PORT Stephens SES Unit have taken home gold and silver medals in the 2021 World Rescue Challenge.

Joined by NSW Ambulance; drones and virtual reality replaced the face-to-face competition in the world-first virtual World Rescue Challenge.

Advertise with News of The Area today.
It’s worth it for your business.
Message us.
Phone us – (02) 4981 8882.
Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au

The World Rescue Challenge is an annual event hosted by the World Rescue Organisation, where teams are presented with scenarios, which require them to work together to rescue and treat casualties.

Competing under the name Hunter Valley Rescue, team six was composed of four NSW SES members and two NSW Ambulance members.

The team competed in two separate challenges, against twenty other teams from around the world including from Europe, Asia, America and beyond.

Alysha Springett, a member of the team, spoke about the experience.

“It was a little bit challenging this year as we usually train hands on with our tools and with vehicles.

“It makes it a little bit different to be virtually walking around a car in a simulation environment but the concepts do still apply the same way,” Ms Springett said.

The team put their rescue experience to good use, performing scene assessment, taskings, casualty assessment and triage, injury management, vehicle stabilisation, extrication planning, safety management, vehicle deconstruction and casualty handover to ambulance paramedics.

The Hunter Valley Rescue team was awarded Gold for the XVR Incident Command Challenge and Silver for the Human Drones Trauma Challenge.

“To win Gold and Silver is a fantastic achievement,” Commissioner York said.

“The members of our Port Stephens Unit have excellent rescue capabilities, so to see them perform on the world stage is an amazing testament to their professionalism.”

Congratulations team.

By Tara CAMPBELL