Firestyle Magazine Issue 3 - Spring 2016 | Page 14

SPORT

Profile of
Nick
Davison
a firefighter stationed at Rivelin
I live in Sheffield with my wife Samantha and two children, Neamh
and Freya. I am currently posted in Rivelin as a Fire Fighter.

I joined the Fire Service from a 13
year term, sitting as a Corporal
Detachment Commander in the
parachute regiment B company
for 3 years, and a support
company machine gun platoon
for the remaining time. I have
seen many conflicts and trained
all around the world, some of
which being conflicts in Iraq and
Northern Ireland, during the mid
nineties when things shall we say
weren’t at their best.

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The last three years of my army
career were spent in the Red
Devils free fall display team, this
involved travelling the world
doing parachute displays into
football stadiums and beach
fronts, not to mention the display
into the Tower of London. So
as you can imagine the jump
numbers clocked up and the
precision to partake in these
sort of displays is of quite a high
standard.

During 2003 I decided to join the
fire service and went off to Darnell
Fire station for training to become
a member of the South Yorkshire
technical rescue unit. There I went on
to train as a water rescue instructor,
road traffic collision instructor and
a rope supervisor. There were also
many other roles that go with the job,
including making the tea!
I was posted to RED watch and then
migrated onto WHITE watch in the
technical rescue unit. Whilst there I
moved into the position of temporary
crew manager, this allowed me to
get out to a lot of incidents requiring a
varied skill base, allowing me to pick
up a lot of new skills and gain a lot of
valuable experience in the Fire Fighting
role. I continued in this role at Dearne
and then was posted to Rivelin in the
position of temporary crew manager.
I continued in this role for 2 years, until
last year when I have recently taken a
seat back on the Fire engine as a Fire
Fighter on White Watch at Rivelin.

In my spare time you could
find me in many different
sporting arenas from open
water swimming, speed-flying,
paragliding and parachuting.
Having something near 6000+
parachute jumps I have qualified
as an Accelerated Free fall
Instructor and generally find
myself helping out at many drop
zones around the UK and Europe.
This involves taking students on
their very first solo skydive. I also
have my tandem instructors
rating, this will find me taking
budding students strapped to the
harness for their first experience
jumping out of an aircraft. In this
environment you get to skydive
with some of the best in the world,
as the skydiving community
worldwide is a small community
in contrast to something like
football. Picking up skills from
this has allowed me to pass this
experience on and even act as a
coach in some cases.