By Luke Voogt
Trevor Clutterbuck has seen people “meet, marry and have children” during his 34 years at Barwon SES.
“There’s been a lot of people come through but it’s always been a great bunch,” he said on Tuesday ahead of the unit’s 40th anniversary this weekend.
Trevor has rescued crash victims trapped in mangled cars, helped find missing people, protected the elderly during storms and even hauled a cow from a dam with fire hoses.
“It was too boggy to get the trucks in,” he said. “It’s good when you get that happy ending.”
But Trevor has seen his fair share of horrors, too.
The 55-year-old joined shortly before the notorious Ash Wednesday fires and has volunteered across the country during natural disasters such as Cyclone Yasi.
He remembered searching burnt-out properties with police during the more recent Black Saturday fires.
“All through the day you could hear trees falling (with) a huge crack and a thump.”
He remembered one of his first car crashes when he and his crew had just covered the body of a dead male driver.
A woman who saw the scene through the window of a passing car went from “looking in curiosity to horror”, he said.
Trevor would later find out the woman was the driver’s sister.
The former maintenance fitter is one of the oldest members of the 40-person unit, which includes students, lawyers and “people from all walks of life”.
“I really pushed for a defibrillator for us over 50s,” he said.
The unit has come a long way since Trevor joined, gaining modern equipment and a new headquarters in Waurn Ponds.
“If you saw our old HQ, well, you had to be committed to stay,” he said.
“You used to have to have to go to McDonald’s to use the toilet.”
South Barwon SES will hold an open day at its Waurn Ponds headquarters on Saturday to celebrate the anniversary with displays, interactive demonstrations and a free barbecue.
