The extrication and first aid team of the Inspectorate General for Emergency Situations (IGSU) Valcea ranked 2nd in the "granting specialist first aid" challenge - a complex scenario - at the World Rescue Challenge 2019, which brought together extrication and first aid teams from all over the world, from the member countries of the the World Rescue Organisation.

"The extrication and specialist first aid teams of the Inspectorates for Emergency Situations from Calarasi, Dolj, Mures and Valcea represented Romania to the World Rescue Challenge, which took place in France over September 12-15," informed a press release of the Inspectorate General for Emergency Situations (IGSU) on Monday sent to AGERPRES.

As many as 36 teams participated in the "vehicle extrication" challenge (made of six rescuers each), with three different scenarios to deal, namely: the quick test (of 10 minutes, one victim), the standard test (20 minutes, one victim) and the complex test (30 minutes, two victims).

The second challenge of the competition was "granting specialist first aid," with 34 teams registered (made of two paramedics each), which had to deal with a standard trauma (10 minutes, one victim), and a complex trauma (10 minutes, two victims). Each team applied lifesaving maneuvers to victims involved in car crashes, fire, paragliding accidents, domestic accidents, physical aggression, gunshot wounds or other situations similar to those happening in the real life.

The scenarios were diverse, carefully selected by the experts from the World Rescue Organisation, meant for testing the speed, skills, extrication techniques and the manner in which the rescuers assisted the victims during their operations.

Participating in the competition were 36 extrication teams and 34 first aid teams from 16 countries on five continents: UK, USA, Brazil, Columbia, Paraguay, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, Romania, China and Luxemburg.

All the challenges had evaluator committees made of international specialists in the rescue field, who verified in detail the observation of the specific rescue procedures in the given situations, how the victims were protected, and also how the rescuers protected themselves, the prioritization of the rescue teams' actions at the location and also the progress made by the teams from the previous competitions. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Alexandru Florea, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)