‘I’ve seen the start of life, and I’ve got to see the end of it quite a few times’

The northern beaches is full of amazing characters and interesting stories. This week we talk to Beaches Services Coordinator Steve Downman

Steve Downman combines lifeguarding duties with managing staff from Freshwater to North Narrabeen beaches

In my twenties, I was a paramedic based at Narrabeen. It was a confronting job, but it taught me a lot about interacting with people.

The key thing about being an ambulance officer is to build up a rapport with someone, so you can start treating them quickly.

You have to be strong mentally, no doubt about it. You see some horrible things and if you don’t distance yourself mentally, you’ll go crazy.

Steve Dowman combines his love of water with his prior role as a paramedic

My son Kian is 10 now, but when I was an ambo in my mid 20s, I didn’t have any family, and so incidents with kids weren’t a problem for me. Going to a SIDS or cot death incident wouldn’t be as traumatic to me as for some colleagues because I couldn’t relate back then.

Some things have stayed with me. I went to an accident on the M1 motorway, where a kid of 18 or19, who’d just got his car, was flying up the road and wrapped the car around a big traffic sign.

Two kids got out but a third was trapped, and they had to amputate his leg.

My job was to sit there and rank to him while they morphined him up and literally got a saw and chopped his leg off. I talked about football.

A few months later he was on A Current Affair, and he said he’d never forget the ambo who sat with him.

Plenty of times you bring someone back to life and they ring up and thank you afterwards.

It teaches you a bit about life and making the most of it. Live every day because you don’t know what’s around the corner.

Steve with Scott Mortimer getting ready for thong throwing on Australia Day at Dee Why

I’ve delivered babies too. I went to a call in Dee Why in my early 20s. I was with another young guy and when we got there was a pregnant lady who didn’t speak English.

She kept pointing downwards. She had tights on and when she took them off this kid, her fourth, just fell out in to my arms. I was like, “Holy s**t, Dave — get the maternity kit!”

I’m 47 now, but I was a kid then. I knew how to cut the cord and get the mum to safety but I didn’t have a clue how to wrap the baby up.

When we turned up at Mona Vale Hospital. The nurses were like, “What have you done, you idiots?”

So I’ve got to see the start of life and I’ve got to see the end of it quite a few times.

I love travelling and I love the water. In my early lifeguarding years I did a couple of summers working in America, in New Jersey.

Steve pictured on patrol at Freshwater

When I met my partner Debby in 1998, she was really into the snow. A couple of years later we went to Colorado to see some friends and I snowboarded there for the first time.

We ended up living there for four years and I haven’t missed a winter there since.

We go to a place called Breckenridge every March at the end of the summer season, and we stay for a month.

Kian loves it, and he has been there every year with us since he was three.

As well as doing operational lifeguarding, I’m also part of the management team and organise staff along coast from Freshwater to Narrabeen, which is nine beaches.

The major part of my job is managing public risk, so I have to make sure I have the right amount of staff on all the beaches.

My day usually starts the day before because I have to check the weather and assess how many people will come to the beach.

Steve was born in Manly Hospital and has lived on the northern beaches for most of his life

I’ll move around between the beaches depending on the day. Often I’ll end up at Freshwater or Dee Why, which are the busiest beaches, helping out the lifeguards as an extra person.

I’ve never had to deal with anything too horrific — I’ve never seen a shark attack or anything like that.

I’ve experienced lots of lost kids, and as a dad it’s hard to see the anguish in a parent’s eyes when they’ve lost their child. Ninety nine per cent of the time, they turn up in the play area, but you do think “What if that was my kid?”

I’ve had a couple of kids who’ve been immersed in the water and who’ve needed oxygen, but none who have drowned, thankfully.

I’ve pulled out a lot of adults. Recently we pulled out a guy from the bottom of the pool at Dee Why. He’d had a fit. We revived him and he came back to thank us.

Most of the time it’s not near-death stuff — it’s mainly surfboards in people’s heads or blue bottles.

I also own a gym called Evolve Fitness Studio in Brookvale which Debby manages, but my real affiliation is with the ocean.

If I’m having a bad day, I just jump in the ocean, wash it all off and start again.