Firefighters from South Wales have been recognised as the best crash rescue and rope rescue teams in the UK, after taking part in the 2012 National Rescue Challenge.

The achievement means South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (SWFRS) has been recognised as the best in the country in two of the last seven years.  The  SWFRS Bridgend Extraction Team achieved a clean sweep in all the rescue elements of the challenge.

The main challenge involved 50 teams competing to rescue one casualty from a car crash scenario in 20 minutes, and then two casualties from a car in 30 minutes.

Allyn Hosey, Phil May and Andrew Morgan picked up the award for Best Technical Extrication Team, while Roger Magan and Mark Sanderson got the accolade for Best Medical Extrication Team.

Station Manager Shaun Moody, who himself was presented with the Best Team Leader award, said: "It was a total team performance - the extrication scenarios are the kind of situations that Firefighters are likely to come across in their day-to-day to role, so training for those situations is a regular part of what we do. The team is very enthusiastic and we have put in a lot of extra practice to perfect our skills so we can proudly fly the flag for Wales."

The rope rescue team from Malpas Fire and Technical Rescue Unit were also crowned UK champions, after completing a similarly gruelling number of exercises.

Story posted by Robert Mair on 28/08/2012