This article is our tribute to the volunteer fire brigades!
Because as soon as a person is in distress on or in the water, or is even missing, they move out: the fire brigades. Rivers and lakes are divided into areas of responsibility. Remarkably, well over 90% of fire brigades in Germany are made up of men and women volunteers!
As inland waterway skippers, water is our element. We are also dependent on the fire brigades in an emergency. To support the education and training of these courageous people, we have made a donation towards the purchase of SAR Darwin for the Niederalteich volunteer fire brigade.
Darwin is a sonar training dummy that enables fire brigades to search for people in the water in a realistic way. The manikin is 1.70 metres tall and thanks to the special foams used, it reflects human-like images for the echo sounder. The dummy can be adjusted for different water depths so that both floating people and people lying on the bottom can be located with greater certainty.
“The Darwin dummy is a big step forward for training,” confirms Michael Messert, Commander of the Niederalteich fire brigade.
Our thanks today go to all the firefighters for their tireless efforts!