Over the past twenty years, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, the World Rescue Challenge (WRC) has seen world class rescue and trauma teams compete in an event designed to challenge emergency service personnel by developing and enhancing their existing skills in post-crash intervention.
Through this event, the global problem of road death and injury and the direct benefits from effective intervention at post-crash incidents are highlighted, a problem which sees 1,300,000 people killed and 50,000,000 people injured each year.
The objective of the WRC and Educational Workshops are to create an environment in which representatives from fire/rescue and medical services around the world, who responding to road traffic collisions and trauma incidents can come together to learn, exchange ideas, knowledge and skills.
Over seventy international teams participate in the challenge each year, which covers two challenge disciplines, Extrication and Trauma care.
Within the Extrication challenge discipline, teams are assessed against Incident Command, Medical and Technical Rescue by a team of dedicated international assessors.
Each extrication team consists of six members which include the team leader, two medics, two technical rescue personnel and one person responsible for operational support.
As for the Trauma challenge discipline, teams of two medics are assessed against Casualty Care Management and Progression by a team of dedicated international medical assessors.
The rescue challenge has now taken place in fifteen countries, with one postponed event in 2020, a virtual event in 2021, with a further three successful bids to host the World Rescue Challenge between 2022 and 2024.
The virtual event saw a new area of delivery and reach for the WRO, lessons learned from the development of the virtual event will be included within future events with the aim of ensuring knowledge sharing is further enhanced for those who cannot attend a WRC. This will be in addition to the live streaming of the event which has been a main part of the event since 2015.
