My role is a medic in the Air Force. It is responsible for Force Protection, so that’s things like people who are unwell coming to the base medical facility. Going away with squadrons on exercise and search and rescue.

The role as a SAR medic is that you’re the sole medical person in charge of the operation you’re going out to so if it was a civilian search and rescue you’d be involved in going out to look for the actual patient and once you find them you’ll be the person who is winched down. I enjoy the fitness that’s involved in it, there is a high level of fitness that is expected of a medic and you’re also able to go and take part in intersection sports against other sections, it’s a really good part of my job.

As a medic you’ll travel all around NZ and there’s also exercises where you’ll go away and work with the squadrons in Australia, Samoa and you can even get sent over to operation outputs in Afghanistan and places like that. So the pros of being a medic in the Air Force as opposed to in the civilian world is the fact that we have a lot of variety to our job and the fact that we go away and do the same job but in an overseas environment is what really captures a lot of people.

Video Features:
- Medic speaking from the back of an ambulance.
- Medic practising first aid on a colleague in the bush.
- Medic practising on a dummy.
- Medic being winched down from an Iroquois helicopter to a ‘patient’ and back up again.