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Interview with Nathan Metcalfe, paramedic and Aeromedical Control Centre Officer.
10 Plays3 months ago
Nathan Metcalfe is a qualified paramedic who joined New South Wales Ambulance Service in 2005. After spending an incredible 17 years of dedicated service on road, he is now working for NSW Ambulance as an Aeromedical Control Centre Officer. Nathan’s career with NSWA included deployment with Team Alpha to aid in the 2011 Brisbane floods, as well as roles as Station Officer, Standby Control Centre Officer, and team member for the remake of the 80's TV gameshow "It’s a Knock Out" in 2012. Enjoy this chat with Nathan and hear all about his incredible story serving the community.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest Announcement
00:00:09
Speaker
G'day, I'm Trent Maxwell.
00:00:10
Speaker
And I'm Lee Mason.
00:00:11
Speaker
And we want to welcome you to our Live, Learn, Survive podcast.
00:00:14
Speaker
Since 2018, Lee and I travelled the globe and met face-to-face with over 33,000 children in six countries across three continents.
00:00:21
Speaker
We created a series of award-winning children's books, a global online education program, and are founders of the Live, Learn, Survive charity, all focused on teaching children and young adults life skills that will not only help themselves but help others too.
00:00:31
Speaker
We're on a mission to spread awareness about fire, water and first aid education to inspire the next generation of first responders.
00:00:37
Speaker
So join us for the next half an hour with some fun, inspiration and kindness and we'll try and learn something too.
00:00:42
Speaker
How are you this week, Lee?
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome aboard.
00:00:46
Speaker
Maxie, I am good.
00:00:48
Speaker
How are you this week?
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm good.
00:00:50
Speaker
It's another special guest week.
00:00:52
Speaker
special it's one of our favorite days we've got a friend we do have friends we do have friends we do have friends so um you know yet again we love this because um you know we can highlight different people in different careers and i think this is going to be a really interesting chat so um so shall i roll with the intro maxi yep roll with the intro and we'll go straight into the questions
00:01:16
Speaker
Okay, so today we are joined by Nathan Metpalf.
Meet Nathan Metpalf: Career in Emergency Services
00:01:20
Speaker
Nathan is a qualified paramedic who joined the New South Wales Ambulance Service in 2005.
00:01:27
Speaker
After spending an incredible 17 years of dedicated service on the road, he is now working as an Aeromedical Control Centre Officer.
00:01:37
Speaker
Did well getting that all together, Maxie.
00:01:40
Speaker
Nathan's career with NSWA has included deployment with Team Alpha to aid in the 2011 Brisbane floods.
00:01:50
Speaker
I remember them well.
00:01:51
Speaker
As well as roles as station officer, standby control centre officer and team member for the remake of the 80s TV game show, It's a Knockout in 2012.
00:02:01
Speaker
How cool is that?
00:02:03
Speaker
So let's give a warm welcome to Nathan.
00:02:05
Speaker
And I'm really excited to hear all about his incredible story, serving the community.
00:02:10
Speaker
Nathan, welcome.
00:02:12
Speaker
Welcome, mate.
00:02:12
Speaker
Hey, guys.
00:02:13
Speaker
Thanks for having me here.
00:02:15
Speaker
No, it's good to have you, mate.
00:02:16
Speaker
And I'm very lucky.
00:02:18
Speaker
I actually know you personally, Nathan.
00:02:20
Speaker
So it's good to have you here, mate.
00:02:22
Speaker
Take the true one of your mates, really.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, we've met that way.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I'm sure throughout the chat we'll talk a little bit more.
00:02:28
Speaker
But, yeah, I've known you for a little while.
00:02:30
Speaker
So thank you for coming on.
00:02:31
Speaker
And I know this is going to be a great chat.
00:02:33
Speaker
So as we were speaking before, mate, we'll get Lee to start off with the questions.
00:02:38
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:02:39
Speaker
So, you know, what I would love to know, to start off with, Nathan, tell us about your paramedic career and what it's looked like so far.
00:02:50
Speaker
Well, Lee, I joined, I'm actually, I joined in 2005.
00:02:54
Speaker
I sort of had a leaving school, not a clear path of where I was going.
00:02:59
Speaker
And
00:03:02
Speaker
Well, Maxie, I tried to be a fiery for a long time but struggled to get in and I applied for ambulance and was lucky enough to make it through.
00:03:12
Speaker
So that was 2005.
00:03:14
Speaker
Since then, I worked on road as you talked about for, well, still currently I'm road certified.
00:03:21
Speaker
But in 2012, I moved into what we call standby control officers, so dispatching road ambulances.
Day-to-Day as a Paramedic and Aeromedical Officer
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:32
Speaker
Also still working on road at the time, so back and forward, basically just to have some variety in the job.
00:03:40
Speaker
In that time, also doing work with station officers, so kind of managing the team at my station.
00:03:51
Speaker
And yeah, just in the last few years, I've moved on to the aeromedical control that you talked about.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, so... Different things in that time, but yeah, they're the main.
00:04:01
Speaker
I was going to say, Nathan, as a fiery out of Bankstown, I'm sure, you know, hopefully one day we can cross some paths out on the road.
00:04:09
Speaker
But what are the stations you have worked at over the years?
00:04:13
Speaker
Look, I've been lucky enough to stay relatively close to home.
00:04:20
Speaker
Most of my work has been in the north of Sydney in Ryde, but...
00:04:24
Speaker
I went through a period of where I'm not a real fan of night shifts.
00:04:28
Speaker
Our night shifts can get pretty brutal along the way.
00:04:30
Speaker
And so I was swapping a lot of shifts and basically had to work all over Sydney as part of swapping those shifts.
00:04:35
Speaker
So pretty much every station in Sydney I've worked out of at some stage.
00:04:40
Speaker
Do you have a favourite?
00:04:43
Speaker
I like them all, Maxie.
00:04:45
Speaker
There's different work at all of them, you know, different backgrounds for people in the areas and stuff.
00:04:51
Speaker
So you get to meet everyone.
00:04:54
Speaker
Youngsts in the city, depending on the day and, you know, the time, like you meet a different generation.
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, for sure.
00:05:04
Speaker
I was just going to say, because I'm rolling on to that, because I've spent the last couple of weeks at RPA Hospital, do you have a favourite hospital in Sydney that you like to drop patients off?
00:05:17
Speaker
You have really good doctors and nurses that you mingle with as well.
00:05:21
Speaker
Oh, look, I reckon they're all pretty good, Maxie.
00:05:23
Speaker
There's good crews in all of them.
00:05:26
Speaker
They all, you know, everyone, despite what sometimes the media might portray about hospitals, they're all working super hard behind the scenes.
00:05:34
Speaker
They do.
00:05:34
Speaker
They do an amazing job.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, the health system gets pretty hammered.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, good teams everywhere, good bunches.
00:05:42
Speaker
I've got friends in different hospitals that I've met over the years and try and stay in touch with them.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, good stuff.
00:05:49
Speaker
Part of the Aeromedical Control Centre now we work with nurses and doctors in our centre.
00:05:56
Speaker
So we have a doctor there who we call the State Retrieval Consultant.
00:06:00
Speaker
He oversees all of our work basically in the state.
