SPONSORED BY ROYAL LEPAGE ADVANCE REALTY
Photo from left to right: Dennis Kolk, Paul Nestman, Phil Hawkins and Huw Davies
As one of two crews that man the Cape Palmerston – the Coast Guard vessel that serves the Campbell River and coastal islands/mainland inlets of our region – Paul Nestman, Huw Davies, Phil Hawkins and Dennis Kolk have your back if you’re out on the water.
Or even on land, for that matter.
“I think one of the things people maybe don’t realize is how much of our work actually happens on shore,” Davies says, recounting a recent experience where the crew was dispatched to MedEvac someone having a stroke, only to find out there was a grizzly bear hanging out on the trail that led to the cabin they needed to get to, making the issue slightly more complicated.
But yes, if there’s a problem out on the water, be it a medical emergency, an environmental situation like a fuel spill, a navigational beacon in need of maintenance or replacement, these are the people who go out to remedy it.
Working two weeks on, two weeks off, each crew is based at the Coast Guard offices at the Coast Discovery Marina (soon to relocate to the newly revitalized docks at the government wharf), they are on-call 24 hours a day for any situation they’re equipped for.
Which is most of them.
In being named the winner of this award, they say they are sharing it not only with the other Coast Guard team, but also the rest of the emergency services agencies around the community, as well.
“We kind of like to fly under the radar,” Huw says. “If it was me, I would have nominated the ambulance crews. The grind that those ambulance crews do every day and the circumstances they are in and the drama they see – those guys are heads and shoulders above every other resource in the community.”
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