RFS volunteers are often the unsung heroes of our district until disaster strikes. But their efforts are truly appreciated.

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On May 4, Stanwell Tops resident Craig Robertson AFSM (Australian Fire Service Medal, 2015) received the Commissioner’s Commendation for Bravery for his role in rescuing a man from the flooded Hacking River in Otford on July 2, 2022.

The Group Captain of Illawarra/Sutherland, NSW RFS, Craig was presented with his award at a ceremony honouring about 80 volunteers, staff and teams for their bravery and exceptional service across a wide variety of emergencies, including bushfires, floods and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Held each year on the Feast Day of St Florian, Patron Saint of Firefighters, the ceremony took place at Dubbo’s RFS State Training Academy.

Official RFS documentation describes the circumstances which led to Craig’s commendation:

“After days of substantial rainfall and flooding, conditions were extremely dangerous when Otford Rural Fire Brigade and Illawarra Group 1 responded to a concern for welfare report on 2 July 2022.

“Upon arrival at the Otford Railway Station, the crews could hear screams from the Hacking River below. In torrential rain and poor light, the crews made their way to the river bank.

“Group Captain Robertson located a man wedged in a tree surrounded by the rapidly rising river and, deciding immediate intervention was required, secured a rope to himself and a member of the Otford crew before moving into the floodwater.

“He was in almost 1.5 metres of fast-moving water by the time he reached the man, whom he secured to his line before the pair was assisted from the water by the Otford crew.”

Craig joined the RFS in 1983 in the Shire, and then became a member of Otford Brigade in 1991 when he moved to the district. He was captain there for many years – “I can’t even remember how long,” he tells us – and then he became a group officer in 2001. Craig looks after Otford, Stanwell Park, Darkes Forest and Helensburgh brigades but his official area of authority as a group officer starts at Kurnell to the north and goes all the way to Foxground in the south.

Craig said other Otford Brigade members played vital roles in the July 2022 Hacking River rescue, including Phillip Rook, Otford RFS Deputy Captain, who has served for 29 years; Peter McCallum, Otford RFS Senior Deputy Captain, who has served for 29 years; and Jim Strickland, who has been an RFS firefighter for two years. (Craig, Phil and Jim are pictured on the June cover; Peter was unable to attend the photo shoot.)

Craig kindly took time to have a chat with us about the 2022 rescue and his years of service.

RFS volunteers deal with very difficult emergency situations. How are you doing in the aftermath of that particular rescue?

Look, to be honest, for months after [the rescue] I’d wake up during the middle of the night, just thinking: Did I do the right thing? What could have happened to me?

So that sort of thing affects you – certain jobs you can go through and do things and you’d be fine. Different jobs, they’ll just hit you. This hit me more because of what could have happened.

It wasn’t only this man’s life at risk, was it? It was yours as well.

Yeah. And I had to convince that guy to let go of the tree, to trust me, by putting a rope around to know that we were going to get back to the shore.

He’d been in the water for probably about 15 to 20 minutes, he’d been hanging on for a while.

Phil had to tie the rope around himself because there were no trees or anything else to tie off to … there was just a lot of lantana. And Phil was supported on the bank with Jim as well.

Once we got him back to the bank, we then had to try and get him up the bank because the waters were rising all the time.

It was probably about another 20 minutes before other services arrived on site to help us.

And, meanwhile, the water was rising fast – and there was nothing to hold onto because it’s all lantana and dirt.

He was in hypothermia, he was fully drenched, so we had to try and keep him warm in blankets, which were thrown down from the top.

The scope of emergencies RFS volunteers have to deal with is incredible.

It just goes from one extreme to the other: you’ll be doing car accidents, search and rescues, structure fires, floods, bush fires…

Our training helps us deal with what we do. But … we haven’t been trained for floods.

We’re hoping now, moving forward, that brigades will get some basic [flood] training, and some basic equipment to do all these sorts of things if we have to do it again.

We’re just lucky to have a lot of good volunteers in the area.

It must be nice to be officially recognised for your RFS service.

It is, but I don’t do it for that. I do it for the people of the community – and my RFS colleagues, because they’re like part of my family. That’s who we do it for.

You don’t join for medals – you join to help the community and be part of a great service, as well as the camaraderie among the people you work with. And that’s what keeps you wanting to do the job.

The NSW RFS is the world’s largest volunteer fire service, with more than 70,000 volunteers across NSW. For more information, visit www.rfs.nsw.gov.au