Swiftwater & Flood Rescue Technicion (SRT)
For those wanting to work in swiftwater
The Swiftwater and Flood Rescue Technician (SRT) course complies with Defra Module 3 content requirements, and for many years has been seen as the benchmark training course for swiftwater and flood rescue teams. This training course is intended for personnel who may be required to carry out rescues in a swiftwater and flood environment, including emergency services personnel and mountain rescue teams.
This course is run over 4 days.
Accredited by Rescue 3 Europe
Swiftwater & Flood Rescue Technicion (SRT)
The Course & Who its for!
Course content includes
- Rescue 3 philosophy
- Training standards
- Best practice guidelines for water rescue
- Hydrology and water hazards
- Floodwater dynamics and hazards
- Flood theory
- Personal equipment
- Technical and team equipment
- Pre-planning
- Risk assessments
- Incident size-up
- Incident management and site control
- Medical and decontamination considerations
- Considerations for night/poor visibility operations
- Mud, ice and unstable surface considerations
- Introduction to searching rivers and floods
- Helicopter familiarisation
- Communications
- Weir (low head dam) rescue considerations
- Introduction to rescues from vehicles in water
- Animal rescue considerations
- Swiftwater swimming techniques
- Strainer swim
- Conditional rescues – talk, reach, throw
- Shallow water techniques
- Tethered boat techniques
- Tensioned diagonals
- Line crossing methods
- Belay systems
- True rescues – tethered
- People and equipment entrapments
- Casualty management
- Knots and anchor systems
- Tensioning systems and mechanical advantages
- Inflated fire hose (if used by agency)
- Introduction to paddle boat handling (if used by agency)
- Boat unwrapping (if used by agency)
- Flips and rights (if used by agency)
Course Dates 2026
Dates Coming soon!
Email info@medicalwatersafety.co.uk to express interest.
Locations
This first part of the course is run from our base at Harleyford Marina on the River Thames. We use a number of islands around Hurley were we also have 4 weirs. Depending on water levels the last 2 days of the course may be run on the Welsh border but this will always be communicted before hand.
Pre-Requests
Before enrolling on this course, participants must:
✔ Be confident swimmers
✔ Be at least 18 years old
✔ Have a basic level of fitness to complete practical exercises