Advanced rescue training for fire fighters

A team of Palma fire fighters have been practising dangerous and complicated rescue techniques in a training exercise in advanced water rescue, according to the Palma City Council.

The training is aimed principally at rescuing people trapped in a submerged vehicle, and took place over the course of two days, in Western Park, Magaluf, and on the beach in es Portixol. Training was done primarily within the water park, in preparation for the second day of the course in which the fire fighters were required to practise on a real submerged vehicle.

The council reports that a previously decontaminated car was launched into waters off the es Portixol coast, to assist in the specialised training and allow the fire fighters to practise the procedures as if in a real-life rescue. In order not to cause any pollution to the marine environment, the car had the engine removed as well as any other possible contaminants before being used in the training. Windows had also been removed.

Fifteen fire fighters and officers took part in the course, which aimed to teach the participants how to safely and quickly perform an underwater rescue, by learning the skills necessary to do so without risking their own life in the process. The idea of submerging the car was to replicate cases in which a car had been swept away in water.

Although highly specialised, such training could prove crucial to saving lives, for example in cases such as those tragically involved in the freak storms which hit the eastern part of the island back in October 2018, in which intense rainfall and flooding let to the deaths of twelve people.