WERRIBEE CFA’s road rescue team will be out to prove it’s still the best in the country when it visits Hobart later this month.
The team, comprising Rob Mitchell, Lino Zulian, Adrian Kendall, Michael Wells, Mark Mummery, Phil Menzies and Trevor Weston has won the Australasian Road Crash Challenge for the past two years.
Last year, it also finished second at the World Challenge in Wellington, New Zealand.
Brigade captain Michael Wells said while it was great to win the competitions, the road crash challenge was a chance for teams to learn the skills required to help save lives on the roads.
“Unfortunately, we’re regularly cutting people from cars in real life road rescues in Werribee,” he said.
“What we learn at the championships we bring back to the brigade [so we can] continue improving our incident management skills.”
Attending road accidents was a large part of Werribee CFA’s work, with the road rescue team called on to attend accidents throughout Wyndham, he said.
Mr Wells, also an air ambulance paramedic, urged drivers to take more care on the roads, revealing the team had recently attended three collisions in five days.
Most could be avoided if people drove to the conditions and slowed down in wet weather.
As part of the road crash challenge, teams are given a scenario in which they have to work against the clock to perform a rescue. The aim is to remove an injured person from a car as quickly as possible without causing further harm. Teams are marked on command and control as well as the technical and medical aspects of their work. The competition is will be held from April 26-29.
