Proud to have been a retained firefighter and to have helped his local community, Jim Walker began his firefighting career as a young 19-year-old student who, living a stone’s throw from his local fire station, was on call 120 hours a week.
His early years in the service passed by relatively incident free, but as a finder whose role it was to enter buildings, search and recover, he found it increasingly hard to come to terms with the deaths of individuals caught up in tragic house fires.
One incident in particular, involving a young boy, has had a profound impact on Jim’s life over the past 14 years.
Here, in this courageous video, Jim shares his story and the effect that incident has had: