Over 110 firefighters from across the State are performing high-level rescue maneuvers in Portugalete and Getxo, near the Puente Colgante, sharing expertise. The initiative, organized by the Euskadi Rope Rescue Association along with the Prevention, Fire Extinction, and Rescue Service of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, has brought together professionals from various Basque provinces and cities such as Barcelona, Valencia, Málaga, Granada, Navarra, Palma de Mallorca, Burgos, Toledo, Linares, Jaén, and Ceuta.
The event has transformed the area around the Puente Colgante and both banks of the Nervión river into a high-level technical simulation and training ground for two days. Four real emergency situations have been reproduced, including a worker suspended from the bridge's stays, extracting a person from a pit, evacuating a victim via a zip line over the water, and a rappelling maneuver on a cantilevered balcony. Each team has two and a half hours to complete each exercise.
Juan Atxutegi, an inspector for the Bizkaia Firefighters, emphasizes the importance of these group activities: 'It allows you to understand and learn how other services are working, to identify better techniques, new equipment, different approaches... And we can then transfer that to the real emergencies we attend and improve the care we provide to society'.
A total of twelve specialized teams, selected based on operational experience, safety, and technical capacity, are participating. Among them is Eñaut, a firefighter from Donostia, who acted as the victim in the test involving an operator suspended from the Puente Colgante's stays, remaining hanging for an hour while his colleagues made the complex preparations.
The scenarios are set at heights of up to 25 meters, requiring not only patience but also an absence of vertigo. Each team is assigned a guide who accompanies them throughout the day to record the maneuvers, with the aim of conducting a thorough analysis later to identify differences and improvements in techniques and equipment.
