This tragedy<\/a> bookended his time as a firefighter as he started and finished helping with rescue efforts at landslides in Tauranga. <\/p>\n![\"Lisa]()
Lisa Maclennan died in the Mount Maunganui landslide on January 22 this year, the last job firefighter Mike Harwood attended, after warning other campers to evacuate.<\/p>\n
He described structures that were swept away to the road and how he worked through mud that was 2m deep. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe devastation was just unbelievable.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said these situations were especially dangerous because \u201cwhen a building collapses there is always a chance of people being stuck in voids\u201d but with landslides, the \u201cmud is like a wall of water. It suffocates people or rips them apart\u201d. <\/p>\n
![\"Mike]()
Mike Harwood has been praised for his “professionalism, loyalty, mentorship and camaraderie”.<\/p>\n
\u2018Can you handle it, boy?\u2019<\/p>\n
Reflecting on his years of service, Harwood remembered his first major callout was to a dairy fire that killed a baby. <\/p>\n
It was his first month on the job and he was a teenager. <\/p>\n
He went home to his father, a World War II veteran who had lost his friends in the conflict and was badly injured in Italy before returning home. <\/p>\n
![\"Mike]()
Mike Harwood’s career has involved him being in some dangerous situations.<\/p>\n
His father offered Harwood some words of advice and told him: \u201cWell can you handle it, boy? \u2019Cause if you can\u2019t, get out of it\u201d. <\/p>\n
Harwood said he thought about this moment a lot and that his father had been through far worse than anything he had seen in his career. <\/p>\n
![\"Mike]()
Mike Harwood began his firefighting career when he was a teenager.<\/p>\n
This grounded him and has helped him to cope with devastating situations<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s life sometimes and I accept that because that\u2019s what we do, that\u2019s why we\u2019re there to help.\u201d <\/p>\n
Harwood said he lived for the service and that \u201cit gets in your blood\u201d, but recently he began to lose that adrenaline rush and it became \u201cjust another job\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my mind telling me something, you know? \u2018You\u2019ve served your time boy\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he began to finally consider retirement around Christmas, when he thought, \u201cOh, I\u2019m nearly an 80-year-old firefighter\u201d. <\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The 77-year-old has decided to step away from a job he’s been doing for 57 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was sort of a turning point. I sort of realised that I didn\u2019t want to burn anybody by not being able to do my job.\u201d <\/p>\n
But he doesn\u2019t believe he has retired, saying: \u201cI\u2019m on a long leave, that\u2019s all\u201d. <\/p>\n
Harwood has received love and support from the community, with his retirement announcement reaching thousands of likes on Facebook. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to read some of those [messages]. Some of the old names that are coming through go: \u2018God, I thought he was dead\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Devastation unbelievable\u2019 Harwood has responded to more than 60,000 callouts in his career. Mike Harwood’s firefighting career spanned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[243024,74,2046,48901,76427,16719,4726,2079,53851,119152,243023,47526,685,1456,111,43,139,69,40396,2552,5258,9347,102,1530],"class_list":["post-484014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-57year","tag-after","tag-career","tag-decided","tag-decorated","tag-emotional","tag-ends","tag-fire","tag-firefighter","tag-hang","tag-harwood","tag-helmet","tag-last","tag-mike","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ringo","tag-service","tag-shift","tag-veteran","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}