BY DAVE DALRYMPLE
The Firefighter Combat challenge has been coined the “toughest two minutes in sports”; however, how many of you have witnessed the “toughest 20 minutes in sports”? The Extrication Challenge has come quite a way from its early beginnings in 1983. The extrication competition or challenge was the idea of Fire Marshal Alan Dupre of the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office to foster sharing and networking ideas, concepts, and education among extricators worldwide. Today, that single event has developed into local, regional, and national events on every continent. Many of the world’s extrication concepts, methodologies, tool evolutions, and even tools can trace their roots to the extrication challenges. Although friendly competitions by nature, these events help participants and observers bring education and knowledge back to their home departments and ultimately the citizens they protect.
 Photos courtesy of author. |
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INTERNATIONAL EXTRICATION CHALLENGE
The 2006 International Challenge was held in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, in September. Burlington was the host in 1995 and 2001. Through the assistance of Bill Davis from GM Canada, GM supplied more than 40 new vehicles, cars, pickup trucks, and vans for the challenge and its educational programs. Twenty-eight teams from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Sweden competed in three evolutions. Two of the three scenarios (limited and unlimited) are 20 minutes; the rapid pit is 10 minutes. Tools constitute the difference between the limited and the unlimited pits. Limited evolutions do not allow power hydraulic tools and limit quantities of certain tools; power hydraulic tools are used in unlimited evolutions. The rapid pit has a shortened time span and focuses on management and mitigation of a motor vehicle crash with a time critical patient. All of these scenarios are evaluated by a team of three assessors in each pit plus an interior assessor (patient) in the limited pit. Each assessor evaluates the team on work performed on a 13-part assessment, which covers all facets pertaining to successfully mitigating a motor vehicle crash. Each assessor team comes from a variety of emergency services backgrounds and nations. At the conclusion of each scenario, the teams are fully debriefed by the assessor team. This fosters education and learning among the teams and encourages networking.
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As part of each International Challenge, there is an educational tract or component. This year, there was an assessor workshop and two educational programs, Modern Vehicles-Concerns & Challenges and School Bus Extrication. The assessor workshop was an all-day program designed to keep assessors current on trends involving vehicle concerns, tool evolutions, evaluations, and proper delivery of such; practice assessment scenarios were also included.
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The modern vehicles program was a half-day of classroom presentations followed by practical reinforcement on new vehicles. Each day, the students extricated five new vehicles; the program was run three times to allow the teams and other responders ample opportunity to attend. A school bus extrication program was run on the last day of the Challenge. The winners were as follows: Limited Pit-Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; Unlimited Pit-Falkenburg, Sweden; Rapid Pit-Falkenburg, Sweden; and Overall-Palm Harbor, USA.
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WORLD RESCUE CHALLENGE
The 2006 Rescue Challenge was held in Cape Town, Republic of South Africa, in October. Twenty-four teams from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Australia, and South Africa participated-local teams and national champs from a variety of nations. The World Challenge uses the same format as the International Challenge: Each team competes in limited, unlimited, and rapid scenarios. Each scenario is evaluated by an international assessor team of three; an interior assessor (casualty) is included. However, the assessment format is slightly different. Each assessor is assigned to evaluate one of three specialties: command and control, technical (i.e., tool skills), and medical. Each team is debriefed on its scenario to provide feedback and enhance education. In both events, teams provided interpreters for the assessors and their teams when the native language was not English.
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The World Challenge had as its educational component two programs for competing teams and local responders. One program was an update on vehicle construction, materials, methodology, and safety systems. The second was on hybrid vehicles and their operational concerns. This was the first program on hybrid vehicles delivered in South Africa. More than 140 students participated in both programs.
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The winners were as follows: Limited Pit-Central Scotland Fire Brigade, Scotland; Unlimited Pit-Northern Ireland Fire Brigade, UK; Rapid Pit-Laura State Emergency Service, Australia; and Overall-Central Scotland Fire Brigade.
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Although many of you participate in formal educational programs dealing with vehicle rescue and its many concerns, consider participating in one of the many extrication challenge events. Think of the knowledge that can be gleaned from your fellow responders. Where else can you safely observe teams from local to international levels mitigate 20 or more different simulated motor vehicle crashes? Add to that cutting-edge educational programs, and, depending on the level of the event, add new vehicles to the mix. That’s a pretty powerful knowledge package!
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The 2007 World events will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana, August 20-25 (International Extrication Challenge) and in Barcelona, Spain, October 14-20 (World Rescue Challenge). Information on extrication challenges is available from the following sources: TERC-US: www.terc.us, TERC-Canada: www.terccanada.ca, United Kingdom Rescue Organization: www.UKRO.org.uk, APRAT (Spain): www.aprat-es.com, and ARRO (Australasia) www.arro.org.au/.
DAVE DALRYMPLE is a career EMS provider for Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital/St. Peter’s University Hospital Emergency Services in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is also a firefighter/EMT/rescue technician and former rescue services captain of the Clinton (NJ) Rescue Squad. Dalrymple is the education chair of the Transportation Emergency Rescue Committee-US and serves on the Expert Technical Advisory Board of the International Emergency Technical Rescue Institute as the road traffic accident advisor.
