We’re always trying to find new ways to support our communities. This month, we worked with our partner Turners to donate salvaged vehicles to the United Fire Brigades’ Association’s (UFBA) annual Road Crash Rescue Challenge. Volunteer firefighters used these vehicles to practice emergency rescue and medical response to motor crashes.
What is the UFBA’s Road Crash Rescue Challenge?
For over 145 years, the United Fire Brigades' Association’s (UFBA) has brought brigades together and now represents and provides services to over 690 different fire brigades and nearly 14,000 individuals from urban, rural, career, volunteer, defence, airport and industry brigades.
The Road Crash Rescue Challenge has become one of their most important events, held this year in Fielding from 13th to 15th June. Volunteer firefighters have been responding to an increasing number of road incidents in New Zealand, and this event provides a unique opportunity for volunteers to hone their life-saving skills. The challenge enables them to practice rescue and medical response in true-to-life scenarios, while gaining critical decision-making and teamwork experience.
The challenge consists of six members, with a designated team leader and a medical professional, to race against the clock to extract and treat patients in a simulated road crash, while being scored on their response techniques.
Donating vehicles to help the community
We worked with our partner Turners to support the challenge. They sell over 30,000 salvaged cars a year to Automotive Recyclers and Dismantlers who disassemble the vehicles and recycle some of the parts. We funded the transport, collection and delivery of 24 vehicles that couldn’t be repaired following an insurance claim. These were donated to the UFBA so they could be used in the challenge and serve another purpose before reaching end of life.
Beau Paparoa, our Head of Motor Claims, says, “We’re proud to support UFBA’s 2024 Challenge and the important work New Zealand volunteer firefighters do to help communities prevent, prepare, respond and recover from emergencies. Every day we see the impact that motor crashes have on New Zealanders, and we’re pleased to support initiatives that help our emergency frontline respond when these devastating crashes happen.”
Find out more about the challenge in the video below.