John Jacobson is a former Assistant Ambulance Commissioner who has dedicated his life to giving back to Australian communities and after decades of altruism he has been awarded an Order of Australia.
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"You get out of life what you give back," is the philosophy that Mr Jacobson has followed throughout his career and that has led him to becoming an OAM recipient.
It's an award Mr Jacobson "didn't suspect" and has left him "humbled".
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Mr Jacobson's commitment to community began as an honorary member of the Junee Ambulance service in 1959, before becoming a paramedic in 1969.
His career led him to leave his community of Junee and he began to zig-zag across New South Wales while climbing the ranks of the ambulance service. He started in Walgett in 1970, then double-backed to Denliquin and then to Gosford where he became Assistant Superintendent. All of which prepared him for his eleven year stint as a Superintendent in Bathurst and Lismore between 1981 and 1992.
It was while in Lismore that Mr Jacobson was faced with one of the greatest challenges of his career. He was the onsite commander of the 1989 Kempsey and Grafton bus crashes which killed 56 people between them.
"It was devastating," he said, and it is accidents such as these that, "make you appreciate how fragile life can be."
Between working full-time as a paramedic and fulfilling his volunteering commitments, Mr Jacobson helped raise three children. One of his daughters, Karen Hendry, says, "he laid his life down, he wasn't just an ambulance officer it was who he was".
When Mr Jacobson worked in Gosford, he and his family lived at the ambulance station. Ms Hendry was only a child at the time, however, she can vividly remember one day that encapsulates her father's commitment to community. It was meant to be her father's day off, however, a nearby school caught ablaze and he swapped his defibrillator for a hose and fought the fire as a volunteer firefighter.
"We live in a wonderful country and I have had the opportunity to contribute to that and give back to communities that have given me so much," Mr Jacobson said.
In 1997, After 30 years of service as a paramedic and a long journey out of New South Wales, Mr Jacobson retired from the Queensland Ambulance service where he had been the Assistant Commissioner of the Sunshine Coast and Wine Bay Region.
He now resides in an apartment overlooking Kirra Beach, 1200 kms from the town of Junee where his journey began.
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