KEY POINTS:
After 50 years of fighting fires and hauling people out of car wrecks, you might think Rex Cotter was ready to call it a day.
But you would be wrong.
Honoured at the weekend with a double gold star for 50 years' service, the 68-year-old Papamoa volunteer firefighter dismisses any suggestion that it's time to hang up his fire boots - not while he can still pass medical and fitness tests.
Mr Cotter has joined an exclusive band of 52 other firefighters to have served for 50 years - an achievement he modestly attributes to a love of community service.
Mr Cotter was only 18 when he joined the brigade in Tirau. His father, a butcher, had been instrumental in setting up Tirau's volunteer brigade only 10 years earlier in 1947.
Mr Cotter's service was celebrated by 180 guests and firefighters at a Papamoa function.
A feature of the festivities was the presence of the man who pinned the first gold star on Mr Cotter's chest 25 years ago, Bert Mueller from Rotorua.
Now aged 92, Mr Mueller unbuttoned the old gold star while the national vice-president of the United Fire Brigades' Association Richard Davidson did the honours with the double gold star.
Mr Cotter says it made the occasion unique. What made it even better was that he clocked up 50 years during his term as president of the Auckland Provincial Gold Star Association.
He has lived in Papamoa for 20 years and still works at the Affco meatworks.
Keeping in good physical shape has seen him compete in World Firefighter Games in Las Vegas, Perth and Edmonton, picking up a gold medal for swimming and silvers and bronzes for track and field.
On one of his trips abroad for the games, he even dropped in at the New York fire hall and spoke to some of the firefighters whom he assumed could have later perished in the 9/11 bombings.
The Twin Towers bombings became an event ingrained deeply in the psyche of all firefighters and something he commemorates with a special display at home.
Mr Cotter said being a firefighter definitely had its ups and downs. Most importantly, it was a disciplined organisation where even volunteers needed to possess the same skills as the professionals.
The most traumatic occasions were when he confronted serious injury and death - and sometimes it could be pretty gruesome, such as when people are badly burned.
The worst motor accidents involved children, such as the child who asked him why her mummy and daddy were not talking, when they were both dead. "You have to take little ones away from the scene of accidents as quickly as you can."
And seeing people with serious burns was not a pretty sight. "It is hard to console them when they are in agony." Mr Cotter said often all they could do was cool the burns until St John Ambulance arrived.
Traumatic callouts like that meant it took him a bit of time to get to sleep at night, with "a couple of rums to get off to bed".
The good side were the saves, particularly when someone knocked on his door holding a half dozen beers to say thanks for saving their life. "It sends a glow through the body - it makes it so worthwhile."
- Bay of Plenty Times