00:06:03
Speaker
Do they have just from with little Sonny, the nets, do you work alongside nets in your control centre as well?
00:06:10
Speaker
We do a lot of work with and for nets.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:14
Speaker
We do a lot of their transporting around the state and
00:06:20
Speaker
Part of my role is directly liaising with NETS to coordinate and work out logistics for their jobs.
00:06:26
Speaker
So their nurses will call us and, you know, we've got to move this patient from, you know, location A to location B and they work out a priority that has to be done in.
00:06:39
Speaker
And most of their work is fairly urgent.
00:06:42
Speaker
You know, someone like...
00:06:45
Speaker
like your little bub being born in a remote part of the state.
00:06:50
Speaker
Not great.
00:06:50
Speaker
You've got to get them out of the way.
00:06:51
Speaker
You've got to get them there.
00:06:52
Speaker
So what is NETS?
00:06:53
Speaker
Can I just ask a question?
00:06:55
Speaker
What is NETS?
00:06:56
Speaker
It's the neonatal emergency transport.
00:07:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:01
Speaker
That's what I thought it might be something, but I just thought for those people that don't know, yeah, it's newborn and, yeah, neonatal.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
So they're dealing with newborns to 16-year-old.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker
Right.
00:07:18
Speaker
And just with the aeromedical, adding on, a couple of months ago we interviewed one of the toll ambulance crewmen, James Cohen, and he used to work out at Bankstown.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:29
Speaker
But when it comes to the toll ambulance and New South Wales ambulance, they do have three choppers.
00:07:33
Speaker
Do you want to explain the chopper situation or how that works with the aeromedical?
00:07:38
Speaker
Yes, out of Bankstown, they have the three that you talked about.
00:07:41
Speaker
Across the state, there's eight, but the three out at Bankstown and one of those is a dedicated NETS helicopter.
00:07:49
Speaker
So that shows you the amount of work that we do for NETS that we've got a dedicated helicopter for them.
00:07:55
Speaker
Wow.
00:07:55
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:07:56
Speaker
Depending on the priority of their response,
00:08:00
Speaker
We will put NETS crew, so a doctor, or sometimes two doctors and a nurse along, a NETS trained nurse, we put them on the helicopter.
00:08:12
Speaker
So then the helicopter, we just have our pilot and the crewman.
00:08:16
Speaker
And then the NETS team, we fly them pad to pad for the hospitals.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's amazing stuff, mate.
00:08:23
Speaker
And just obviously hearing and seeing, being at the hospital lately, knowing what they do, it's amazing.
00:08:28
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:08:29
Speaker
I mean, sometimes we have more than, you know, one next job running at a time.
00:08:34
Speaker
So, and depending on distance as well, sometimes like part of my role is to work out, you know, is it going to be quicker to use a plane versus a helicopter?
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:45
Speaker
okay yes we have we have logistics um the pines in sydney that are yeah that we'll use we'll put a next time on that as well oh cool that's incredible that's what i was going to ask so knowing a little bit more about the era medical control so is is that the are you the team that control those eight helicopters or do your does your range spread further than just your
00:09:10
Speaker
you know, maybe area of Sydney because it's aeronautical, are you like statewide or?
00:09:16
Speaker
Where I currently work, the Aeromedical Control Centre, we are basically responsible for the coordination, the response, the treatment and the transport for all pre-hospital patients.
00:09:33
Speaker
major incidents, medical retrievals.
00:09:38
Speaker
We sought long distance medical transports and part of the helicopter job is also they do a lot of search and rescue and major incidents.
00:09:50
Speaker
There you go.
00:09:51
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:09:51
Speaker
It is.
00:09:54
Speaker
Just as part of that, so as I said before, we have the nurses there, they'll triage jobs as they come in, sometimes with the help of the state retrieval consultant, who's the main doctor in the centre.
00:10:09
Speaker
And then we work out whether we're gonna respond plane or helicopter or a fixed, sorry, a road retrieval, you know, around Sydney, sometimes it's quicker to get straight in the road retrieval.
00:10:21
Speaker
So we'll have a critical care paramedic and a trauma doctor on board.
00:10:27
Speaker
So working out the appropriate clinical levels, et cetera, for the management and, you know, transport of the patient.
00:10:35
Speaker
That's sort of the job in a nutshell.
Career Opportunities and Personal Influences
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's incredible, Nathan, because... In the room where we work, so we're divided into what we call RLTC, which does its Rapid Launch Trauma Coordinator.
00:10:48
Speaker
So they're doing helicopters and then the fixed wing doing, obviously, the planes.
00:10:53
Speaker
But we work together to, you know, see what's going to give the patient the best result.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:58
Speaker
There you go.
00:10:59
Speaker
That was probably one of the longest...
00:11:02
Speaker
question one answers and it's good because it's so interesting um you know we as a fire we we work alongside um sometimes the the ambulance choppers and stuff like that so it's good to learn a little bit more about that on the rescue there maxi you'd see our road retrieval um doctors and uh critical yeah a lot of the time a lot of the time we deal with them a lot
00:11:28
Speaker
Sorry, can I just add to that, Maxi?
00:11:30
Speaker
Sorry.
00:11:30
Speaker
I know it's like, what a brilliant, brilliant answer, Nathan, because, you know, me not being a first responder or not knowing this world and so many younger people might be listening to this and might like the idea of being, you know, in the ambulance service.
00:11:47
Speaker
They think the main role that comes to mind is on the road driving an ambulance.
00:11:52
Speaker
What you've just said there,
00:11:54
Speaker
is so many different facets of the career and the different directions it could take you that that could be just the one like bit of that make might spark curiosity and make somebody want to start and investigate and learn more about a chosen career so thank you for sharing that because i had no idea about that i just thought you know
00:12:17
Speaker
incredible.
00:12:18
Speaker
I think in emergency service, you know, working for the government there, police, fire, ambulance, we're lucky that when you initially think of them, you probably think of them as just, you know, that basic role as that's what they are.
00:12:30
Speaker
But behind the scenes, there's a lot of hope to move into different areas.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:12:38
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:12:39
Speaker
Sorry, let's see if you go.
00:12:40
Speaker
It's all good.
00:12:41
Speaker
So question two, who inspired you growing up?
00:12:45
Speaker
Maxie, you know, I was thinking about this back when, I don't want to give away my age, but, you know, growing up, social media wasn't really around.
00:12:55
Speaker
So you kind of were inspired by people closer to home.
00:12:58
Speaker
Whereas, you know, today, like, you know, you can see all these famous celebrities and sportsmen and all that all over your social media.
00:13:04
Speaker
Every day you're bombarded.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:07
Speaker
I reckon like just, you know, my father was, you know, he was a hard worker, instilled a work ethic into me.
00:13:18
Speaker
He encouraged me to invest when I first started working and that type of thing.
00:13:24
Speaker
And beyond that, my grandfather as well, he's got basically a fair bit to do with this area before I even knew.
00:13:35
Speaker
But he grew up here before this area was developed.
00:13:38
Speaker
But he built the local shopping center.
00:13:40
Speaker
He owned a fair bit of land and made some good investments back in the day.
