In short:
One family has three generations volunteering with St John WA ambulance services, and they are calling for more people to pitch in.
The first in the family was Kathy Broadbent, who has volunteered for nearly 30 years.
What’s next?
Third-generation St John volunteer Jarvis Wildwould, 19, wants to see other young people joining up to help their community.
A family of ambulance volunteers is calling on others to help keep a vital service alive on Western Australia’s south coast.
Kathy Broadbent, a volunteer emergency medical technician with St John in the small town of Walpole, said regional Western Australia was desperate for more team members.
She has dedicated 29 years of her life to the volunteer service, with her daughter having done the same for 17 years, and her grandson recently signing up as well.
Ms Broadbent said the Walpole community relied on her and other volunteers to respond to emergencies and help take patients to vital appointments.
She said she joined to help the community, and knew better than most that it was a huge commitment.
“I think this is why we struggle for volunteers,” she said.
“But I think people who go through the process get a big sense of self-satisfaction from it.”
St John Ambulance regional centres across the state rely on around 6,000 volunteers like Ms Broadbent to function, but having multiple family members in one centre is rare.
Ms Broadbent’s daughter Danielle Wisewould volunteers with St John Ambulance (SJA) in Jerramungup, a small town north-east of Albany.
“With my mum being a volunteer, I felt like it was the right thing to do,” Ms Wisewould said.
She said her mother was a major influence in deciding to join the SJA team.
Ms Wisewould said it was a common misconception that regional ambulance officers were paid.
“A few years ago, I was working in Bremer Bay on New Year’s Eve and a young guy came up to me and said, ‘Wow, you must be getting paid heaps of money tonight, it’s New Year’s Eve’,” she said.
“I was like, ‘I’m not getting paid, mate, I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart.’
“A lot of people think that we’re paid but no, we’re all just trying to help our fellow person.”
Volunteers under pressure as numbers drop
Across the state, volunteers like Ms Broadbent and Ms Wisewould devote a total of almost 350,000 hours to this vital work each year, according to St John WA.
Ms Wisewould currently belongs to a team of five, but that is about to shrink with one member retiring.
She said with limited volunteers, it placed a lot of pressure on others.
“It does get tricky when we’ve got a busy period … sometimes we can have three [jobs] in a week, sometimes we won’t have any in a month,” she said.
“If we are going down to Albany, we are looking at an eight-hour turnaround.
“We all work full-time, it comes down to being able to share the load.”
Ms Wisewould said her volunteering has required sacrifices, and she believed that put some people off joining.
“I’ve missed Christmas, I’ve missed birthdays — asking anyone to do that is hard,” she said.
“But without the service, a small town falls apart.
“If somebody needs an ambulance and if we don’t have the volunteers, we just can’t do it.”
While she was inspired by her mother, Ms Wisewould said she also became a volunteer so she would have the skill set to help her children if needed.
Teen calls on others to pitch in
Now one of those children, 19-year-old Jarvis Wisewould, has put his hand up and joined the team.
He is one of the youngest volunteers, and the third generation in his family providing services with SJA.
Mr Wisewould said he would like to see more of his own generation jumping on board.
“It’d be nice for a lot more younger people to start joining up, because some people aren’t going to be around forever,” he said.
“I just want to help out the community as much as I can.”