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| The winning team: Simon Wall, |
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service celebrates the success of its Road Accident Extrication team after the achievement of top honour in the UK Road Accident Rescue Challenge.
North Yorkshire and Rescue Service is celebrating the success of its Road Accident Extrication team who achieved top honours in the UK Road Accident Rescue Challenge held in Southampton over the 1st and 2nd October. The team comprises serving members of the Service who competed against 42 teams drawn from other Fire and Rescue Services across the country.
The competition consisted of a 20 minute scenario where a casualty was trapped in a two vehicle road traffic collision (RTC). The top 20 teams then qualified through to the final where they were faced with a multi vehicle multi casualty RTC. The teams were judged separately on their technical, incident command and casualty handling abilities. North Yorkshire swept the board by wining all the main categories. Simon Wall took the honour of top Incident Commander, with the team taking the awards for the best technical and best overall team. They will now represent the UK Fire Service at the World Rescue Challenge event in New Zealand next July, which is funded by sponsorship.
Throughout 2010 the team have represented the Service at several competitions and supported the York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership 95 Alive, by demonstrating the consequences of road traffic collisions at various public events throughout the county.
Although such events themselves are primarily competitive in nature they have a much wider public safety benefit; the team also promotes their knowledge and good practice through the development of new techniques, equipment and skills, which are then imported to all Fire and Rescue Service crews throughout the North Yorkshire area to improve the way road traffic collisions are dealt with in real life.
Nigel Hutchinson, Chief Fire Officer for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said “This is a fantastic achievement and reinforces our commitment to delivering an excellent emergency service to our communities. Members of the Fire Authority and myself wholeheartedly congratulate the team for this achievement and wish them the very best of luck at the World Extrication Championships in 2011.”