00:13:44
Speaker
So I think those guys rubbed off on me.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:48
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:13:50
Speaker
I'm sure we'll talk about it, but I love soccer as well.
00:13:55
Speaker
Back in the, I'll say, the 80s slash 90s, Craig Johnson for Liverpool was a bit of a hero of mine.
00:14:01
Speaker
So I'm a strong Liverpool fan now and love my soccer.
00:14:06
Speaker
You're in good company, Nathan.
00:14:07
Speaker
There is only one team.
00:14:09
Speaker
You're in good company.
00:14:10
Speaker
The Reds.
00:14:10
Speaker
Max and I have been to one field.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, I went a couple of years ago.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good part of the world.
00:14:18
Speaker
But I got to watch him play at Wolverhampton, and we won.
00:14:22
Speaker
Well, you know, on a side note, you know, talking about age, and obviously I'm a couple of years older than Maxi, Kenny Dalgleish was my absolute hero.
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to be a good champion.
00:14:34
Speaker
King Kenny, he was the man.
00:14:36
Speaker
I've got a Liverpool framed picture up here, but yeah, out of shot.
00:14:43
Speaker
Oh, we'll talk later, Nathan.
00:14:45
Speaker
Back to the script.
00:14:46
Speaker
Sorry, Maxi, where were we going?
00:14:48
Speaker
You're up to number three.
00:14:49
Speaker
It's me, it's me, it's me.
00:14:51
Speaker
So, Nathan, did you get good career advice at school?
00:14:55
Speaker
We had a careers, you know, I think it was once a week we do a careers class, but I was kind of at school for maybe just a good time and not so much.
00:15:09
Speaker
So I reckon as part of that, I would have got good career advice if I had taken it on board.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
As much as I like to, you know, don't like to admit it, I,
00:15:20
Speaker
yeah school was school was good times and you know yeah yeah yeah it's uh you know what i think when you're younger it's finding that thing that um kind of sparks your interest and that like nicely goes into the next question you might see that i think it's you yeah well when did you realize you wanted to become a paramedic i know you're saying before with the fireys you tried for that but what what was the the pin drop point
00:15:47
Speaker
Just going back on the career advice, my old man worked in advertising, so I was always, you know, I guess we'll lead into it later with tattooing and art and stuff, but I was always thought that that's where I was going to end up, graphic designing, advertising, et cetera.
00:16:05
Speaker
When I left school, I...
00:16:08
Speaker
I did courses to get into graphic design.
00:16:13
Speaker
And then I finished the course and fell into a job with a, basically through a mate of mine.
00:16:20
Speaker
And it's a super long story, so I won't go into it.
00:16:22
Speaker
But I ended up as a storeman and the working conditions were fairly good.
00:16:26
Speaker
There was a housing boom and I was working in a paint factory.
00:16:30
Speaker
And we were just, you know, super busy.
00:16:34
Speaker
I was making a lot of money back then and I just got comfortable and stayed there for so long, but I was not enjoying the work and not motivated.
00:16:45
Speaker
And I think it's very important, speaking of careers, like it's important to do something that you really enjoy doing.
00:16:52
Speaker
And I was not enjoying it.
00:16:53
Speaker
So I was, you know, always looking for something else and trying year after year, trying to get into the fireys.
00:17:00
Speaker
and then saw ambulance advertise and just back then in the newspaper, I thought I'll give it a go.
00:17:06
Speaker
It was making me a practice run for the fire brigade.
00:17:09
Speaker
And yeah, I fell into it, got lucky and got through successful.
00:17:15
Speaker
I even thought, I'll just see how I go, you know, whether I like it or not, still try and be a fiery.
00:17:22
Speaker
But, you know, 17 years later, no, I'm longer than that, 19 years.
00:17:28
Speaker
19 years, yeah.
00:17:29
Speaker
In 2005, yeah, in 2024.
00:17:30
Speaker
So 19 years later, I'm still going in ambulance.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:35
Speaker
Amazing.
00:17:37
Speaker
Amazing.
00:17:37
Speaker
So I'm going to skip the next one because you said you saw it in the paper.
00:17:41
Speaker
So what would you say?
00:17:43
Speaker
has been your best career decision so far.
00:17:48
Speaker
Well, joining was a good decision.
00:17:50
Speaker
That was a good one.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker
And as I said, I got lucky.
00:17:54
Speaker
Our employment, well, recruitment now, most of the guys have to be university educated.
00:18:01
Speaker
They learn a lot.
00:18:05
Speaker
They're a lot more advanced clinically than I ever was.
00:18:08
Speaker
I'm still learning stuff that these guys probably forget, you know.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:13
Speaker
There's so much to it.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, they were way better educated than I ever was.
00:18:18
Speaker
So I think my best career decision was, yeah, applying for ambulance.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, brilliant.
00:18:26
Speaker
Mate, more of the serious side of the chat.
The Stresses and Challenges of Emergency Work
00:18:29
Speaker
Most stressful part of the journey so far?
00:18:34
Speaker
Look, Maxie, starting out, you know, being, not having any kind of clinical background at all, I was, for years, I was not comfortable going to work.
00:18:43
Speaker
And still, you know, you could, I still work on road and, you know, some of these jobs you go to, you aren't comfortable.
00:18:50
Speaker
I'm sure you'd know as, you know, responding to your jobs.
00:18:55
Speaker
you never know what you're going to be confronted with.
00:18:57
Speaker
So, yeah, it can be stressful that way.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:02
Speaker
Just saying, mate, like thinking on your feet too, like what I've noticed, you could be the guru, the godfather, you know, the godmother, whatever of a certain discipline within your role or your job.
00:19:15
Speaker
But every job's different and you always get those real quirky jobs that no one's really dealt with.
00:19:22
Speaker
You pull out the...
00:19:23
Speaker
the ops manual and you're like looking through the pages trying to find something to do with the job that you're at and you can't.
00:19:28
Speaker
So a lot of the time, as well as paramedics and as far as, is you thinking of with experience and knowledge that you have in the past, but you kind of use it to good practice.
00:19:38
Speaker
And as a good rescue operator told me, you need to make sure you have plans.
00:19:43
Speaker
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, just don't have the one planned.
00:19:47
Speaker
You always got to be.
00:19:49
Speaker
Whenever you get comfortable, that's when you're going to be brought undone.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:19:54
Speaker
Concentrating and just going back to having multiple plans, that's where we are now, like our aeromedical work.
00:20:02
Speaker
Like, you know, you've got a plane responding to a job.
00:20:05
Speaker
You've got to have plan B and plan C because something could change and, yeah, you only have that plane, you know.
00:20:13
Speaker
It's just absolute uncertainty, isn't it?
00:20:16
Speaker
You have got no idea what your shift could be like.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:21
Speaker
Have you got a, just going off script here, have you got a decent story that you can share about a job that you've done aeromedical or as a paramedic where it has been pretty crazy?
00:20:37
Speaker
Oh, Maxie, they're probably all long stories, but, you know, examples are things like, you know, remote jobs, for example, out the back of, you know, Burke and all that, where there's not a whole lot of, you know, infrastructure.
00:20:50
Speaker
So a lot of these properties will have runways, you know, they've got hundreds of thousands of hectares of land.
00:20:58
Speaker
They'll have a runway on their property.
