The Fire Departments of the Community of Madrid and the capital's City Council, along with SUMMA 112 and Samur-Civil Protection, recreated a traffic accident rescue scenario this Tuesday in the Puerta del Sol.
This practical exercise served as the presentation for the twentieth edition of the National Meeting on Rescue in Traffic Accidents and Trauma (ENRATT). The event will bring together national specialists at the Madrid Arena until next Friday. The maneuver simulated the extrication of three fictional victims: two drivers trapped in their vehicles and a pedestrian hit by a car, drawing the attention of hundreds of onlookers at the central landmark.
The joint operation depicted the real-time procedures emergency personnel deploy at city borders, aiming to expedite response times in critical road situations. A Joint Action Zone (ZAC) was implemented, a geographically defined area where different emergency services intervene immediately upon arrival, removing administrative jurisdiction hurdles.
Professionals completed the extrication maneuvers in under thirty minutes. The Minister of Environment, Agriculture, and Interior, Carlos Novillo, who witnessed the drill, highlighted that the regional Fire Department responds annually to over 3,000 traffic accidents on Madrid's roads, requiring rescue maneuvers in nearly a thousand instances.
The national event gathers more than twenty units from various autonomous communities, including delegations from Málaga, Tenerife, and Logroño. The winning teams will earn the direct pass to represent Spain at the prestigious international World Rescue Challenge 2026, scheduled for November 18-23 in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
This organizational milestone, co-organized with the Association of Professionals in Rescue in Traffic Accidents (APRAT), celebrates its twentieth anniversary by returning to the capital after a decade of technical evolution and institutional coordination investments.
Meanwhile, the deputy mayor and delegate for Security and Emergencies of the capital, Inma Sanz, emphasized security as an indisputable strategic pillar for the city and praised the dedication of public servants and the removal of logistical barriers enabled by the ZAC protocol. Additionally, the director of the Madrid 112 Security and Emergencies Agency, Pedro Ruiz, lauded the professionals' continuous effort to update their skills against new technologies and designs from automotive manufacturers.
