In Focus: The Emergency Services Award

Emergency Services — Winner: Mounties Group

This year’s winner in the Emergency Services category was Mounties Group’s health division, Mounties Care, which entered the fourth year of its five-year partnership with CareFlight as the naming rights sponsor of the CareFlight Rapid Response Helicopter. 

The Club's contribution helped support CareFlight as it launched the brand-new Airbus H145, part of the next generation of NSW's Aeromedical Helicopters in July 2021. The new helicopter is one of the most advanced aeromedical helicopters in Australia, saving lives in Greater Sydney, the Central Coast and the Blue Mountains.  

This partnership has proven to be a lifeline for countless individuals in need, including five-year-old Albie Eagles, who choked while eating dinner. After an ambulance arrived, CareFlight was called as Albie started having seizures with the obstruction making its way to his lungs. 

Thankfully, after some time in an induced coma in hospital, Albie made a full recovery.   

Emergency Services — Highly Commended: Bathurst RSL  

Bathurst RSL took home the Highly Commended award for their ‘Hay Now’ nomination which saw them provide immediate relief to farmers who were without feed for their stock. 

The combination of lightning strikes, 55-kilometre winds and temperatures reaching the mid-thirties caused unimaginable destruction in the Hill End area resulting in fires burning through more than 18,000 hectares, destroying six homes and hundreds of sheep. 

Within 48 hours, Bathurst RSL had pledged and paid $10,000 to purchase much-needed stock feed to get the farmers through the immediate crisis. 

Upon realising government funding had not yet been released to pay for the delivery of the feed, Bathurst RSL almost doubled their pledge to cover the cost of transport, ensuring three semi-trailer loads of feed could be delivered within days. 

“For the Club, it's an acknowledgement of what we do in the community, but the thing that's most important for us is when emergencies happen, when crises happen, clubs are able to just step straight in,” Bathurst RSL CEO Peter Sargent said. 

“We can just step in, and we help our own farmers.”