SES chief officer Stuart Macleod paid tribute to the volunteers whose main work involves rescuing road crash victims on National Highway One from Port Wakefield in the south, to north of Redhill.

“You’re providing a critical service to the public of South Australia who use that road and rely on your road crash expertise to keep them safe,” Mr Macleod told volunteers.

SES Long Service Medals were presented to Robert Masters (who joined the unit in 1983), Scott Tothill (1984), Anthony Whiting (1995) and Hayden Wallis (1986), while Hayden also received his National Medal.

Unit manager Barry Price (1979), who was unable to attend due to work commitments, and trained rescuer Allan Freebairn (1982), will be presented with the first clasps of their National Medals and their SES Long Service Medals at a later date. Trained rescuer Peter Ebsary (1981) will also receive his SES Long Service Medal at a later date.

Mr Macleod unveiled a plaque to officially open Snowtown’s new SES premises, which are in a refurbished SA Water building at the southern end of Railway Terrace East, across the road from the Country Fire Service and SA Ambulance Service premises.

The building provides a communications and training room, an office, kitchen, bathroom, storage and a three-bay garage for the unit’s vehicles - a rescue truck, four-wheel-drive and a trailer.

In a speech read by SES regional operation­s manager, North Region, Sindy McCourt, Mr Price expressed his delight at the modern training and operational resource provided by the new facility, which allowed all equipment to be stored at one location.

He said the Snowtown unit had attended 19 incidents last financial year, the majority of which were road crash accidents.

The unit has attended three road crashes on National Highway One in the past fortnight.

The Snowtown SES has nine volunteer members and is always keen to recruit new members. Anyone interested can attend one of the regular training nights, which are held on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at 7.30pm.­