Firefighters are pictured staging an extrication for the public at an event in Kingsbury, Aylesbury, earlier this year.

20 August 2007

Do you have a car you are about to scrap? Then Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service would like to take it off your hands for training purposes.

Last year, firefighters released about 300 people who had become trapped in their vehicles following road traffic collisions.

They carried out a further 200 demonstrations of the technique – called an extrication – in training sessions at fire stations and road safety awareness displays at fetes and open days.

Community safety manager Terry Ridgley said: “We rely on donations of old cars from individuals and businesses so that we can use them in training. Recently the supply has slowed down.

"Our firefighters need to be able to cut casualties clear of vehicles for medical treatment very quickly, and without cars to use in training they have nothing to practise on.

Vehicles must be handed over with their registration documents so that they can be officially scrapped before Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service uses them.

Please contact individual Station Managers for information on how to donate a car.                       

Collision factfile

• Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service attends around 11,000 emergency incidents every year, of which about 500 are road traffic collisions.
• Of these, about 300 involve people who need to be released from a vehicle because they are trapped in it.
• Sadly, many people die as a result of crashes on our roads - in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes in 2005/06, Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service recorded 523 serious injuries arising from road traffic incidents, of which 24 resulted in someone dying.