Neil Hamilton is the Pastor at Beachlands Baptist Church. He is also a recipient of an Honorary Chaplainu2019s medal from the United Fire Brigadesu2019 Association. This is his story.
How did you get involved with the Fire Service?
I have been with the Beachlands Volunteer Fire Brigade for the past nine years. Part of my rationale for joining the fire brigade was to support my strategy of becoming the best community pastor I could be. My rank is qualified firefighter. In other words, I am one of the grunters that sit in the back seat when we go to a job and Iu2019m given instructions by the officersu2014which is a nice change from running a church!
You must deal with some terrible situations
Whenever the alarm goes off, we never actually get to do anything very nice. I said this to someone recently and they said, u201cWhat about the cat up a tree?u201d Listen, we have rescued a cat out of a roof, and it scratched our arms and faces! But seriously, firefighters usually only get u2018respondedu2019 to traumatic jobs. We see sights that most people should never see.
The incidence of trauma is getting worse. In the last few years, the New Zealand Fire Service signed a MOU with St John that sees us co-respondent to all u2018code purplesu2019, which are respiratory arrests, suicides and heart attacks. In South Auckland, we are the most respondent code purple area in New Zealand.
St John signed the same MOU with some states in Australia a few years back before New Zealand did, and the recorded rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has increased exponentially in Australia.
Tell us about your award
Observing the effect of PTSD on firefighters led me down a path of exploring what ways trauma can be intervened among emergency response personnel. Iu2019ve attended a critical incident training course with Crisis Intervention and Management Australasia, and I have done some working groups in crisis intervention. I am in the process of applying to join the national crisis team.
The Fire Service, or FENZ as we call it today, hasnu2019t had chaplains for a long time. However, my concern for the welfare of other FENZ personnel contributed to me being awarded the UFBA (United Fire Brigadesu2019 Association) Honorary Chaplainu2019s medal in September 2017. Iu2019m just the sixth-ever New Zealand recipient of this award, so I am honoured to receive it, and I am proud of the story behind it.
On the strength of this, the South Auckland district area commander asked me to prepare a document of services I could provide to the 20 permanent and volunteer stations under his command. Three aspects of service I have proposed include:
- assisting in a welfare capacity at the scene of an incident
- facilitating debriefing sessions at fire stations after particularly traumatic jobs
- being available to officiate at special functions, e.g. weddings, funerals and honour ceremonies for FENZ personnel.
I call myself the u2018fire padreu2019 because I want to communicate that I am among the guys in the trenches, as an operational firefighter. Iu2019m not just some external guy that wants to come in.
I see chaplaincy at the cutting edge of interventionu2014a place of being real salt and real light. It really is life and death stuff.
