Taree paramedic Trudy Prince recalls the day she drove through fire to reach a man having a heart attack during the Black Summer bushfires as "horrific".
"It was a windy afternoon, and you could hardly see in front of you with the smoke, and there were just fireballs in the trees," she said of the ferocious Manning Valley fire.
"We had to go in and get him out of there. We had a police escort in front and went in and just pretty well threw him in the car and worked on him."
Ms Prince said she thought about the risk "momentarily", but dynamic risk assessments were part of the job.
"I think this job attracts the type of person that always wants to do the best by their patients and their community — so we just went in and got him," she said.
The man survived, and Ms Prince received a citation for courage from the state's Ambulance Commissioner.
The single mum of three has also been recognised as the state's best ambulance officer and the overall winner of the paid emergency services officer category in Rotary's NSW annual awards.
"I was overwhelmed and shocked, to be honest," she said.
"There was a lady actually standing up there with me from the Volunteer Rescue Association, and she said 'that's you', because I was a little bit shell shocked."
As well as working full-time as a paramedic and doing community first response through Fire and Rescue Wingham, Ms Prince has also been a peer support worker for 14 years.
She said the bushfires almost three years ago were a difficult time.
"Just to have resources, some of our people, our team live in those areas, so they couldn't even get into town, so the staff that were able to were working extra hours, long hours, just extra shifts, we were all quite exhausted," she said.
Her three adult children, best friend, sister and brother-in-law were able to be at the Bankstown Sports Club on the night she received the awards.
"They were very loud when I won," she said.
She had done a lot of it as a single mum.
"You know, when you're a mum, you just do the mum thing, and the kids don't really get a chance to see what you do or really understand what you do in your career or work capacity, so I found that to be amazing for them that they could actually feel something so special for me as well," she said.
"It's not been an easy road and even the other night I said to the kids you guys are my heroes ... cause they're just amazing children, great resilience and they also got me through shift work and helped me a lot so that I was able to provide for them."
Ms Prince said her father, who was also a paramedic in Taree and a station officer for many years, was a big inspiration to her.
"He was just such a beautiful, compassionate man and gave a lot to the ambulance service — I was always very proud of him and put him on a pedestal," she said.
"It's an honourable career. It's exciting and diverse. You work with a fabulous team of people. It's quite unique.
"I know he was with me on Saturday night — so that was good."
