Centennial Coal's Clarence won overall honours at the Western Mines Rescue competition on Friday, August 23.
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The team, which overcame five rivals to take the title, will now go on to represent the district at the Australian Mines Rescue competition, which will be held near Mudgee in October.
Lithgow teams topped the comp, with Airly mine named runners-up.
Six teams came to together to compete from across the western mining districts, which includes Lithgow, Mudgee and Ulan. The regional final was held at Centennial Coal's Angus Place Colliery.
Teams tackled a number of emergency and rescue situations including underground search and rescue, monitoring, managing confined space hazards, fire-fighting and first aid, as well as theoretical and competency-based skills and technical challenge tests.
"The primary purpose of Mines Rescue is to provide emergency response to the industry in the case of an emergency," Mines Rescue general manager Wayne Green said.
"Our mines rescue competitions aim to be as realistic as possible to really test the skills of our brigades in high pressure situations.
"We are fortunate that today our industry is focused on safe work practices and the need to respond to incidents is infrequent. Our specialised mines rescue training not only prepares brigades to respond if needed, but equips them with the skills to provide safety leadership at site every day."
Mr Green said that a great deal of preparation and organisation went into the competitions and thanked Centennial Coal for partnering with Western Mines Rescue in hosting the event at the Angus Place mine.
Clarence team captain Tony Della Bosca said the win was an unexpected surprise.
"I really didn't expect it [the win]. It's been three years since Clarence had a win," he said.
"I've enjoyed being with mines rescue for 23 years and this is my second year as captain. We've got some new team members and some have been with the team for a while.
"We made a lot of mistakes but as I said to the guys, make them. If the time comes, we won't make those mistakes again."
"As a team, we've enjoyed the day and I think it showed."
Mine rescue brigade enrolment is voluntary for mine workers and there are 108 brigade members in the western district.
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