Tambellup veteran St John Ambulance volunteer honoured for his service in Great Southern community
If you ask Trevor Prout why he has volunteered as an ambulance officer for 45 years, you will get a simple answer.
“Well, I’m hoping there’ll be an ambulance around when I need one,” Mr Prout says.
The 74-year-old Tambellup man has been honoured by St John and Tambellup police for his dedicated service to the Great Southern.
Reflecting on his service with the St John Ambulance Tambellup sub-centre, he said there had been a mix of “good times and sad times”.
After moving to Tambellup in 1967, Mr Prout joined the town’s ambulance crew in the mid-1970s.
“I guess marrying my wife, who was a nurse in Tambellup, kept me involved and I’ve been involved ever since,” Mr Prout said.
While he is still heavily involved in the sub-centre, he has now stepped down from frontline work.
“I’m getting older and slower, so the decision was made to stand down from operations, but I still do work around the sub-centre to help out,” he said.
Mr Prout said he had always found his volunteer work rewarding.
“It’s about helping people — it’s the people we work with as well, the other volunteers who are very dedicated, whether they’ve been here a year or longer,” he said.
Despite attending plenty of road traffic accidents in his time, he said the role was not always “doom and gloom”.
“Sadly a few of the road accidents we attend stand out, but we have a few laughs as well,” he said.
“It’s not all doom and gloom — most of the time it’s not that at all, it’s just helping people.”
With about 12 volunteers at the Tambellup sub-centre, he said the team was always on the lookout for more.
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