00:21:01
Speaker
We've had a plane land on one of those and actually, once it's stopped, has sunk into the runway after they've had big rains out there.
00:21:12
Speaker
You've still got an unwell patient.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:17
Speaker
So what happens then?
00:21:17
Speaker
Do they just send another, or how do they do?
00:21:20
Speaker
They just send a car or they go?
00:21:25
Speaker
I've had interesting ones where...
00:21:29
Speaker
The remoteness of Central Australia will respond to jobs in the top of South Australia, around Cameron's Corner, that type of area as well.
00:21:39
Speaker
I had a guy who was on a motorbike.
00:21:42
Speaker
He was a foreign traveller going around Australia on a motorbike.
00:21:48
Speaker
He crashed his motorbike.
00:21:49
Speaker
He was very remote and he was texting back to the Netherlands.
00:21:55
Speaker
to say he'd been in.
00:21:57
Speaker
And then they were coordinating with RFDS, who we do a lot of work for.
00:22:03
Speaker
RFDS in Port Augusta, so the bottom of South Australia, had taken the call from the Netherlands about their son being lost somewhere in the outback.
00:22:13
Speaker
And we managed, all of us together, we got his GPS coordinates, but he ended up
00:22:21
Speaker
being found by someone just randomly driving past in a ute.
00:22:24
Speaker
He had some spinal damage.
00:22:26
Speaker
These guys loaded him into the back of their ute, wrapped him in a swag and took him along the Birdsville track.
00:22:35
Speaker
So we got him...
00:22:37
Speaker
I ended up having a helicopter responding from a... I should elaborate a little bit more.
00:22:45
Speaker
Sorry, it's a long story.
00:22:45
Speaker
But in some of the mining sites, they're so big that there is paramedics work in these helicopters on these mine sites.
00:22:55
Speaker
So we liaising with this guy, we were able to give him some coordinates of where this ute may be.
00:23:02
Speaker
They managed to meet up.
00:23:04
Speaker
He's flown, then flown the patient from...
00:23:07
Speaker
the Birdsville track into Birdsville airport where I got a plane from Broken Hill to them and then flying down to South Australia to the hospital.
00:23:19
Speaker
Logistics.
00:23:21
Speaker
Logistics, that's unreal.
00:23:23
Speaker
It's logistics and having plans and, you know,
00:23:27
Speaker
just make well yeah just trying to make it work making it work and you save that guy's life and it's it must be an awesome feeling to to know that you contributed to that guy getting the care he needs a lot of uh
Coping with Stress and Hobbies
00:23:41
Speaker
work along the way and a lot of a lot of people involved yeah but eventually he got the hospital where he needed to be incredible so obviously that's like you know like i say not not like a regular day as many would people would understand the
00:23:56
Speaker
incredibly stressful.
00:23:57
Speaker
How do you deal with that stress?
00:24:00
Speaker
How do you look after Nathan?
00:24:04
Speaker
Well,
00:24:05
Speaker
I try not to overthink my work, which helps, I reckon.
00:24:09
Speaker
But I've got, you know, outside of work, Maxie has touched on, I think, earlier a bit of tattooing.
00:24:16
Speaker
So I've got side interests in there.
00:24:20
Speaker
I love my soccer and play it like you wouldn't believe.
00:24:24
Speaker
But I'm battling some knee injuries at the moment, but still trying to play through it.
00:24:30
Speaker
I like to keep fit.
00:24:32
Speaker
I do a lot of just reading books.
00:24:36
Speaker
I've got into gardening lately and, yeah, I'm about to do what is known as the Shipbox Rally, which is a charity fundraiser for the Cancer Council.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, and just talking about Birdsville, I happened to be as part of the Shipbox Rally last year.
00:24:52
Speaker
I went along the Birdsville track and we stayed a night in Birdsville, so it really helped as part of my job knowing
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:04
Speaker
That kind of keeps your mind occupied and off work when you're not there.
00:25:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:25:09
Speaker
So the rally, just say a little bit, so it's for cancer.
00:25:12
Speaker
And isn't the idea that you just have like lots of different, do you get like donated a car or it's literally some of these cars are like, you know, like, you know,
00:25:23
Speaker
There's lots of mechanics and maintenance along the way, isn't there?
00:25:27
Speaker
And what kind of distance is it so people can imagine?
00:25:32
Speaker
The shitbox part is in reference to the car, so it's got to be worth $1,500 or less.
00:25:39
Speaker
There you go.
00:25:39
Speaker
You don't get much for that.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
There's a $5,000 charity, like, entry fee, I guess.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker
So, you know, I've been lucky enough that we've got some sponsors on board but also just friends and family donating.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:57
Speaker
So to get over the $5,000, which goes towards Cancer Council.
00:26:02
Speaker
So 250 cars do it each year.
00:26:05
Speaker
Last year we raised, my spring rally last year raised $2.4 million, which was fantastic.
00:26:13
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:26:14
Speaker
Just going on amounts.
00:26:17
Speaker
The Shipbox organisation have raised $50 million in the last 15 years for Kansas.
00:26:27
Speaker
That's unreal.
00:26:28
Speaker
Phenomenal.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:30
Speaker
So distances can be, what did I, last year we did as part of the rally was about 5,000 kilometres.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:39
Speaker
And all through dirt roads.
00:26:41
Speaker
You're driving a $1,500 car down the Birdsville track that, you know, you're on the road.
Charity Involvement: Shitbox Rally
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
Set up four-wheel drive going along there.
00:26:52
Speaker
So what happens out of those 250 cars, surely a couple of them would just die, you know?
00:26:58
Speaker
They die.
00:26:59
Speaker
So what happens then?
00:26:59
Speaker
Do you just take a car like Bill and Barbara and Paddy and they jump in your car?
00:27:03
Speaker
Jump in your car, yeah.
00:27:06
Speaker
Or the army actually supply a truck with mechanics on it and those guys can come and help you try and fix them.
00:27:13
Speaker
A lot of mechanics do that rally as well.
00:27:15
Speaker
So everyone pitches in, tries to get the cars running.
00:27:18
Speaker
We had a guy last year, Maxie, who blew his car up on the first day.
00:27:22
Speaker
He got it to this little town.
00:27:24
Speaker
There was eight people in the town.
00:27:27
Speaker
They tried to fix it, unsuccessful.
00:27:29
Speaker
So he went to the pub, he bought another car and he blew it up again.
00:27:33
Speaker
And in the six days of the rally, he blew up four cars.
00:27:40
Speaker
We ended up giving up, which was somebody else's car.
00:27:44
Speaker
Oh, that's gold.
00:27:45
Speaker
That is gold.
00:27:47
Speaker
We couldn't have even put your Jeep in, Maxi.
00:27:49
Speaker
That would have been a luxury.
00:27:50
Speaker
That would have been a luxury vehicle.
00:27:53
Speaker
We couldn't have even stuck that in.
00:27:56
Speaker
We've had some blobs.
00:27:58
Speaker
He had an old, like an AU Falcon, sort of like an old taxi.
00:28:02
Speaker
He had his stickers and his bonters on, like, the bonnet and the boot and the doors.
