Waddington training site to host national Urban Search and Rescue event

Emergency services from across the UK will be in Lincolnshire this week as part of an exercise to test their response to a major building collapse.

Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue’s training site at Waddington will host the national Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) event with fire services from West Midlands, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and Essex taking part and up to 60 people working on the site at one time.

The exercise takes place on the 27 and 28 April and will be the first such event since the purchase of the Waddington site by Lincolnshire County Council last month.

Activities include rescues from cranes, drone searches, dogs working, difficult breaching of concrete walls, abseiling into shafts to extract casualties and other USAR activities.

Chief Fire Officer for Lincolnshire, Mark Baxter, said: “Over the years we have developed this site into a first-class training facility and we’ve hosted emergency services from across the world to learn and develop life-saving rescue skills.

“The purchase of the site from the RAF gives us future security and means that we have can develop it further as training needs evolve. I look forward to being able to welcome even more events like this to Waddington.”

This will also be the first time the Rapid Relief Team – an international charity set up to provide welfare for people during emergency and disaster support operations – will be taking part in an exercise like this. A new agreement has been signed between the team and Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue to work together at major incidents.

Also participating in the exercise are:

• East Midlands and Yorkshire ambulance HART personnel.
• East Midlands Disaster Victim Identification team (police)
• Northumberland police dog teams
• Army support team (drones)
• Fire service national Drone team

This event is not open to the public.

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