"These three men are the most humble volunteers you'll ever meet," Dubbo Volunteer Rescue Association Inc (VRA) captain Luis Pérez-Mora said of father and son duo, Logan Forrest and Vince Harland, and father of four, Justin Rankmore.
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The VRA is involved in day-to-day basis rescue operations including, road accident rescue, land and maritime searches and general rescue operations.
Captain Pérez-Mora and the three volunteers sat down with Australian Community Media to give our readers an insight into what it is like going into situations most of us would run from.
According to Mr Pérez-Mora, these three men not only dedicate what little spare time they have to rescue others within our community, but also undergo extensive training and practice a high level of dedication and discipline to saving the lives of others.
"I could say a lot of things about a lot of our volunteers, but these three men, who do so much for our community, never take the spotlight or recognition they deserve. They've each earned their spots on the squad," Mr Pérez-Mora said.
"Logan always looks at the bigger picture. He's an optimist and is always radiating positivity. Sometimes we need a balance of personality, and having a person who is optimistic on our team during the hard times is essential. He's able to give direction without being directive because he's earnt the respect of our squad members.
"Vince is a person who likes to work behind the scenes, being a person who doesn't like taking the spotlight, he's a quiet achiever.
"People like Vince are the core strength of the team, they're our muscle of the team, and without him, we wouldn't be able to achieve what we achieve. He's also an extremely polite person, which, one way or another, leads people by example. When you have people who display such a high level of respect, it rubs off on everyone else.
"Justin, who is currently the acting deputy captain of the team, adds a lot of value to the team. He can think on the spot. He's smart and will never put people in danger.
"He has excellent leadership skills and has strong leadership capacity, and he has what is needed to help keep moving the team forward."
Q: How long have you been a volunteer with Dubbo VRA, and why did you want to become one?
Mr Forrest: " I've been with the Dubbo VRA for six years. My goal was to become a police officer and my first thought was, there's no better way to get the first-hand experience, and then, straight away, I fell in love with it."
Mr Rankmore; "Just over three years. I wanted to give back to the community and give help to people when they need it. "
Mr Harland: "About the same amount of time as Justin, three years, and I joined for a similar reason, to give back to the community. "
Q: Have you experienced any life-altering moments during your time with the VRA?
Mr Forrest: "Doing the work that we do and seeing what we see, it makes you realise how precious and short life really is. We've seen some miracles of how people have survived, and it just showed that it wasn't their time. That's what gets me the most, realising that when it's your time, it's your time."
Mr Rankmore: Probably the level of training that's been given to us.
Mr Harland: "It's all rewarding honestly, being able to give back to the community and knowing that one day if it's my friend or a member of my family in a situation, that there's someone like ourselves who will help them out of the situation or help to make it easier on them. We've also been able to make really good friends with each other as part of the squad too. "
Q: How do your loved ones feel about you being part of the VRA?
Mr Harland: "They're good with it, they know I'm pretty passionate about doing what we do. They also understand that through our training, what we do is done safely. Not one of us would put each other in danger.
"The squad is like one big family. We're all there for one another. It's funny how quickly you can pick up on if someone in the squad is having a bit of a bad day.
Mr Rankmore: "The family is pretty good with it, I have a wife and four kids, they're supportive. Some of the things I've been too and seen because my wife won't go to sleep until I get home if I've been called out, I've been able to go home and talk to her about it. I don't go right into details, but it's nice to know I can talk to someone about it."
Q: It would be physically and mentally tough at times, does it get hard?
Mr Forrest: "At first I was working full-time, and at that time, the captain of the squad worked full-time with me as my boss, so we used to take the rescue truck there, and if we got a call-out we would respond from there. Now, I do shift work, so I could be working for seven days and then have two days off, and during those two days you're basically dedicated to rescuing, you're on call, you can't go out partying with your mates."
Captain Pérez-Morahe: "We have things in place to make those sort of situations easier, but it is a lifestyle change. One of the things we say before you join the squad is; you need to talk to your family. We show them what the work consists of, you either can handle it or you can't. We are going to take you out of bed at 3 am. We will take you away from your family for seven to eight hours, or maybe only five minutes. We're going to be frustrating and call you out only to send you back home five minutes later. We might call you out when you're doing something really important, or when you're out at the movies when you're having dinner when you're shopping. We don't have a specific time when we're going to send you a text. We can send you a text while you're in the middle of giving a really nice intimate cuddle. (laughs)."
Q: Were you (Mr Harland) inspired to join by your son (Mr Forrest)?
Mr Harland: "Yeah, he came and approached me and told me he was going to be doing it and I thought it would be good and that it would help him in many different ways and it has benefited him a lot.
"Part of my reason was that things in my life had changed and I had a little bit more time to give back to the community. It was also a way to be able to spend more time with him."
Q: Is there anything you would like to add?
Mr Forrest: "Obviously, Luis has done an excellent job being the captain and our training coordinator. The training we do is next to nothing.
"The training we use to have would be pretty much all the same. With Luis, you'll get a message saying be here at six, and that's all you know. You rock up, and he has everything planned out with the help of emergency services, and it's always just like a call-out.
"You never know what's going to happen or what's coming and that's the same with real-life scenarios. It's life-changing to be able to do the training we do. It makes us ready for anything."
Mr Harland: "Because of his training ( Captain Pérez-Morahe) we've been getting recognition from other emergency services, acknowledging our work and professionalism. They're starting to realise that we have the resources and the training capability they can utilise as well to help free their man-power up. We're starting to get more recognition, and it's definitely thanks to Luis' training and everything he does for us.
