South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue
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Fire service proves it’s got cutting edge skills

Firefighters have returned home victorious after picking up an award at an international road traffic collision contest held in Germany.

Battling 28 teams from 16 countries, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s crew showed off their skills while competing in The Extrication Challenge, walking away with the top prize in the ‘Best Medic’ category.

One team after another was challenged to respond to a unique 20 minute vehicle extrication scenario, meaning they had to rescue a trapped and injured casualty from a car crash as quickly and safely as possible.

“There was a casualty in the vehicle, who was actually a doctor and an assessor of the event,” said team leader and incident commander Chris Tyler.

“He was even wearing an earpiece so he could assess everything that our medic and the rest of the team were doing. There’s also a trauma doctor assessing you outside of the vehicle along with two other external assessors.

“We quickly performed a survey of the scene and the firefighter tasked as the medic in our team will advise us what he wants to happen because of the casualty’s condition.

“In this instance the casualty had neck and pelvis injuries, so we needed to get the casualty out safely while keeping them straight.

“Of course it’s nice to get recognition for our skills but the main focus of these events is to study what new information is available to develop better and safer procedures.

“We’re able to learn directly from industry leading experts and manufacturers, which means we can understand the potential hazards as well as the latest techniques to help anybody unfortunate enough to be involved in a road traffic collision.

“This improves the safety for our own firefighters at incidents like these but ultimately means we are better equipped to provide a swift and effective service to the public of South Yorkshire.”

The team will now go on to represent South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue at a similar national event, competing against 45 fire and rescue services from across the United Kingdom, on Friday 31.

This content was last updated on June 26th, 2015