The ambulance officers have 74 years' experience between them - Colin is amn intensive care paramedic with 43 years and Wayne an advanced life support paramedic with 31 years experience - and have seen just about everything the job has to throw at them.

Although both men will retire from their full-time roles at Huskisson Ambulance Station over the next few weeks, they'll remain on the roster as casuals.

At an event to mark their retirements on Thursday, June 25, station officer Brett Crowe said the station was lucky to have them.

"They have decades of clinical experience - if they haven't done it themselves, they've seen it," he said.

"They've adapted to immense change over their careers and Colin has attained the highest clinical level of training."

Colin said the biggest change over the course of his career has been the types of job they are called to.

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In the early days, road trauma was most common. Accidents so severe they are only seen a few times a year now occured three or four times a week, and emergency wards and ICUs were filled with trauma patients.

"You would be out to a huge prang at least once a night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night," he said.

As road quality and car safety improved, stroke and heart attack victims became the new norm. The consequence of stroke and heart attack were far more dire then, and patients were often left unable to talk or move.

Wayne said one patient he will never forget was a little old lady who had suffered a stroke and could only blink.

"You'd ask questions and say blink once for yes, two for no," he said.

"I just held her hand and told her she was being looked after and not to be scared.

"It's all you could do - what would you be like in there, going to hospital in the ambulance unable to move?"

Now strokes and heart attacks are less common, often less serious, and there are better treatments available the job has changed again.

The most frequent call now is for help when an older person has fallen and is unable to get back up, although car accidents and medical emergencies still happen and can have a lasting impact on the frontline workers who response to them.

Colin said he is the last of his cohort to remain in the job.

"A lot of the people who come into the job find that it doesn't suit their mindset," he said.

Both men stressed the importance of maintaining a professional distance while providing compassion and quality care.

"If something is happening to a person or a family, that's theirs to deal with," Wayne said.

"I can be there and I can help them, but it's not my karma to take on.

"Talking a lot of garbage and laughing in the car also helps - because we don't know when we're going to the next big thing."

And of course the job doesn't come without its warm and fuzzy moments.

Colin's best memory was walking into a hospital where a good friend was working as a trauma nurse.

"I walked in and she gave me this huge big cuddle," he said.

"It turned out I had done a cardiac arrest two days earlier which was her father, and he was sitting in the ICU unit able to talk to her.

"It put it all in a very personal perspective."

Both men said while they were sad to leave their "ambulance family", after decades of shift work and on-call duties it was time for some rest and relaxation.