King's Birthday Honour recipient Fraser Lake (centre) received a cheque (and a hug) for $3700 towards a new ambulance garage in 2019.
King's Birthday Honour recipient Fraser Lake (centre) received a cheque (and a hug) for $3700 towards a new ambulance garage in 2019.
A former Hato Hone St John first responder and driving force behind a new Taupō district ambulance station has been awarded a King’s Service Medal (KSM) in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours.
Fraser Lake received the honour for his services to the Tūrangi community whichspanned almost two decades in several roles including St John’s first responder and area committee member, and deputy chief of the Omori volunteer fire brigade between 2007, and 2014.
Although the KSM honour is positive, Lake told the Waikato Herald he accepted the award with great reluctance.
“I’m embarrassed by it all, it’s not my sort of thing, I don’t like publicity,” Lake said.
Fraser Lake (right) when he was a first responder, with his good friend Will Shirer. Shirer died recently but Lake said this day on the job, they responded to a patient who was later airlifted to hospital.
He first heard of the KSM through email, and with no idea who put forward the nomination, he said “just wait ‘til I find out”.
Although Lake wasn’t excited about the honour, he said his career had always been positive.
He’d undergone many ventures in his career, including the special event that inspired him to be with St John.
Lake said not long after he permanently moved to Tūrangi in 2005, someone in a boat suffered a cardiac event at one of the boat ramps he was at.
“Ambulance turned up and it was single crews in those days. The patient was really sick so the ambulance officer asked if someone could drive while they went to the hospital, and I thought I could.”
Lake drove to the hospital and later sped himself to a career with St John as a first responder in 2006, providing assistance to the Omori, Kuratau, Whareroa, Pukawa, Tūrangi and the Western Bays areas.
In 2011 Lake became a St John area committee member and then chairperson in 2013. In 2023, he was the main man behind acquiring the land to build a new ambulance station in Tūrangi, as the existing building was identified as not meeting earthquake standards. He procured funding and undertook much of the project management build himself.
Lake was also a driving force behind the establishment of the Omori/Western Lake Taupō First Response Charitable Trust in 2011, to raise money for a Four-Wheel Drive First Response vehicle, that could reach farms and bays, and a Lifepac 15, an advanced device for assessing patients’ conditions.
The vehicle was purchased with $35,000 raised. Further fundraising of $28,000 was gathered for the Lifepac 15.
Lake is no longer a first responder, but said he still does “a fair bit in the community here and there”.
He retired, and was when he joined St John, but now spends his days predator trapping with a local organisation.
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.
