Tallahassee Fire Department returns from World Rescue Challenge in Portugal, bringing home sixth place

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – The Tallahassee Fire Department extrication team recently competed 4,224 miles from the Capital City at the World Rescue Organization World Championships in Portugal.

The team is trained to safely remove people from cars after a crash – something that often requires hydraulic tools like the “jaws of life.”

Instant Commander of the TFD extrication team, Jake Roberts, said the group has been competing together for two years and this year they qualified for the world championships.

“Coming in 6th, we’re happy. I think it’s respectable. We hope we get to go back, and we hope we bring a championship home to Tallahassee,” Roberts said. “Going forward, we’re going to try to get better and go for that first place.”

The championships set up intense, realistic mock car accidents for teams to respond to, with volunteers acting as victims in a wreck. The teams are judged on how well they respond regarding time, technical skills, patient care and other criteria.

Roberts said the skills they gained through this competition will benefit the whole department.

“Through the hours and hours of training and the competition, we’ve improved drastically every day we’ve done it, and we bring these experiences back into company trainings, we do in-service trainings, we train the new hires,” he said.

Tune in to Eyewitness News at 6 and 11 p.m. for the full story. This article will also be updated this evening with all the details.

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