Pride of Australia: Honours for our heroes

SOME of Tasmania’s most outstanding people have been recognised in the Pride of Australia awards.

Pride of Australia

THREE months ago Jadd Walsh and Dave Barr were two strangers who lived on the same street, but an act of bravery has not only made them heroes, but friends.

Yesterday, the heroic pair received Outstanding Bravery Medals at the Mercury’s Pride of Australia awards in Hobart for the rescue on an elderly neighbour after he crashed into the Tamar River in July.

Their quick thinking helped save the life of the 92-year-old after a stuck throttle saw his car reverse from his driveway into the river behind his house.

“Dave was outside putting his garbage in his can and I was just sitting in my loungeroom and I saw Dave run across the grass to the riverbank so that’s what brought me out,” Mr Walsh said. “Then we both hooked up in the water and headed down to his car.”

Mr Barr said that the park opposite the house was usually filled with people enjoying lunch or other activities and it was lucky that nobody else was there at the time.

“I first thought somebody was stealing the car, that’s when I first started to run down and when I saw his car launch 30 metres into the river I thought he may have had a heart attack,” Mr Barr said.

Once in the water the pair opened the driver’s door and released their elderly neighbour’s seatbelt before carrying him to shore with nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises.

Mr Walsh said the whole ordeal was over in a matter of minutes.

“To me anyone who was there in the vicinity would’ve done exactly what we did,” he said.

People's choice winner Kay Fox.

Awards were handed out over 11 different categories at this year’s ceremony with the Tasmanian People’s Choice Award won by 72-year-old volunteer Kaye Fox.

Mrs Fox has worked for over 30 years as a volunteer with Ambulance Tasmania on the Tasman Peninsula.

She worked during the 2013 Dunalley Bushfires and also as part of the first response team to the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996.

She does 72 hours a week for the ambulance service alone.

‘‘I’m very proud,” she said.

“I like doing it and I like helping people out. I’ll keep doing it ’til I drop.”

She also spends her time with other organisations such as Learn to Swim, the Lions Club and the Nubeena RSL, which sees her work six-and-a-half days a week.

Mrs Fox was surrounded by a large vocal group of family and friends who were quick to sing her praises.

“There is nobody like her in Tasmania and probably Australia as well,” Nubeena Ambulance Tasmania branch station officer Matt Probin said.

Care and Compassion medal winner Karen Belbin.

Karen Belbin won the Care and Compassion Medal for her outstanding work in fostering young people over the past seven years.

Mrs Belbin was shocked by her win but proud that her achievements had been recognised.

‘‘Things like this make you realise that yes you are doing something for other people and I think it grounds you again to make you think that’s why you are doing this,” she said.

Mrs Belbin hosts seven different children aged between two and 14 and personally finances the private schooling of five of them to ensure they receive the highest quality education.

“Academically I didn’t ever want them to say their life was ruined because they were in foster care, I wanted them to say they were given a chance,” she said.

“So for them their world is at their feet.”

Her sister Christine Machin won a Pride of Australia award in 2008 for her fostering work. Mrs Belbin said it was her sister that inspired her choice to become a foster parent.

Other awards were given out in the categories of Inspiration, Young Leader, Environment, Child of Courage, Courage, Community Spirit, Heroism and Fair Go. SEE THE GALLERY FOR THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS