Committee

Alex Hanson

Alex joined Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade in 1989. He moved to Highland and Islands Fire Brigade, serving in operations, training and managerial roles. In November 2005, Alex joined Devon Fire and Rescue Service, and after combination with Somerset, now serves as a Principle Officer.

Alex is the chair of the Chief Fire Officer’s Association Inland Water Technical Response Group, and is a Defra Flood Rescue Strategic Advisor for flooding. He was involved in the South West flood events of 2012 and 2013 at tactical and strategic levels and was heavily involved with the Somerset Levels flooding in 2014 and has many years of experience delivering on the Module 5 Management of Water and Flood Incidents course. 

Andy Whitehead 

His 26 years in the Fire and Rescue Service was spent with Co Durham and Darlington FRS. During this time he also served for 7 years with the Teesdale and Weardale Mountain Rescue Team as part of their search, rope teams and medic.

The qualification earned through the Fire and Rescue include:

• PHTLS – Royal College of Surgeons of England
• NEBOSH Health and Safety.
• Silver Command and Control – Emergency Planning College.
• Middle Managers Development courses including Command and Control – Fire Service College.
• Service Instructor BA, Fire Behaviour and RTC.

His service began riding the appliances  and progressing through the ranks as a fire fighter and leading fire fighter (crew manager) for his first 8 years before spending  over 4 years as an instructor based centrally at fire service training school leading training courses in RTC, BA and 4 recruit courses. For two further years he returned to operational duties as an operational sub officer (watch manager A) and rider station officer(watch manager B)  on some of the busiest stations in the county.

His next move was into station management and finally to district management with a period of 3 years in between where he served back at headquarters as operations manager. During this period of his career he was a ‘flexi duty officer’ giving  middle managers, operational cover across the service. Specialist areas included Haz Mat (hazardous materials) and DIM (detection, identification and monitors of hazardous materials) and was lead officer for water and wildfire, sitting on the Chief Fire Officers working groups in both.

He was team leader of the service’s extrication team for 7 years until he became an assessor for UKRO and WRO assessing on command as well as technical skills. Within the service he became lead officer for managing their extrication team as well as organising the regional competition for the UKRO.

Marietjie Slabbert - MJ

Dr. MJ Slabbert graduated from medical school in South Africa in 2001. She worked in Cape Town for three years, gaining experience Emergency Medicine, Pediatric Trauma and also got her first taste of Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) working briefly with Red Cross Air Mercy Services. After moving to the United Kingdom in 2004, MJ initially worked as Emergency Medicine resident for 18-months. She started her Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine joint specialist training in the UK in 2005. 

During her specialty training in Anesthetics and ICU, she also completed 18-months full-time Helicopter Emergency Medicine (HEMS) and Retrieval Medicine training with Careflight and the the Royal Flying Doctors Service in Australia, London’s Air Ambulance and Essex and Hertfordshire Air Ambulances in the UK. Since 2008, she has been flying with Thames Valley Air Ambulance in Oxford, England, in her role as a Pre Hospital Emergency Physician. In addition to this aeromedical role, she has also been responding for the Ambulance Service as a volunteer critical care doctor for BASICS. 

She completed a year and a half fellowship in Toronto Canada in Trauma and Critical Care Anaesthetics and Trauma Team Leading in 2014 to 2015. In Canada she has been doing some work with ORGNE, the Ontario Critical care Air and Ground Transfer service and has close ties with the British Columbia Critical Care Flight paramedic and transfer physician program. She is currently the ICU Medical Director and Medical Director of Organ Donation at the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia in Canada in her post as Intensive Care Medicine specialist and Anaesthetist.

MJ is actively involved in Social Media, spreading the idea of Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAMed). Her twitter name is gas-and-air doc and her twitter handle is @mjslabbert. If she had any spare time she would probably spend it running, singing or trying to snowboard.

Martin Gorman

Having previously been in the Royal Air Force Martin’s full-time role is as owner & director of Peak Net Web services. Martin qualified as a Paramedic in 2007 and having worked as a Community Paramedic with East Midlands Ambulance Service, he is now employed part-time providing Paramedic care in the North of Derbyshire. Martin volunteers with Mountain Rescue and is Deputy Team Leader of Edale MRT. 

Neil Hayter

Neil leads on social media and fundraising for EMPHC. An EMAS Community First Responder, Neil ensures our organisation has full representation for the range of immediate care providers that operate in the East Midlands region. Until recently Neil was a member of Edale Mountain Rescue, holding senior operational management roles, and being vice chair of his team for several years during his 15 years service. As well as locally, Neil was also a national officer for MREW working to fundraise for the national body. At the same time Neil also operated as a Module 3 water rescuer and search manager and held the national mountain rescue casualty care certificate for 15 years. Neil's full-time job is as a Company Director of "Bespoke Blinds and Poles" located in Beauchief - South Sheffield; he volunteers on the national committee to improve home safety, and standards within the industry.