Swinging from helicopter just another day in the job for Callum Good

If heights aren’t your thing, chances are you won’t be envious of Callum Good’s job. The Malabar resident spends some work days hanging from the Westpac rescue helicopter winch, which can lower him up to 75m. Find out what pushes the youngest member of the crew to do the job.

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If heights aren’t your thing, chances are you won’t be envious of Callum Good’s job.

The Malabar resident spends some work days hanging from the Westpac rescue helicopter winch — which can lower him up to 75m.

The rescue swimmer is trained to drop into freezing-cold waters or into remote areas to help save people’s lives.

Callum Good, 23, at the Westpac Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter Service base at La Perouse. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

“It is a small machine so she moves around in the air. Every foot the aircraft moves induces a four-foot swing (on the winch).

“So I can get a bit jittery sometimes but you are going down and evaluating everything.”

He said that helps him fight back any nerves as he concentrates on the job at hand.

The 23-year-old is the youngest member of the Westpac Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter Service team based at La Perouse but has already completed 134 “live winches” since joining the team last January.

“When I was young I was fascinated by the police, fire and ambulance. Anything with a blue flashing light I was obsessed with, from a really young age.”

Callum Good, 23. Picture: Flavio Brancaleone

He also loved aviation and grew up volunteering with a range of emergency organisations and doing surf lifesaving, which put him in good stead for his current job.

While he has been involved in plenty of emergency call outs helping save human lives during his time with the rescue helicopter, he said his most outstanding job was one involving a dog near Bondi last February.

“It was actually my first day on the BK 117 (the iconic red-and-yellow rescue helicopter).

“We got a call that a dog had fallen off a cliff at Bondi and there were multiple triple-zero calls and people crying on the phone and they wanted us to go and have a look.”

The Westpac rescue helicopter in action near Bondi.

He said they decided to head out and help and spotted the canine on rocks at the bottom of a cliff.

Mr Good was lowered down and managed to save the large dog — despite being hit by waves onto rocks — while a huge crowd watched on from the top of the cliff.

“I was buggered by the end of it … and just as I settled I heard clapping and I turned around and there was like a thousand people just on the cliff line.”

He said the dog suffered a punctured lung but the owner was very grateful.

Inside the base at La Perouse.

Of course, not all jobs end well and Mr Good said you had to be prepared for that.

“There have been some awful tragedies we have been to, we have seen members of families lost in front of each others eyes from boat rollovers and rock fishing accidents because the right safety measures weren’t taken.”

He said, sadly, call outs to suicides were also fairly common. “But to see the best (rescues) you have to see the worst.”

Mr Good said there was about a dozen staff at the rescue helicopter base at La Perouse including casuals.

The rescue helicopter only operates during daylight hours each day because of funding restrictions and three crew members go out on the helicopter to each job.

Mr Good will take part in a big fun run on Sunday, August 11, the City2Surf, which raises money for the Westpac Lifesaver Rescue Helicopter Service.

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