9th national comparison of performance in height rescue by professional fire brigades in Chemnitz for the first time

Exciting height rescue competitions will take place on Saturday, 15 September, from 8:45 a.m. at Messeplatz 1 in Chemnitz, and Chemnitz residents and visitors to the city are cordially invited to attend: For the 9th National Performance Comparison, the Chemnitz professional fire brigade is hosting its colleagues from all over Germany as well as from the French twin city of Mulhouse for the first time.
The award ceremony will take place on site on Saturday at around 6 pm - you will receive a separate invitation for this.

Representatives of the media are cordially invited to accompany the competitions and will have the opportunity to talk to participants in the competition on site at Messeplatz 1 the day before - Friday, 14 September at 2 pm .

Participants include height rescue teams from the professional fire services in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Essen, Erfurt, Chemnitz's twin city Düsseldorf, Munich, Magdeburg, Bendorf (Rhineland-Palatinate), Oldenburg, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Hanover, as well as representatives from the Institute for Fire and Disaster Protection Saxony-Anhalt in Heyrothsberge, the professional fire service in Dresden and the North Rhine-Westphalia Fire Service Institute in Münster. Participants from Mulhouse, Chemnitz's French twin city, are also expected.

Three different stations will be determined by drawing lots on the day before the competition. For example, a person must be rescued from an emergency situation using height rescue equipment, several people must be rescued from a four-person chairlift or a practical test in manual skills and the basics of height rescue must be completed.

History of rescue at height: In the 1980s, high-rise buildings with ten or more storeys were built in the GDR. Suddenly, the conventional means of rescuing people were no longer sufficient. A turntable ladder was no longer enough. So ways had to be found to rescue people from great heights. How can you safely rescue an unconscious crane operator from his cab and bring him to the ground by stretcher, how can you get into a flat on the 16th floor if the entrance area is blocked or even on fire? A turntable ladder only reaches up to the 10th floor at most, a jump pad is the very last option for a trapped person to get out of the danger zone and bringing someone who has fallen down a well shaft back up to the surface is an almost unsolvable problem for a conventionally equipped firefighter.

Together with the mountain accident service of the German Red Cross (DRK), it was then tested for the first time in Berlin whether the equipment used in mountain sports and mountain rescue as well as the ascent and abseiling techniques were also suitable for fire brigade operations. In 1982, the Special Rescue Service (SRD) was incorporated into the fire service system and trialled further. The SRD group of the Karl-Marx-Stadt fire brigade was transferred to the service system after passing the examination at the "Hermann Matern" technical college of the Ministry of the Interior. Each member of the Special Rescue Service received an allowance of 50 marks in addition to their salary.

Due to unresolved insurance issues, the training programme was discontinued in 1990 and only resumed after a four-year break in Chemnitz - now under the name Height Rescue Service (HRD).
The very first performance comparison of the height rescue services of the professional fire brigades was held in Berlin in 2004. Since then, the Chemnitz comrades have successfully taken part in every competition. The Chemnitz height rescue group currently consists of 40 members - trained firefighters with additional training in height rescue services.

Contact and contact person: City of Chemnitz, Fire Department, Knut Liebe, call 0371/488-3723 and e-mail: knut.liebe(at)feuerwehr-chemnitz.de