00:28:06
Speaker
he's gone into town and he's bought another one the same car but different color and he's he's unscrewed the bonnet the boot the doors swapped it all over so he's on it and drives it off oh that's gold you love that sort of stuff and that sort of community stuff you know live learn survive been a charity we've been lucky enough to do some charity events over the last couple of years and
00:28:30
Speaker
You know, whenever we've done stuff within the community and donations and fundraisers, it just brings everyone together and it's always a good time.
00:28:39
Speaker
We need an idea like that, Maxie.
00:28:41
Speaker
You guys could jump in as a live, learn, survive car, maybe, no?
00:28:47
Speaker
Two people in the car.
00:28:48
Speaker
But then you're raising funds for the Cancer Council, aren't you?
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:52
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:53
Speaker
So we like, you know, I lost my mom to cancer.
00:28:57
Speaker
I would raise funds for them in a heartbeat, but we need to have our, we need to do something for, we'll send Maxie skydiving or something.
00:29:07
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:08
Speaker
You guys, everyone's been touched, you know, like your charity, you know, you've got your specific charities that you're raised for with cancer.
00:29:16
Speaker
Like everyone's got a cancer story, you know.
00:29:18
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:29:19
Speaker
For sure.
00:29:20
Speaker
And I know how passionate and how much you enjoy doing it, mate.
00:29:24
Speaker
So hopefully it becomes a thing where you can keep doing it over time and have a bit of fun along the way.
00:29:30
Speaker
I was eager to get back after doing it last year.
00:29:32
Speaker
So, yeah, straight back into it.
00:29:34
Speaker
So how many days is this one that you're starting tomorrow going to last, Nathan?
00:29:39
Speaker
I actually am leaving Sydney tomorrow to drive.
00:29:41
Speaker
I'm just going to the Central Coast.
00:29:42
Speaker
We're working on the car, giving it the quick last going over.
00:29:46
Speaker
We go on Thursday and then start on Friday.
00:29:50
Speaker
You do about 500, 500 to 600 kilometres a day working your way.
00:29:55
Speaker
We're going up past Broken Hill, a place called Batuta, you know, the Batuta.
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah, Batuta, yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
We're staying a night at Batuta at the hotel.
00:30:04
Speaker
You stay in those little towns along the way.
00:30:07
Speaker
Everyone gets together and the town goes on, you know, and eventually at night they have this bar set up and they supply you dinner and breakfast.
00:30:18
Speaker
So,
00:30:18
Speaker
We bring in a lot of money into the community as well, just, you know, over the bar and social communities along the way.
00:30:25
Speaker
And it also spreads the, you know, the word of the charity.
00:30:30
Speaker
Do you go through Surat?
00:30:31
Speaker
Maxie and I a couple of months ago were out in the Maranoa, out at Surat, Roma, that area.
00:30:36
Speaker
We are going to...
00:30:40
Speaker
I do it with my brother-in-law.
00:30:41
Speaker
So when we drive, we're going to get to Townsville, fingers crossed, the car makes it, and then we're going to drive back to Sydney, again, fingers crossed.
00:30:48
Speaker
But we go through there on the way back.
00:30:51
Speaker
Oh, you've got to stop at the pub and say, Liam Maxey, say hi.
00:30:54
Speaker
It's the right hotel, mate.
00:30:56
Speaker
It's a good pub.
00:30:57
Speaker
It's the one-stop shop.
00:30:58
Speaker
You've got everything in there.
00:30:59
Speaker
I'm sure that's standard all country clubs.
00:31:01
Speaker
You've got to go in the pub, find Holly, and say, Liam Maxey sent me.
00:31:05
Speaker
She'll look after you.
00:31:06
Speaker
She'll look after you.
00:31:07
Speaker
She's a legend.
00:31:09
Speaker
She's also been on the podcast.
00:31:11
Speaker
Not in support, but also a nurse.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:31:17
Speaker
Mate, best piece of advice you've ever been given?
00:31:24
Speaker
Look...
00:31:27
Speaker
I was talking to a guy at work recently thinking about, you know, what kind of advice I've been given.
00:31:34
Speaker
And he actually had said to me, like, he was asking a bloke who'd been in ambulance forever how he'd survived for so long.
00:31:42
Speaker
And, you know, I kind of look at this guy and I think I'm a little bit like him, but I'm...
Life Philosophy and Current Contentment
00:31:49
Speaker
I'm always trying to take things on and fix it and, you know, sometimes it's stuff that I don't have the ability to fix.
00:31:57
Speaker
So, you know, he was kind of saying in a long kind of story that I'll cut short is, you know, don't like try and take control of things that you can't actually control or have influence over.
00:32:09
Speaker
So, yeah, kind of let things go if, you know.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:15
Speaker
That's the hard bit, isn't it?
00:32:17
Speaker
It's like, you know, we all know we need to do it, but it's really good advice if you can master it.
00:32:22
Speaker
I've been told a few times along the way, but probably haven't listened as, you know, as well as I should have.
00:32:28
Speaker
But, yeah, so I'm trying to do that, you know, trying to let things go that I don't have.
00:32:32
Speaker
It's a good tip.
00:32:35
Speaker
Good advice.
00:32:36
Speaker
It is a really, really good tip.
00:32:39
Speaker
So next career goal, what do you have...
00:32:44
Speaker
Any goals for the future?
00:32:46
Speaker
Well, look, in the role that I'm doing, there is the ability to progress a little bit through that.
00:32:53
Speaker
So I'm pretty happy with where I am right now.
00:32:58
Speaker
So, yeah, I'll just see what happens.
00:33:00
Speaker
But as we were saying before, in the ambulance and same with fireys, I imagine there's ability to progress or move sideways.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, if you get to the point where you feel like a change.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:33:17
Speaker
At the moment that I'm working towards, just trying to master what I'm doing, I guess.
00:33:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:23
Speaker
Good stuff, mate.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:33:25
Speaker
Really great.
00:33:26
Speaker
We spoke about it before, tattooing and football, but what other hobbies do you have?
00:33:33
Speaker
Do you like to do anything else?
00:33:36
Speaker
I didn't mention my kids before.
00:33:37
Speaker
I've got three kids.
00:33:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:40
Speaker
They chew up, they're probably the biggest hobby.
00:33:42
Speaker
They chew up a lot of your time.
00:33:44
Speaker
But, you know, even with them, a lot of their, like, my relationship with them involves sport.
00:33:51
Speaker
I mean, besides being a parent, but, you know, they're really into their sport as well.
00:33:57
Speaker
So a lot of that.
00:33:58
Speaker
And my younger fella, you know, he's a bit different than the other two with his sport.
00:34:05
Speaker
But, yeah, I try to spend a lot of time with him as well, just mucking around and,
00:34:08
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:34:09
Speaker
Saturday morning, sport busy?
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah.
Passions and Personal Life: Fitness, Tattooing, and Soccer
00:34:14
Speaker
Well, the older they get, I guess, I mean, I'd like to say it's slowing down, but it's not really.
00:34:21
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah, I try and keep fit and, I don't know, I love working out in the gym too, so daily exercise really keeps your mind.
00:34:29
Speaker
Keep your body moving.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:33
Speaker
If I miss out on a workout, I don't feel good.
