Hot stuff at the firefighting olympics

Firefighters from Meath and Wicklow have been chosen to represent Ireland at the Olympics of the fire-service world later this year.

Tue, 21 Apr, 2015 - 01:00

Eoin English

They were chosen after a hotly contested event staged by Rescue Organisation Ireland (ROI) to identify the best road traffic accident and trauma teams in the country’s fire service.

Almost 140 firefighters from brigades across Ireland, as well as visiting crews from Luxembourg and Portugal, took part in the Irish National Road Traffic Collision and Trauma Challenge at Ballyvolane Fire Station on Cork’s northside over the weekend.

Each team was isolated as organisers set up a series of road traffic accident scenarios.

Crashed cars containing live casualties, each of whom assigned complex injuries, were positioned in an arena. Each fire crew was then tasked to arrive on site in a fire truck and take control of the scene.

They dealt with the scenarios as they would a real-life road traffic accident site — securing the scene before using cutting tools to extricate the casualties as quickly and safely as possible, and using their medical equipment to assess and treat the casualties at the scene.

Assessors judged each team on their incident command procedures, on the operation of their cutting equipment and extracation techniques, and on their medical response to the casualties.

Phil O’Hare, assistant chief fire office of Cork City Fire Brigade, and who chairs the ROI, said the teams from Meath and Wicklow came out on top.

“They will now go forward to represent Ireland at the world event in Portugal in October,” he said.

“The vast majority of cases where we save lives today is road traffic accident-based. We do a lot more life saving and injury prevention in this scenario.”

ROI was established in 2008 by professionals from the so-called blue light agencies: Fire services, the HSE, and Civil Defence.

It provides best practice training and information to help its members in the emergency services to deal with real-life incidents.

Cork hosted the ROI world event in 2010 but Saturday was the first time the city hosted the national event.