Firestyle Magazine spring 2016 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 also enjoy B. A. S. E. Jumping, this sport has taken me to many places, antenna’s, wind turbines, high rise office blocks and even to the top of the Eiger. In late 2014 I did a wing suit jump off the Eiger this involved a helicopter trip up to the summit and then rappelling across onto the out crop commonly known as the “Mushroom.” In some people’s eyes this is marked as the top of the tree so to speak for B. A. S. E. jumps. My long-time friend who was with me on the occasion, marked it as his retiring jump stating “What can top that!” I would love to hear of anyone which would be interested in learning to skydive please do contact me on 07989 985 650. 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. 14 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. 15