Hero of devastating Canadian inferno gears up for new challenge in Scottish brigade’s hot seat

about 11 and nine at the time. The young princes toured the helicopter so perhaps I had some part to play in their interest in helicopters.

“I still fondly remember showing them around our aircraft. That was a real highlight of my military career.”

Dad-of-one Bushell has remained a high-flyer and started his role as deputy chief officer for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in June.

He served 11 years with the Canadian Air Force before joining the country’s f ire service as a firefighter and paramedic in 2001.

Bushell took part in a tense UN blockade of Haiti in 1993 after a bloody military coup had unseated the Caribbean country’s f irst democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The ex-military man said: “I went to Haiti for six months to help the United Nations stop the importation of arms and oil. Haiti is one of the poorest and most dangerous places on the planet. There were lots of interesting missions to go on, including chasing drug smugglers or submarines.

“It’s the only time I’ve ever been armed while I was doing my job, with a sidearm strapped to me and a machine gun at the ready.”

Bushell once survived a mid- air emergency that saw him forced to ditch his stricken searchand-rescue chopper in a supermarket car park.

He said: “The Sea Kings that the Canadians were f lying were old and felt like they’d fall apart.

“The engine failed so it was a case of just getting landed. People were amazed to see a helicopter landing in a Costco parking lot.”

BBushell was born in Bristol and ememigrated to Canada when he was 1313. He has returned to the UK to live in Glasgow with paramedic wife

LLindsayy and their six-yyear-old son Crosby. The new deputy chief said: “We got married in Scotland in 2004 at the Castle of Park in Banff, near Aberdeen. My grandfather was from Whiteinch, Glasgow, and his younger brother still lives there. “It was a long way to come for a job interview but I thought I’d nothing to lose and ever y thing to gain going for a job with the world’s fourth- largest fire service.”

Now Bushell has his sights set on helping to modernise Scotland’s fire service alongside chief Alasdair Hay.

A pay row has erupted with the Fire Brigades Union over firefighters being expected to take on additional roles, including helping with ambulance callouts, terrorist incidents, putting dementia sufferers in touch with social services and carrying out minor repairs on homes of the elderly. flooding – will continue to rise. We’re absolutely not intending to be paramedics but the NHS and ambulance service are burdened with an increasing volume of calls.

“With our 356 stations, we can be at houses in Scotland within minutes. If there’s a cardiac arrest, minutes count so there’s a great opportunity for us to help save lives if we can get trained staff to the scene.

“A recent six-month trial at about 18 stations saw us respond automatically to all cardiac arrests. I believe there are 15 people alive today because, in part, we were with them for the first few minutes.

“Thousands of people will have a cardiac arrest in Scotland this year so, if we can have a positive impact on 10 per cent, that’s hundreds of people who’ll be alive because of us.

“We also have a great opportunity in calls that come from slips, trips or falls that don’t register on the ambulance service as being critical.

“We can train our firefighters to see the signs in people’s houses of other issues they might be having, whether it’s mental health, poor smoking habits or dementia.

“Firefighters haven’t seen a real rise in their pay in the last seven or eight years so it is perfectly natural for people who are being asked to do more to feel like they should be remunerated appropriately for doing more.

“Many things we’ve discussed, firefighters are doing already. We’d like to make them positive parts of their job description and make sure they’re trained properly to do it.

“We all want Scotland to be a safer place so we have the same goals.”

It was a long way to come for an interview but it was such a great opportunity