SPAIN — A team of Americans, mainly from Kentucky, is on the ground in Spain. They are taking part in an international competition of rescue groups from around the world.

What You Need To Know

  • The Rescue Great Day competition takes place in Sevilla, Spain this year

  • Search and rescue teams compete in competition like this to hone their skills and learn from other first responders

  • Kristin Gousse and Jeremy Urekew, two Kentuckians, said what they learn at the competition they can bring back home with them and put into practice 

  • The team is rounded out with members of Red River Rescue, Powell County Search and Rescue and Lexington’s Fire Rescue Company

Via pictures and video, Spectrum News 1 got just a flavor of what Kristin Gousse and Jeremy Urekew, two Kentuckians, will do at this year’s Rescue Great Day competition in Sevilla, Spain this week.

They sent us pictures and a video of last year’s competition they took part in, in different scenarios. There are even mock victims, known as “casualties,” as part of the competition.

“We’re very happy to be representing Kentucky here,” Urekew said.

The team is rounded out with members of Red River Rescue, Powell County Search and Rescue, and Lexington’s Fire Rescue Company.

Urekew said to help develop and improve their skills, they take part in competitions like this around the world to learn new rescue techniques and keep their skills sharp. Everyone except Gousse is a firefighter. She plays a casualty in the scenarios.

“We don’t really know what the scenarios will be this year,” Urekew explained. “But you can probably expect there to be some rope-access scenarios. So, kind of like working at heights, some skills that require a little more than just the average knot-tying. Everything is very patient-centric or casualty-centric.”

At the end of the competition, teams are ranked from 1 to 32. The winner gets the bragging rights. This is also a learning experience for them.

“It’s neat to see some of the emerging trends and just different ways of tackling the same exact scenario. You’ll have five or six teams right next to each other all doing the same scenario and everybody’s picked their own kind of flavor to make it happen. You learn so much from that,” Urekew shared.

What they learn in Spain, they can bring back home to Kentucky and put them to use in places like Red River Gorge.

They feel like what they learn will save lives.

“To be able to develop that skill, under that kind of pressure, is, I think, a really big thing we get out of this,” Grouse shared.

The team comes home on May 16.

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