00:34:35
Speaker
So I guess, yeah, exercising is, you know, good mental health for me.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:40
Speaker
That's like you, Maxie, isn't it?
00:34:44
Speaker
You just like, yeah.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah, like I'm at the stage now where, yeah, most days I'm down at the gym or doing some activities.
00:34:51
Speaker
And, you know, even you, Lee, in the last couple of years as well, like, you know, it's so important to move the body and doing different things because it is good for your mental health.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, I love to swim.
00:35:02
Speaker
Swimming's my thing.
00:35:03
Speaker
I love to just go to the pool.
00:35:05
Speaker
I think you never regret a swim.
00:35:07
Speaker
You don't have to smash yourself.
00:35:09
Speaker
I'll just say you don't have to smash yourself, but you can, you know, just move the body in some way, however you can, and you'll definitely feel better for it.
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah, none of the Australian, you know, Olympians need to be worried about me.
00:35:23
Speaker
I'm not going to be coming and taking their goals.
00:35:27
Speaker
But, you know, I do my bit.
00:35:29
Speaker
What did you say, Maxi, get in and throw them over?
00:35:31
Speaker
Just get in there and throw them over.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:34
Speaker
I know you can get some swimming lessons from Maxi.
00:35:38
Speaker
Oh, swimming's the best.
00:35:40
Speaker
I don't go in the ocean.
00:35:41
Speaker
I'm a poor girl, but I do love to swim.
00:35:44
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:35:45
Speaker
So, Nathan, I want to know all about this tattooing.
00:35:49
Speaker
How long have you been a tattooist for?
00:35:51
Speaker
This is obviously your creative side.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, look, I've always enjoyed art, drawing, painting.
00:35:58
Speaker
I used to, in my spare time at school, you know, when I probably should have been listening to careers advice, I'd be scribbling a bit on my arms and, you know, coming home looking like I'd been tattooed.
00:36:11
Speaker
And I don't know, just along the way, like I always wanted a tattoo and my mum and dad were always like, you can't have one of those.
00:36:19
Speaker
The first thing you do when you're old enough is go and get one.
00:36:23
Speaker
I don't recommend that kids, whoever's listening, you should listen to your parents.
00:36:28
Speaker
That's good advice.
00:36:30
Speaker
If you do get a tattoo and you're over 18 and you really want one, you can do it.
00:36:35
Speaker
Go see Nathan.
00:36:36
Speaker
Nathan will support you.
00:36:39
Speaker
Nothing silly.
00:36:40
Speaker
In saying that though, that's how me and Nathan, a few mutual friends, another firefighter I know, but Nathan's done a few of my tattoos that I have.
00:36:48
Speaker
I've got a couple on me and we always have some really good, deep and meaningful chats and it's always good to catch up, mate.
00:36:55
Speaker
So thank you for your time and the art that you've done on my body.
00:37:00
Speaker
I love hanging out with you, mate.
00:37:03
Speaker
We need to do it more.
00:37:05
Speaker
100%, mate.
00:37:05
Speaker
Well, I think after little Sonny's been born, there's a date coming up where I'm going to catch up with you for a beer and maybe a cheeky tartar.
00:37:14
Speaker
We'll see.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to get Sonny on.
00:37:17
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:18
Speaker
Sure, somewhere.
00:37:19
Speaker
So how long have you been doing it, Nathan?
00:37:21
Speaker
Well, nothing.
00:37:22
Speaker
Actually, the tattooing.
00:37:24
Speaker
Look, about 15 years of tattooing.
00:37:27
Speaker
I know.
00:37:28
Speaker
Or seriously, I guess probably in the last five, six, seven years.
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:35
Speaker
And I just sort of started out.
00:37:37
Speaker
Like I got a few tattoos and asked a lot of questions, but I couldn't really get a lot of help off tattooists.
00:37:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker
Did a lot of reading and then was lucky enough just to randomly meet a guy through a brand who...
00:37:49
Speaker
he's a blind tattooist and um he was happy to help me out uh and yeah just from there i guess just um you know meeting people like maxi happy to come to an unknown and let me have a go and then how do you how do you train i i've got no idea do you you know do you just how do you stop uh lee i don't know if it's good to say how i started okay
00:38:19
Speaker
All right.
00:38:20
Speaker
I'm taking that that wasn't tattoo school then, Nathan.
00:38:23
Speaker
So we'll skip.
00:38:26
Speaker
Well, obviously, you know, it was something, a passion and you found your way through and you found it.
00:38:32
Speaker
And I've seen Max's tattoos.
00:38:34
Speaker
You're obviously very good at it.
00:38:36
Speaker
I started really small, not doing a lot of them, but just the more you do, people see that you can do it.
00:38:46
Speaker
And the more you do it, the better you get, you know, practice, practice.
00:38:50
Speaker
I did a lot of reading, a lot of practicing.
00:38:53
Speaker
And, yeah, now I've got a fairly, you know, a client base that I'm happy with.
00:38:59
Speaker
I don't totally flat out, but I don't have the time to do it either.
00:39:05
Speaker
You're too busy saving New South Wales and getting the choppers in the right place and the planes going where they're supposed to be.
00:39:11
Speaker
All the planes and the choppers at the moment.
00:39:15
Speaker
Even talking of how do I deal with stress?
00:39:20
Speaker
It's tattooing like, you know, someone like Maxie coming along and we just have a chat like this while I'm, you know, scribbling away on his body there.
00:39:27
Speaker
And it's a good mental health thing for me as well.
00:39:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:31
Speaker
Gets a lot of things off your chest.
00:39:32
Speaker
And, you know, the amount of chats we've had in the past, mate, I've had some pieces done by you that have been...
00:39:38
Speaker
longer than three, four, five hours.
00:39:40
Speaker
And yeah, you get to know someone pretty well and you have some good old chats.
00:39:44
Speaker
And if I'm not 100% or if you're not 100%, we kind of bounce off each other and we have a good time.
00:39:50
Speaker
That's what I was about to say.
00:39:51
Speaker
Sometimes the clients who come along, you know, they sometimes use getting tattooed as like a stress release, mental health, and it works for them.
00:40:00
Speaker
You know, they can offload to somebody.
00:40:02
Speaker
Sometimes I'm just someone random to them as well, but, you know, you get to speak to someone about what's going on and just getting them offloading is good.
00:40:09
Speaker
I think as well with tattoos, they've always got a meaning.
00:40:13
Speaker
So that almost stops the story, doesn't it?
00:40:17
Speaker
Like why?
00:40:18
Speaker
Why?
00:40:19
Speaker
what does this stand for or what does it mean?
00:40:21
Speaker
You know, that's what I would imagine as well.
00:40:25
Speaker
And that's like Maxie saying with Sonny coming along, you know, that's always going to be something special for him, you know.
00:40:30
Speaker
So I get to be a part of like Maxie's life forever there, you know.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:40:36
Speaker
And a lot of the tattoos are sentimental in some way, you know.
00:40:40
Speaker
Some people get some silly ones or whatever, but, you know, there's a story behind it.
00:40:45
Speaker
But, yeah, that's why if someone is going through a loss in the family or a birth in the family or, you know, a rough situation,
00:40:53
Speaker
period of their time, you know, battling something, you know, sometimes people do it to express how they feel and it reminds them of a good and a bad time.
