Share
The United Kingdom Rescue Organisation was set up in 2002 to address the growing diversity of rescues that emergency services in the UK were requested to undertake and now form a statutory duty. Its goal is to push vehicle extrication to its professional pinnacle and to drive the national agenda on road death reduction. It incorporates other rescue disciplines including rope rescue, trauma and urban search and rescue.
Each year the National and World Extrication & Rescue Challenges grow significantly. The UKRO will expand its capacity and, in conjunction with its partners, maintain the commitment towards reducing road deaths through education, engineering and enforcement.
Why does Ryde Fire Station get involved with UKRO?
Firefighters at Ryde fire station have been involved with UKRO for two consecutive years now, appearing for their first time in 2011 at the London Challenge. The station competes in two of the five challenges available, Vehicle extrication and Trauma Challenge.
Vehicle extrication Challenge:
Road Traffic Collisions (RTC) are still the biggest killer of people in the United Kingdom (UK). The Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 now places a duty on Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) not only to train and respond to such incidents, but also to obtain information to support response and work in partnership with others to reduce death on our roads.
The aim of the UKRO Extrication Challenge is to bring together teams of FRS personnel who are committed, not only to displaying their ability, but also to expanding their practical skills by learning from and teaching others involved in the same field.
Teams from FRS's throughout the UK are brought together to a single venue where their skills are put to the test in tackling different RTC scenarios over two days. The skills that the teams have developed in training for the UKRO Extrication Challenge and acquire during the two days will return with them, to their individual FRS's. This experience, knowledge and skill will be used to great effect when the team members attend their next RTC involving ‘Persons Trapped’; there is no doubt, that the given casualty(s) will receive a far better service from firefighters who have taken part in the UKRO Extrication Challenge.
The emphasis of the UKRO Extrication Challenge is on developing and promoting ‘Best Safe Practice’; the ethos is not merely to win. The UKRO Extrication Challenge is designed
to improve the knowledge, skills and understanding of UK FRS's enabling them to deliver an improved, professional service to the public.
The UKRO Extrication Challenge may appear to be all about the competition, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The challenge is a learning platform, testing skills through strict assessment where participants are encouraged to make hard and critical examination of their own rescue practices and techniques. Successful teams will need to study current extrication philosophy and search for new and innovative ideas.
Although one team will be adjudged the ‘Best Team’ overall, in truth the real winners of the UKRO Extrication Challenge will be the future casualties of RTCs throughout the UK
Trauma Challenge:
Firefighters are increasingly being asked to deal with more challenging casualty related situations than ever before. Their skills in dealing with casualties at incidents are constantly
being challenged.
The objective of the UKRO Trauma Challenge is to develop the Basic Trauma Life Support (BTLS) skills of firefighters and rescue workers to enable them to deal successfully with the vast range of casualty centred incidents.
Firefighters from the United Kingdom will be assessed on their “life saving” during a ten minute, trauma based scenario.
The National Trauma Challenge will focus on developing and promoting the life support skills of rescue personnel, which will allow them to fill the therapeutic vacuum until further medical help arrives
The goal: To provide a platform for rescue personnel from across the UK to come together, in order to enhance and develop competence levels in trauma care.
Breathing Apparatus Challenge
Last years' Breathing Apparatus (BA) Challenge was the fifth held in the UK at the Fire Service College, Gloucestershire, and the first entered by a team representing the Isle of Wight. The competition has recently come under the UKRO banner which will no doubt benefit an already highly esteemed event on the national fire service calendar.
Last October's challenge was attended by a six strong crew from Ryde Fire Station who achieved a creditable seventh place nationally by engaging in a realistic industrial unit fire with multiple persons reported as missing. Although the strategy of deploying breathing apparatus wearers and firefighting measures at fire incidents is the traditional role of the service, substantial upgrades in equipment and the use of modern techniques make attendance at this event both a learning and sharing experience. Both are of benefit to those attending, those who they share the knowledge with back in the service and those who are unfortunate enough to suffer fire incidents in their homes or workplaces.
Under the guidance of Ryde's Station Manager the service is making preparations for a second visit to the event in October 2013.
This website will follow the progress of the UKRO teams both Trauma and Extrication through their training and preparation for the 2013 Liverpool Challenge. Keep checking the website for progress.
Ryde’s firefighters were determined to make their mark on this year’s major fire service backed fund-raising initiative ‘100 Here 100 There’. Ryde’s former Watch Manager Kelvin Wright is again the driving force behind the plan to raise £20k for the Wessex Cancer Trust and additional funds for Seeds for Change and the Firefighters Charity. When he explained the plan to his former colleagues at Ryde he knew only too well that the guys at Station A4 would come up with something a little bit different. Perhaps even he was surprised by the arrival on station of a monstrous hamster wheel! Firefighters are currently engaged in hamster-styled running trials and you can see them do the 48 hour challenge for real from Friday 26th July at 15:00 right through until the same time on the Sunday afternoon at Ryde’s Western Gardens. The only time the wheel can stop is for crew changeovers, other than that the wheel must continue for the entire forty-eight hour period which means a really fun spell of nocturnal long distance running for some unlucky members of the station. Watch this space for more details of the distance over time target which is yet to be published and please pencil the dates and venue in your calendar and remember to pop down to cheer us on and drop a donation in the collection box to assist Wessex Cancer Trust to provide ground-breaking island based support and welfare services to cancer patients and their families. 
