PAGE 4 ON CALL VOLUME 14, ISSUE 2
14th Annual Rescue Challenge comes to the Roanoke Valley
10 teams from Virginia and Maryland participated
By Jennifer Conley Sexton
Volunteer/Marketing Coordinator
Roanoke County Fire & Rescue, Roanoke Fire-EMS and Salem Fire & EMS hosted the 14th Annual Rescue Challenge here in the Roanoke Valley during the first week of May. Ten
teams representing 27 agencies from Virginia and Maryland participated in this event. More than 230 participants registered, this being the largest number of participants in the history of Rescue Challenge which started in 1995.
The challenge began at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, May 5th and concluded the afternoon of Thursday, May 8th. Designed to challenge team member’s technical and organizational skills, Rescue Challenge is also meant to encourage networking between the states’ highly trained technical rescuers, giving them an annual event at which to exchange ideas as well as enhance their skills while working real life problems. Teams complete two scenarios a
day for each of the event’s four days, for a total of eight scenarios. High angle rope rescue, confined space rescue, trench rescue, vehicle/heavy machinery rescue and light & heavy structural collapse rescue are the basis for each Rescue Challenge scenario. Some scenarios use a combination of technical rescue skills to complete them successfully. Teams from Roanoke Valley, Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Chesterfield, Henrico, Virginia Beach, Howard County Maryland, Montgomery County Maryland and Fort Belvoir Virginia sent their technical rescue teams to compete in this event. Many of the individual participants are on the Federal Emergency
Management Agency’s (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces. These personnel are highly trained and have been sent to locations around the world to assist in large scale disasters. The Oklahoma City bombing, earthquakes in Iran, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, and California, hurricanes in Florida, and the Pentagon on 9-11 are but a few places these personnel have been to assist in rescue and recovery operations.
Koppers Plant(Ft. Lewis)– Confined Space Rescue