Rolleston Rises to the Top at National Road Crash Rescue Challenge
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The Rolleston Volunteer Fire Brigade’s road crash rescue competition team has earned the title of National Champion, winning the UFBA (United Fire Brigades’ Association) National Road Crash Rescue (RCR) Challenge held over the weekend in Queenstown. During the competition, teams faced random scenarios set up to simulate real-life road crashes and were scored on their ability to efficiently extricate and treat live patients.
The Rolleston brigade first assembled its team to compete in the UFBA Regional RCR Challenge in October 2009, and in a few short years, has overtaken several more experienced teams on the road to the top spot.
Organisers of the event kept the results secret until Sunday night, when winners of the various events were announced at a prizegiving function following the event. “We never expected to win the whole thing. We were excited to win in some of the individual categories – the Immediate Event, the Controlled Event, Best Technical team, and the Trauma Challenge. But really it wasn’t until we heard the third and second place overall teams announced that we realised it was going to work out well for us.”
Manning attributes the win to the focus and determination of the team, and their dedication to learning. “The whole team just gelled together,” he said. “We just took the learning that came from each event leading up to this point and kept building on it. We took it on ourselves to raise enough money to compete in the Worlds last year to gain more skills, and experienced an amazing level of learning that has helped us develop quickly. We’re thankful to the UFBA for giving us that opportunity.”
“Morrinsville, Milton, and Balclutha teams have all inspired us and showed us the way. All the teams generously share their learning with each other,” Manning said. “That’s the awesome thing about the event – it’s not all about the winning, but about building camaraderie and sharing knowledge with other firefighters.”
“Responding to road crashes has become a significant responsibility for many fire brigades, so more and more firefighters are recognising the Road Crash Rescue Challenge as a valuable training opportunity,” says George Verry, Chief Executive Officer of the United Fire Brigades’ Association, the host organisation. “Facing realistic road crash scenarios during the event makes teams better equipped to respond to the unpredictable range of road crash scenarios they see in real life.”
Winners in each of the Challenge categories are as follows:
- Overall: 1st- Rolleston, 2nd- Feilding, 3rd-Whitianga
- Immediate Event: 1st-Rolleston, 2nd-Feilding, 3rd-Hawera
- Controlled Event: 1st-Whitianga, 2nd-Rolleston, 3rd-Feilding
- Entrapped Event: 1st-Morrinsville, 2nd-Greytown, 3rd-Feilding
- Trauma Challenge: Rolleston
- Best Technical Team: Rolleston
- Best Team Leader: Whitianga
- Best Medical Team: Morrinsville
Complete results are available to download below.
1 Comment
24 Feb 12
Great Event to be part of, Congratulations to all the Teams!