An EMS team from Vienna won the prestigious Rallye Rejviz International EMS Competition held in the Jesenik Mountains in the Czech Republic. The Rallye Rejviz was created in 1997 as part of an EMS Conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the EMS in Jesenik. It is based on the concept of testing emergency medical skills, driving, and management skills in a friendly, yet competitive and very realistic setting.
As the term “rally” implies, competing teams have to drive from point A to point B to point C, obeying all traffic laws and without exceeding speed limits. Local police enforce the laws. Violations lead to a reduction of points. At each station, realistic scenarios are staged using actors. Some stations may occur at night. Examples of the stations include:
- 6 injured patients after at a construction site in an amphitheater
- rescue of two workers after a accident when cutting a tree(including a 4 km walk with equipment);
- shooting of the lover of a betrayed husband and CO poisoning of the husband and his wife
- diabetic with subsequent full cardiac arrest
- changing the wheel of the own ambulance (3 minutes and 38 seconds was the best time, performed by Vienna EMS)
The evaluation criteria is similar to competitions held in the United States. Correct skills must be utilized and knowledge of
emergency medical protocols, including ACLS, correct medications, and others, must be demonstrated. Safety aspects are monitored as are social interaction with the patient and bystanders. A significant difference in the Rallye Rejviz and competitions held in the United States is the fact that teams are also judged on patient assessment ability in a foreign language.
Depending on their home nation, the various teams consisted of:
- Paramedics
- Driver, Nurse, Paramedic
- EMT, Physician, Nurse
- EMT, Paramedic, Physician
- EMT, Nurse, Emergency Physician
Teams in the 2006 Rallye Rejviz came from the United States, Spain, Canada, Japan, Ukraine, Netherlands, Cypruss, Greece, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Austria.
Three EMS professionals from the Vienna (Austria) Red Cross EMS won the 2004 international ambulance. This year an Vienna EMS interagency of four people won. The winning team consisted of Walter Schwarz, EMT-I (Vienna Red Cross); Berndt Schreiner, EMT-P, MD (Vienna Red Cross); (he just graduated from medical school); Albert Staettermayer, EMT-P (Maltese Cross) and Gerhard Schuster, EMT-P (Vienna Municipal EMS). The team was managed by Vienna Red Cross Chief, Christoph Redelsteiner, a US trained paramedic with licenses in Austria, Germany and the US.