After going up halfway up the steep slope, the stretcher finds itself blocked by the branches of a young oak tree, with on board a volunteer playing the role of a man injured during a canyoning accident on the small river. which flows at the bottom of the gorge, about twenty meters downstream.
“We’re not in a garden center here! The team leader has to read the relief,” complains Captain Guy Pourchot, 46 years old, including 29 in the firefighters and 11 at the head of the National Center rescue training in dangerous and mountain environments (SMPM), heir to the Reconnaissance and Intervention Group in Dangerous Environments (GRIMP).
Despite this error of judgment, the intransigent captain does not intervene and lets the apprentices tow the stretcher as best they can to the path overlooking the valley. “I only want excellence”, for the well-being of the people rescued, he pleads to AFP.
“They have to realize for themselves that they should have proceeded differently, placed the zip line a little further away,” explains Guy Pourchot, examining the details of the device in place with binoculars, in order to check its compliance with the rules developed by this center, unique in France, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in October.
The four men and the young woman, sweating since the beginning of the morning under the sun, are part of the fifteen firefighters-rescuers who arrived in Florac at the beginning of June to train for 10 days in command.
If they validate their certificate, they will be able to lead teams operating in a difficult natural environment, such as river gorges, but also in an urban environment, at the top of a crane or in a mine gallery for example.
Each year, more than 300 trainees, from France or abroad, join this “school of chefs” located at the exit of this small tourist town in the Cévennes massif, nestled in the hollow of a valley almost two hours drive from Nîmes.
While the first team packs up their equipment, Nicolas Audren, a professional firefighter in Brest, directs another exercise by voice and whistle, a few hundred meters further on, under the interested gaze of hikers walking along the famous path of Stevenson which runs along the points selected that day by the firefighters for their maneuvers.
After a final check of the positioning of the pulleys and carabiners, the tension of the ropes and the stability of the stem, the team leader of the day says in a firm voice: “Come on guys… Traction!”
Pulled by an electric winch and supported by a rescuer all along the slope, the stretcher this time managed to extract itself from the ravine without any problems.
“I have been a team rescuer for around ten years and I wanted to take on more responsibility. It is also a questioning of knowing what to do when traditional means have not been able to respond,” explains the 43-year-old firefighter, convinced that these techniques have their place on the coast and in the forests of Brittany.
Beyond the organization of sometimes very specific advanced training courses – rescue in trees, in amusement parks, on high-voltage lines or in prisons – the Florac training center also has a function of monitors the development of technologies, particularly those linked to artificial intelligence, and updates the doctrines applied nationally by Civil Security.
Also called upon to intervene on the ground, locally or abroad, during natural disasters, these rescue specialists in perilous environments regularly carry out “international educational and expertise actions”, as evidenced by memories from China , from Colombia or Tajikistan which sit in a window in Captain Pourchot’s office.
