Photo/Bevan Conley
He has been called the international rock star of urban search and rescue - now Bernie Rush can be called a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
The Whanganui man, who has been with the New Zealand Fire Service for more than 40 years and was instrumental in shaping Urban Search and Rescue, has been recognised in the Queen's New Year Honours.
"I've been pretty privileged in that when I've identified a need I've had people above me who have supported what I was trying to achieve," he told the Chronicle this week.
Mr Rush left school to enter the world of sales - a job he found "so boring" that he left to follow family members and joined the Fire Service. "It was the best decision I ever made."
His first post was on the North Shore in 1971 - now he is area commander for Whanganui with three major career achievements that he is especially proud of.
In 1992, he rewrote the Fire Service's emergency response driving course.
"In those days the focus was on driving fast and how to take corners, and we were having a lot of crashes."
He led a change in focus to hazard identification and vehicle control: "The principles we put into that course are still there today."
Then, in 1995, Mr Rush started the road crash rescue challenge, where firefighters compete to remove dummy bodies from car wrecks. "Other agencies were complaining about how long it was taking our guys to get people out of wrecks," he said.
He attended the world champs, qualified to be an assessor and became a founding member and treasurer of the World Rescue Organisation, culminating in scoring the world championships for New Zealand in 2005. Having firefighters regularly compete and receive training had improved how crashes were dealt with in real life, he said. "It's made a huge difference to road crash rescue in this country."
At the turn of the century Mr Rush became involved in setting up Urban Search and Rescue (USAR), a role that was not being performed by any agency in New Zealand.
He'd done some groundwork earlier, bringing over three Americans to train a few Kiwis.
It started with a group of 32 and "it was hugely successful and I was committed from that point on". Over the next decade New Zealand USAR became one of the best and most respected in the world.
"You don't realise the impact you're having. You just think you're doing your job," he said.
This year the USAR received international classification: "That standard of work from our guys was so high they wanted to introduce a new classification, they wanted to call us a gold team."
All of Mr Rush's work and vision in setting up USAR was vindicated when two major earthquakes struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011.
Mr Rush was deployed on both occasions to co-ordinate the USAR response he had spent years setting up.
In the February 2011 earthquake he co-ordinated the 230 New Zealand USAR personnel and the almost 500-strong international crew.
"The guys just did an awesome job. I was really proud to be part of something like that," he said. "International teams were going on about how wonderful we were. That's down to the quality of people and the quality of instructors we've got."
Mr Rush has led New Zealand from having no capability in terms of urban search and rescue to having one of the best in the world. "It's rewarding to sit back and know we've got a really competent team with really competent people running it."
He has also had a big impact on firefighting in Whanganui. Mr Rush first came to Whanganui as Chief Fire Officer in 1998. "I had 11 people burned in my first two months and I think we had 30 house fires in three months."
So he decided to tackle these bad statistics with community fire education.
"Over a two-year period we successfully dropped the number of structure fires by 50 per cent," he said. "I love this place and I don't want to see it burn down."
This New Year Mr Rush can reflect on an eventful and rewarding career in the Fire Service. "When I sit back and reflect, I'm really proud and really grateful that I've had that opportunity. I'm really grateful to the people who have supported us. Particularly my long-suffering wife, because for the last 20 years I've hardly been home."