Firefighter celebrates 50 years of service

An incident involving an artificial leg being tossed out of a car wreck is just one of the moments that have stuck with an Outram firefighter celebrating 50 years in the role.

Despite Outram Volunteer Fire Brigade Station Officer Fred Donaldson’s claims he is in fact 21 years old, he recently celebrated 50 years of continued service in the brigade.

The past five decades serving his community had "been truly an honour", he said.

He said it made him "incredibly proud" to serve the brigade, regardless of how many years he had been there.

"But, to have done 50 is pretty special."

SO Donaldson originally joined the brigade in 1975 because his wife’s uncle told him to.

"He said to me one day ‘You have to come, we’re short of numbers’ — that was pretty much it."

His first job, from what he could remember, was a false alarm.

As time went on, he had been to every type of job under the sun.

One memorable incident from early in his career was a car crash north of Allanton.

"A local doctor would turn out if he was available for a road accident — we had Dr Luke."

Standing behind the firefighter in charge, SO Donaldson watched as the senior man "just about passed out" after Dr Luke tossed a leg right out of the car.

"He thought the doctor had cut the leg off to get him out, but in actual fact it was an artificial leg.

"Little humorous moments like that are always little things that stick in your mind."

There had been darker moments on the job as well.

"Anything involving children, it just wrenches you," SO Donaldson said.

Being a volunteer firefighter was a sacrifice for the entire family.

Over the decades, the job had changed and in the early days before pagers, members were alerted by a fire siren.

They did not know what they were going to, and the family often did not know if he would be away 10 minutes or two days.

The nature of the role had also changed, he said.

Training when he started amounted to "put the wet stuff on the hot stuff".

Nowadays, it was much more involved, but they were also responding to a more diverse range of incidents.

SO Donaldson has no plans to make it to 51 years.

Next month, he will be passing on the station officer baton and he plans to become a "baggie" before

retiring the uniform completely.

"It’s come round in a hell of a hurry ... but it’s good, an achievement I am very proud of."