Firefighting Competition in Rapid City
Local News
by
Kyle Horan
last edited on
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Imagine on a hot day like today carrying a 50 pound weight while running up stairs all for the spirit of fun and competition. Now imagine that you're doing all that with full firefighters gear on.
The high heat over the weekend didn't stop firefighters from gearing up to compete in the Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge. Teams from as far as Florida joined Rapid City firefighters in a relay competition to see who was the fastest firefighter.
Rapid City Firefighter Joyce Sauer says, "Well it's a personal challenge it's just great support for the fire service. It's just the brother sisterhood of the whole fire thing, it's hard but it's fun."
Local Rapid City and volunteer firefighter Joyce Sauer says it has been a while but she's looking forward to competing.
"I'm doing two tandem events. I'll be doing the ground part so I’ll be doing the mannequin drag twice here pretty quick actually"
And the course is harder than it looks.
Firefighters say it's not just a competition between colleagues. It's also a test of their personal strengths.
Rapid City Firefighter Scott Jungck says, "You wanna do the best you can. And this is the toughest 2 minutes of sports without a doubt. And so just to make it under 2 is a phenomenal achievement just to finish is a phenomenal achievement."
An achievement that takes hard work. To start they climb five stories carrying 45 pounds. Before hoisting another 45 pound hose to the top. Then the teammates have to hammer a metal bar. Next teams run to drag a fire hose and put out a simulated fire. All before dragging a life size mannequin across the finish line.
"This is awesome this is great I think they have the potential to bring it back just because of everything that's going on it's really cool."
And she hopes she and the competition can do it all again next year.
Rapid City was the ninth stop in the 25 city tour and now some of the fastest team will go on to compete in the world competition later this year.