London firefighters attending around 12 London crashes a day

The London Fire Brigade has showcased its road traffic collision capabilities as figures show a 10 per cent rise in crashes attended by the Brigade.

Firefighters attended a total of 4,541 road traffic collisions in 2016, up from 4,054 in 2015.

Crews from Battersea white watch took part in a training exercise to simulate a collision between a mini skip lorry, car and cyclist.

In the simulation, a person was trapped in the cab of the lorry, the car's driver was also trapped by the nature of their injuries and 'a cyclist', represented by a training dummy, was trapped beneath the rear wheel of the lorry.

After stabilising the lorry, releasing the driver and placing him onto a stretcher board, crews then turned their attention to the casualty trapped in the driver's seat of the car which had collided with the lorry.

Firefighters used cutting equipment to remove the roof from the car to allow for the safe removal of the casualty before the casualty was taken into the care of trainee doctors from UCL.

The skip lorry was then raised to free the trapped cyclist who was pronounced dead due to the extent of their injuries.

Group Manager for Community Safety Mark Hazelton said: "It is vital that our firefighters regularly carry out training exercises and the more realistic we can make that training the better.

"Equally important is the work we do in the community through promoting road safety messages and our participation in the Safe Drive, Stay Alive programme(opens in a new window) which teaches people how to be safer on the capital's roads and Biker Down courses which provides riders and passengers with the knowledge they need to help bikers if they're involved in a crash.

"By working in conjunction with London Ambulance Service and medical students, our crews were able to simulate real-world conditions and working as a multi-agency team, exactly as they would at the scene of a road traffic collision.

New statistics released by the Brigade show that firefighters have attended 1,061 road traffic collisions in the capital so far this year.

In 84 of these incidents, crews have had to carry our extrications, which means cutting open a car to safely remove a passenger.

To help reduce the number of road traffic collisions in London, the Brigade is a key partner in schemes like Safe Drive Stay Alive in boroughs with high numbers of crashes, to educate young drivers about the dangers of careless driving.