There is an emotioal rescue Jason Watson still struggles to discuss

But there is one that still chokes him up, that he struggles to discuss.

It involved a young Nowra man named Daniel, who was involved in a serious car crash just north of Berry.

He was unconscious and trapped in his damaged car when Mr Watson and fellow paramedic Geoff Egan arrived on the scene.

"Geoff and I did what we do" before Daniel was airlifted to Sydney, Mr Watson said.

And he admitted, "We didn't think he was going to survive, but he did."

In the years since then Daniel had often credited the two paramedics for saving his life.

Mr Watson said he occasionally bumped into Daniel, and "the last time met, he introduced me to his wife and kids, and that was just brilliant".

"That's the stand out job for me where we made a difference," Mr Watson said.

"I didn't think this young guy was going to live, and he went on to have a wife and kids, which is fantastic, I couldn't ask for anything better.

"He is my shining example."

Ahead of his retirement in coming weeks, Mr Watson said there were many other rescues and incidents that sprung to mind when he looked back on a career that included being the longest-serving specialist rescue paramedic in the state's history.

Along with being a qualified rescue paramedic for the past 41 years, Mr Watson is also qualified as an intensive care paramedic, special casualty access team, urban search and rescue and swift water technician.

As a swift water technician "we roll up and we're the guys expected to swim out there and help people stuck out in floodwaters," Mr Watson said.

However swift water and white water "scares me, it's dangerous", he said.

That hit home when Mr Watson and a colleague were called on to rescue two people sitting on the roof of their car about 200 metres from dry land, as flood waters swirled around them.

It was then he thought, "Bloody hell Jason, you wished this upon yourself."

At the time Mr Watson was doing his rescue recertification, and as part of that he fitted a go-pro to his helmet "which got some great footage".

That footage resulted in Mr Watson and his colleague appearing on national television - just one of the incidents that resulted in Mr Watson being nicknamed "Hollywood".

But he said the main reason behind the nickname was his willingness to speak to the media at major events.

He said media reporting on events always asked emergency service personnel if they wanted to make a statement, and while police or fire fighters often fronted the cameras the paramedics always refused - leading to some of of his colleagues saying it seemed like ambulance personnel were not even involved when the incidents were reported.

Mr Watson said he decided to start speaking to the media to acknowledge the vital work done by his colleagues.

And there were many times he and his colleagues confronted heart-breaking scenes involving the tragic loss of young life.

Mr Watson was in the radio room during the infamous Gerroa five deaths in the 1990s, and he attended the Kangaroo Valley six - when six young people died after the five-seater car they were in crashed into a tree.

While Mr Watson had delivered many babies he had also attended murders, suicides, domestic violence incidents and drug overdoses, especially during his early years as a young trainee paramedic working the back streets of Kings Cross.

"You can't always make a difference," he said.

"Sometimes you do, and they're the really heartwarming moments when you have made a difference."

It was the desire to make a difference that prompted Mr Watson to join the ambulance service as a 20-year-old in 1980.

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At the time he was involved with the Sutherland Shire SES, and one of the trainers was a paramedic.

"His week sounded so much more exciting than mine working in a printing company," Mr Watson said.

The service was advertising for staff at the time, and Mr Watson was accepted.

Two years later he got his rescue qualifications, followed by intensive care in 1984, before being transferred to Bomaderry as station officer in 1988.

In the years since then there have been further qualifications, eight years spent working on the helicopters out of Wollongong, and battling with the demands of shift work and its impact on family life.

In addition the rescue missions have been incredibly diverse.

Mr Watson said there was an incident when he and colleague David Edge were called to help woman injured while walking in Budawangs.

He and Mr Edge had to walk to her and made camp overnight with the plan to call for a helicopter first thing the next morning, but then the weather closed in and it was more than 24 hours before there was a break in conditions so the helicopter could be called in to take the woman to hospital.

After that Mr Watson and Mr Edge became known as the people to rescue people in the bush, leading to them being called on many time and gaining special casualty access team (SCAT) qualifications.

Other memories were not so pleasant, like the time Mr Watson was called to a house fire in Bomaderry, and arrived there before fire fighters.

When they arrived the paramedics were directed to the side of the house, where in the dark all Mr Watson could see was a roll of carpet.

"Then a voice yells 'get me out of here'," he recalled.

A young mother had run from the house on fire, "and a guy who was in his garage, the first thing he could see was this piece of carpet, so he wrapped her up in that to put the fire out, but it was nylon carpet and it all adhered to her," Mr Watson said.

While he busied himself cutting the carpet from her body in the back of the ambulance, Mr Watson was asked an emotional question.

"On the way to hospital she said to me 'Am I going to die?' and I said to her 'You've got two young kids back there, just think about them' and she survived."

The woman ended up moving to Victoria where they had better burns treatments.

"I hope she was happy with her survival," Mr Watson said.

Dealing with patients asking if they are going to die is just one of the things paramedics have to do.

"As a paramedic your life is different. There's no pretending we don't see some amazing things - good and bad," Mr Watson said.

But those amazing thing meant he had also seen many colleagues impacted by post-traumatic stress disorder.

"You all come into this job knowing what it entails, and if you didn't think you could handle that sort of thing you wouldn't join the job in the first place," he said.

But "We all have a tipping point, when your cup is overfilled", and often that tipping point surrounded jobs involving children.

Mr Watson said the camaraderie and banter of the ambulance station was vital to keeping paramedics grounded.

"The general public would not understand it, but anyone in emergency services would," he said.

"They're a great bunch of people here."

While Mr Watson said while he did not think he had been affected, "My wife says can't be in this job for this long without an element of PTSD."

Mr Watson said he had plans to spent lots more time with wife Lisa, a registered nurse, following his last day on the job on Friday, August 4.

They even have plans to hit the road with a caravan in tow to explore Australia.