Civil Defence Volunteers Showcase Their Skills

Curracloe, County Wexford provided an idyllic venue for last Saturday’s Civil Defence Regional competition, hosted by the Civil Defence section of Wexford County Council.  Teams from Carlow, Dublin, Cork South and Waterford joined Wexford’s Civil Defence team in a number of gruelling exercises throughout the day, designed to test each team’s abilities to respond to staged incidents involving multiple casualties.

Elements of Saturday’s competition included foot drill, missing person search, communications and two casualty / first aid scenarios, with team members challenged to manage the accident scene, treat / rescue casualties and triage casualties for transportation.

The missing persons search competition tested the teams search capabilities in the challenging but ideal environment of the Raven forest with two missing casualties to be located.  Teams were required to plan the search, deploy search teams and setup a communications system to manage the search teams.

The final events of the day were fun team challenges consisting of a sack race with 4 people in each sack and the use of three-person skis. These exercises were highly popular with the partaking teams and provided much enjoyment for the many attending spectators – but they were definitely not for the faint-hearted!

Wexford Civil Defence volunteers provided the staff and equipment to run the day’s events, with their hard-working welfare team providing food and refreshments for over 120 people on the day. Food was prepared in Wexford Civil Defence Headquarters in Ardcavan and served on site from the Wexford Civil Defence mobile catering trailer, while the Army provided tents for the registration and food serving.

The Sunny South East lived up to its reputation, with glorious sunshine throughout the day contributing to a very enjoyable occasion for all taking part.

The day’s activities were followed by a prize giving dinner at the Ferrycarrig Hotel. Among those attending were Mr Paul Kehoe TD, Minister with Responsibility for Defence, Cathaoirleach of Wexford County Council Councillor Paddy Kavanagh and Mayor of Wexford, Cllr Frank Staples, The Department of Defence was represented by Mr. Stephen Hall while the Civil Defence Branch Training Section was represented by Róisín McGuire, College Principal and a number of staff members.

Carlow Civil Defence proved to be worthy winners in the combined services element of the competition, while Waterford Civil Defence was victorious in the foot drill element. Minister Paul Kehoe presented the prizes to the winning team.