always thought I'd like to be an ambo, but I kept thinking I wouldn't be able to do it," she said.

"They were desperate for volunteers at that time, they ran a recruiting drive and said if no one joined they'd close down. I thought if I'm ever going to do it, I had better do it now, so I did."

Training at that time involved learning one book, which took three to six months to complete, and then Annie was straight into life as a volunteer.

In the years that followed, she was often on call on a 24/7 basis, and quickly got the name of being the "go-to ambo" in Kimba.

"By the time I started with SAAS, I'd done most of the things I wanted to do, so the 24/7 on-call didn't worry me much at all - I just made sure that anything I did was able to be interrupted," she said.

"You just hoped that the pager didn't go off while you were doing something important, most of the time it didn't but of course there were a few times when it did."

While any emergency services work has its challenging and traumatic moments, Annie said there many parts of working as a SAAS volunteer that had been thoroughly enjoyable.

"There area few jobs you never forget, that you want to forget, which are pretty traumatic, but on the whole, you have a lot of fun. There is so much camaraderie in the teams, it really is a privilege to have been involved in it for as long as I was," she said.

Annie's involvement didn't stop at being first responder to an emergency - she was also Volunteer Team Leader at Kimba since the early 2000s, a Peer Support Officer, and for many years contributed to the Far West Zone as a committee member and representative on the Commercial Ambulance Services Advisory Committee before the creation of the SAAS Volunteer Health Advisory Council.

Now 81 years old, health reasons forced Annie to step back in 2019, before hanging up the volunteering boots entirely in 2020.

"My theory all the way along was to not ask someone else to do what I couldn't do, so it was time for me to step back. I couldn't stand being there and not being totally involved," she said.

And while she herself is no longer involved, Annie urged anyone thinking of getting involved, to do so - but she admitted it took a "special type" to enjoy all aspects of the job.

"You may have to be a bit weird to keep wanting doing this, keeping on getting woken up in the middle of the night, or doing jobs in the rain, or in stinking hot weather ... but it is so worthwhile," she said.

"Being able to help people when they really need it is incredibly rewarding."

A total of 17 rural and regional South Australians were recognised on the Australia Day Honours List this year, including Port Lincoln's Richard Davison and Mount Gambier's Tom Poel, who have each received an Emergency Services Medal.

Richard joined the SA State Emergency Service in 2008 as a volunteer with the Port Lincoln Unit, and, having held a number of positions since, he is presently the Senior Marine Skipper. He is also an active member of Marine Rescue at Port Lincoln.

He is committed to supporting other volunteers, and has been the elected Eyre District Work Health and Safety representative for the SASES Volunteer's Association since 2013. He was also elected as a north representative for the association.

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At a state level, Richard has held the position of SES Incident and Information Management System Reporter, and he was deployed to the Coomunga Fire in 2012.

Tom Poel joined the SA SES in 1984 as a general crew member, and provided a dedicated service in a range of positions with the Mount Gambier and District Unit across the 36 years that followed.

Having been appointed Unit Controller/Manager in 1995, Tom petitioned local councils for funding and equipment purchases for the growing member base. In 2000, he was appointed Unit Treasurer/Business Coordinator, providing service in that role until 2020.

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