00:41:02
Speaker
So, yeah, it's a good time.
00:41:06
Speaker
Well, when I get my first, Nathan, will you get a call?
00:41:09
Speaker
With pleasure.
00:41:12
Speaker
I can't get though because my dad will still tell me off.
00:41:14
Speaker
I'll be like, you know.
00:41:16
Speaker
Just get the words.
00:41:17
Speaker
You'll never walk alone.
00:41:19
Speaker
You'll never, yeah, why, yeah.
00:41:22
Speaker
Why, whatever, you'll never walk alone, yeah.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:41:25
Speaker
I'm thinking of doing one soon.
00:41:28
Speaker
Sorry?
00:41:28
Speaker
I'm thinking of getting one on myself soon.
00:41:31
Speaker
There you go.
00:41:32
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely.
00:41:35
Speaker
So we just talked about sports.
00:41:37
Speaker
Oh, sorry, have I jumped in?
00:41:38
Speaker
Sorry, Max, it's you.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, it is, mate.
00:41:41
Speaker
But we spoke about sports before, but with football and so on.
00:41:46
Speaker
Tell us about your sports that you do play with your football team.
00:41:51
Speaker
Oh, Maxie, I'm just a soccer, you know, football freak, football for me, freak.
00:42:00
Speaker
I've been playing for as long as I can remember and playing, you know, during my 20s and 30s, like every night of the week, I'd have a game on.
00:42:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:42:11
Speaker
It's bringing me down now with my knees.
00:42:13
Speaker
They've suffered a bit, but I'm battling through it.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's good, mate.
00:42:19
Speaker
Still playing.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:21
Speaker
I'm playing over 45s at the moment and still enjoying that.
00:42:25
Speaker
And, yeah, the season's finished now, but summer soccer and indoor soccer still.
00:42:30
Speaker
So that's year round.
00:42:32
Speaker
And ever since you remember playing in nappies till now, have you won many premierships?
00:42:40
Speaker
Oh, mate, we like to think that we've won it all, Maxie.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:47
Speaker
You can always tell a story about how good you were.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:51
Speaker
You've had some good wins.
00:42:53
Speaker
Good wins.
00:42:55
Speaker
yeah yeah we've uh well i just played in uh well we won that we won the premiership this year with my uh old boys team which was good yeah yeah and actually if i was the mate of um our mutual friend calum who put us in touch there you go his district manager maybe i can't remember his name yeah anyway isn't it on fire yeah we played against him in what they call champion of champions so they beat us
00:43:22
Speaker
That's fantastic.
00:43:23
Speaker
I love it.
00:43:24
Speaker
Absolutely brilliant.
00:43:25
Speaker
Absolutely brilliant.
00:43:27
Speaker
So if you weren't a paramedic, Nathan, what do you think you would do?
00:43:32
Speaker
Look, you know, I reckon you guys could probably guess already, but a fiery would have been, I reckon, a pretty good role for me, but probably a tattooist.
00:43:43
Speaker
And I'd love to say professional soccer player, but, you know, I just never got into it back in the day.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yeah, I've got an elder son now who's quite handy with soccer.
00:43:53
Speaker
So, you know, maybe I'm living a bit of my soccer passion through him.
00:43:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:59
Speaker
We got him... Has he been spotted yet by a coach or...?
00:44:04
Speaker
He actually played Australian schoolboys back in the day, went to the UK, which was... That's amazing.
00:44:10
Speaker
One of my proud moments.
00:44:11
Speaker
He scored a goal against England in the International.
00:44:15
Speaker
Long taken.
00:44:19
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:44:20
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:44:21
Speaker
Who would you support now, Lee, living over here?
00:44:24
Speaker
Look, do you know what?
00:44:26
Speaker
I don't...
00:44:29
Speaker
I'm just a Liverpool supporter.
00:44:31
Speaker
I mean, I was a Liverpool supporter in the 80s from being a teenager and being from Nottingham in the 80s, it was actually the time when Liverpool's biggest rival was Nottingham Forest.
00:44:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:46
Speaker
But I was never, ever a Forest supporter.
00:44:50
Speaker
Actually, the opposite.
00:44:51
Speaker
So, it was a thing.
00:44:53
Speaker
I got into a teens.
00:44:55
Speaker
My dad is a Scott, a massive Celtic supporter.
00:44:59
Speaker
So the old Celtic Rangers rivalry, many of the Celtic, Dalgleish came from Celtic to Liverpool, came through my dad, you know, just football is just huge in the UK.
00:45:12
Speaker
Good choice to follow there.
00:45:14
Speaker
I actually meant would you support England or Australia?
00:45:17
Speaker
Oh, sorry, sorry.
00:45:18
Speaker
I thought you meant like a club or whatever.
00:45:20
Speaker
Oh, look, you know what?
00:45:23
Speaker
When it comes to football...
00:45:26
Speaker
It would be England.
00:45:29
Speaker
It would be England.
00:45:30
Speaker
There's nothing like being in a crowd of well-behaved England supporters, the good supporters, not just that whole.
00:45:38
Speaker
I was just actually over in England when the European Championships were on, and we were in a hotel in Scotland, and I ended up in the bar, and there was a Dutch guy, my husband's English, there was myself,
00:45:55
Speaker
There was a German guy and there was about seven nationalities in the middle of the Highlands of Scotland sitting around the bar, sitting around the TV in the bar.
00:46:05
Speaker
And the guy behind the bar was Polish.
00:46:07
Speaker
And it was just, it was one of those things that, you know, football, you know, they call it the world game, but it was everybody having kind of respect for the
00:46:17
Speaker
It was just a lovely, lovely atmosphere.
00:46:19
Speaker
And I think that's the beautiful thing of, you know, football.
00:46:24
Speaker
And, you know, it's, yeah, so that's why I would still sit in the pub and go England.
00:46:29
Speaker
You got it right there, you know, talking about the world game and football, bringing people together, like me playing it for so long in so many teams.
00:46:36
Speaker
Like I've got, I've developed so many relationships through it, you know.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:41
Speaker
So many friends, you know, getting out there.
00:46:44
Speaker
Very multicultural.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:46:48
Speaker
And it's such a, you know, like kids, I've seen kids playing, you know, there's some great TV ads, kids playing football that with just like, you know, rubber bands, anything scored, you know, they just kick in a field kicking a football and it's just accessible to every child as well.
00:47:06
Speaker
So, you know, it's like cricket in India, like, you know, every kid can do it.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:47:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:15
Speaker
Mate, towards the pointy end of the chat, it's been a great chat so far, but what advice would you give to your 16-year-old self?
Advice for Younger Self and Musical Inspiration
00:47:25
Speaker
Oh, Maxie, what would I give to myself?
00:47:32
Speaker
Probably, you know, if you have...
00:47:37
Speaker
Like life goes fast, I guess.
00:47:38
Speaker
I've got to, you know, my eldest now is 22.
00:47:42
Speaker
I remember when he was Sonny's age, Maxie, you know, being there for the delivery and he would have been there.
00:47:48
Speaker
It just, life goes so fast.
