A seven-firefighter team from Fire and Rescue NSW’s Wollongong station have been crowned Australasian rescue champions for 2015, following a four-day challenge in Alice Springs at the weekend.

The Illawarra firies were among 17 teams from across Australasia - including crews from Singapore to Malaysia - to take part in the Australasian Road Rescue Organisation event.

Team leader and Wollongong station commander Andrew Barber said the team was put through its paces during a series of staged road crash accidents. The 30-minute scenarios included a time-critical event, where ‘‘the person will die on you if you don’t treat them properly and get them out’’, a trapped event and a controlled event involving two casualties.

Teams were scored on their medical ability, technical tool work and leadership - the Wollongong team topped all three categories. 

‘‘We swept the floor, you could say,’’ Mr Barber said.

The Wollongong firies secured first place in the time-critical and controlled events, and finished second in the trapped category. 

‘‘The boys put in months of training for it ... we’ve been together for years and thought we’d have a crack at this comp and, second year in, we nailed it,’’ he said.

Teams were placed in an isolation tent prior to competing, meaning the scenarios were unknown. 

‘‘You walk out of the isolation area ... and it’s like setting up a fire truck at a prang, you don’t know what you’re going to get,’’ he said. In one scenario, the Wollongong team was confronted with a car on its roof - the legs of its ejected driver crushed under the bonnet and a passenger was trapped in the wreckage.

The Wollongong team will now compete at the ‘‘worlds’’, to be held in Brazil late next year.

‘‘It’s a chance for us to go overseas and bring back techniques that the Europeans and Americans use - it’s all about learning,’’ he said.