ST JOHN NT
NEWSROOM

Lachie was at a music festival in Tasmania when he injured himself and was helped by a St John Cadet. Inspired by the fact that they were volunteering their time, he emailed the St John NT volunteer office when he got back, and went from there. Little did he know he would end up becoming a paid employee!

“After volunteering for a bit, I ended up being made a Superintendent for the Youth Members, so I work a lot in the youth space – it was a Cadet that inspired me to join in the first place so I’m keen to give back to that part of the organisation.

“It’s the people in the organisation who making giving up all that time worth it. Most volunteers tend to be good people, so you’ll probably all get along. I’ve made a lot of friends through various parts of the organisation!

“A lot of people join the volunteer side to support their studies and help guarantee themselves a job. I always said I wasn’t one of those people, I’m just here to have some fun and meet people…but I just enjoyed working with everyone in the paid service so much I thought I should do it full time!

“Coming from a corporate role with an engineering background, I had no experience in healthcare before I started volunteering. I would try to describe to people what I would do on weekends and they just thought I was insane!

“Of course I don’t wish ill on anyone, but I do want to be there when people are ill or injured, and there’s more chance of that happening in the patient transport service than the volunteer one.

“I’m actually looking forward to the hours of shift work and having weird weekends where I can go to Casuarina Square when everything is open. I think there’s a lot to explore in the Territory that I haven’t had a chance to, so it will be a good way to set up some trips.

“I’ll still volunteer at events of course, because that’s what got me into all of this. When you start as a first aider or an observer, you look up to these people who are in these roles that are senior clinically and it’s great to learn off them. Being able to flip that and be the person who helps people gain new skills in a practical environment, not just on a whiteboard, I think that’s really cool.

“I think the more varied experiences you have, the more driven you’ll be in what you’ll end up doing. I think if that’s a first aider that becomes a paramedic that’s fantastic, and I think if there’s a kid that likes screen printing who gets into engineering, that’s also awesome. Try it all!

Song of the week?

“Babyshark. I’ve had Babyshark stuck in my head all week! I inflicted it on a good friend of mine last week, and they’ve come back and said ‘remember babyshark?’ UGH.”