00:47:50
Speaker
So if you've got, you know, a goal that you want, you know, work towards it.
00:47:55
Speaker
don't let things put you off get you know get get a get a plan and get a plan make it happen yeah because before you know it you'll have kids you know you'll have kids of your own and it just happens so quickly happens quick yeah so you got to get things dreams and goals in place because if life does go too quick you want to spend um you know the other part of your life
00:48:18
Speaker
bumming out that you didn't get a chance to achieve any of those goals or dreams.
00:48:22
Speaker
And, you know, you do have time if you put your mind to it.
00:48:25
Speaker
So, yeah, it's good advice.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah, make time for what you want to do.
00:48:29
Speaker
Don't put it off.
00:48:30
Speaker
If there's something that you – if you want, go after it.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:34
Speaker
That's really great advice.
00:48:36
Speaker
Brilliant, brilliant.
00:48:38
Speaker
So, last thing, Nathan, we have a Live, Learn, Survive playlist.
00:48:42
Speaker
So, everyone that's ever been a guest on the podcast –
00:48:45
Speaker
give us the go-to song.
00:48:48
Speaker
You said you weren't a fan of the night shift, but you've got a night shift.
00:48:52
Speaker
You're putting it in the car.
00:48:54
Speaker
You're heading to work.
00:48:55
Speaker
You're thinking, what is the go-to tune that's going to get me going for this shift?
00:49:00
Speaker
This might not really give away my age.
00:49:04
Speaker
Are you guys old enough to remember In Excess?
00:49:08
Speaker
Oh, of course.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:12
Speaker
When I was back at school, I used to get pumped up before.
00:49:15
Speaker
I used to play rugby at school.
00:49:16
Speaker
I used to get pumped up with their song, Don't Change.
00:49:20
Speaker
Don't Change.
00:49:22
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:49:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:23
Speaker
Love it.
00:49:24
Speaker
I listen to everything, but that really, you know, that still does it for me.
00:49:27
Speaker
Well, mate, that's added to the playlist.
00:49:29
Speaker
So if you've got Spotify, look up Live, Learn, Survive, and it's the most recent added song.
00:49:36
Speaker
And in that playlist, you've got all different songs from all over the world of people adding their happy, go, lucky, pump up, fire up songs.
00:49:44
Speaker
So it's a really good playlist.
00:49:46
Speaker
So you've contributed to that.
00:49:48
Speaker
So thank you, Nathan.
00:49:48
Speaker
In there.
00:49:49
Speaker
So did you ever go and see InXS?
00:49:51
Speaker
Apparently, you know, back in the day in Sydney, did you ever get a chance to see them?
00:49:55
Speaker
I actually didn't, disappointingly.
00:49:58
Speaker
I've seen a lot of bands, but, yeah, I didn't get to see them.
00:50:01
Speaker
I was just at Cold Chisel actually on the weekend, which was fantastic.
00:50:06
Speaker
Ah, yeah.
00:50:07
Speaker
No, no, I've got a couple of friends that used to go and see them a lot, you know, around like eastern suburbs and like further down.
00:50:16
Speaker
What's the pub further south?
00:50:19
Speaker
So I wondered if you'd ever had a chance to see them live.
00:50:22
Speaker
All right, it's one band that I regret not seeing, yeah.
00:50:27
Speaker
It's always the wrong.
Closing and Farewells
00:50:30
Speaker
Nathan, it's been an awesome chat, mate.
00:50:33
Speaker
Hats off to what you do within your role with Ambulance.
00:50:38
Speaker
You know, you're doing some great stuff there.
00:50:41
Speaker
Look forward to catching up after the Shitbox Rally.
00:50:44
Speaker
Good luck.
00:50:44
Speaker
Make sure you come home in one piece.
00:50:47
Speaker
And I'll be catching up and getting a tattoo with you soon, at least before the end of the year, to celebrate Sonny's birth.
00:50:54
Speaker
But thanks, mate.
00:50:55
Speaker
It's a great chat.
00:50:56
Speaker
And anyone out there, like what Lee was saying, anyone out there that might be put off being on road as a paramedic or being involved in ambulance, so many different opportunities, not just with New South Wales Ambulance, but ambulance around the world.
00:51:09
Speaker
I'm sure that they do have, you know, there's a lot of aeromedical helicopters and planes out there.
00:51:14
Speaker
So if you do have an interest in
00:51:16
Speaker
aviation and rescue and medical, you can do what Nathan does.
00:51:21
Speaker
So, yeah, go for it.
00:51:23
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:51:23
Speaker
That's incredible.
00:51:24
Speaker
Thank you, Nathan.
00:51:25
Speaker
I absolutely love that chat.
00:51:27
Speaker
I learned so much about everything.
00:51:30
Speaker
And, yeah, good luck on the rally.
00:51:33
Speaker
May your shitbox stay in place and get you across all the way to Townsville.
00:51:41
Speaker
Thank you, guys.
00:51:42
Speaker
Thanks for your time.
00:51:43
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:51:44
Speaker
I really appreciate it.
00:51:45
Speaker
It's great.
00:51:45
Speaker
And, yeah, good job here on the podcast.
00:51:48
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:51:49
Speaker
No, you did good, mate.
00:51:50
Speaker
You did good.
00:51:51
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:51:51
Speaker
Smashed it.
00:51:53
Speaker
Send us some photos when you're in the middle of nowhere.
00:51:55
Speaker
We'd love to see it.
00:51:56
Speaker
Will do.
00:51:56
Speaker
For sure.
00:51:57
Speaker
Take care, guys.
00:51:59
Speaker
That was brilliant.
00:52:00
Speaker
Take care, everybody.
00:52:01
Speaker
Have a good week.
00:52:02
Speaker
Stay safe and we'll see you soon.
00:52:04
Speaker
Can I plug my shitbox social media?
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, of course.
00:52:09
Speaker
Tell us.
00:52:10
Speaker
We drive a Camry, so it's called Sons of Anna Camry.
00:52:15
Speaker
Sons of Anna Camry.
00:52:19
Speaker
A-N-A Camry.
00:52:21
Speaker
A-N-A Camry.
00:52:23
Speaker
There you go.
00:52:25
Speaker
We'll give it a shout out for sure.
00:52:27
Speaker
Exactly.
00:52:28
Speaker
Well, Camry, I mean, that could be a nice smooth drive.
00:52:33
Speaker
Unbreakable Toyota, mate.
00:52:35
Speaker
I tell you what, we love a bit of Toyota, don't we, Maxie?
00:52:39
Speaker
Our friends at Surf Toyota, there's nothing wrong with Toyota.
00:52:42
Speaker
Sons of Anna Camry, well, I'm going to be following that, absolutely.
00:52:46
Speaker
On Instagram or Facebook, you'll find us.
00:52:48
Speaker
Brilliant.
00:52:49
Speaker
I'll be there.
00:52:50
Speaker
You'll have a new follower within the next 10 minutes.
00:52:53
Speaker
All righty.
00:52:54
Speaker
All right, legend.
00:52:56
Speaker
See you all soon.
00:52:57
Speaker
Thanks, guys.
00:52:58
Speaker
Bye.
00:52:59
Speaker
Bye.
00:53:00
Speaker
See you.