Lambton College's Firefighter Combat Team is coming off a very impressive showing at the FireFit Western Ontario Regionals in Port Elgin this past weekend.
Captain Courtney Surridge and MacKenzie Baker set a Canadian women's college record in the tandem event with a time of 2:30.
Teammates Rachel Hunchak and Paige Herron placed second.
Surridge also came fourth in the women's competition with a personal best time of 3:03.
"It was a good feeling," says Surridge. "I just really want to sub three minutes and I know that's going to come, we'll just hope for next competition I'll be able to maybe place in the top three, that would be awesome.
"It's definitely hard when you're up against full time firefighters, women in their 30s who have been doing this for a long time."
Surridge says firefighters are competing in full gear with breathing masks.
"You lift a 45 lbs hose pack over your shoulder and you run up 10 flights of stairs," she says. "You then throw the hose pack into a bin and hoist up a 45 lbs donut roll, with your gloves on you lose a bit of grip strength so it feels like 90 lbs. You come running down the stairs, hop onto the kaiser which simulates 500 lbs of force.
"You run around some cones, grab a charged hose line, do a straight run, open it up and hit a target. Then you have to carry a dummy, the fun part."
The men's relay team (Kyle Couture, Jarod Adams, Jordan Cuthbertson, Connor Hannenburg and Anthony Wesley-James) won gold in the open category, beating Fleming College in the final showdown.
They also took home the gold medal in the college division.
These wins put the Lambton College team in contention for a visit to the National Championships in Spruce Meadows Alberta September 14 through 18.
