A FIREFIGHTING team from Hampshire has been crowned the world's best at cutting casualties from car crashes.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue service fought off competition from teams from County Carlow in Ireland and Valencia in Spain to win the World Extrication Champions.

The team also brought home the titles of best overall world extrication team leader, best overall world extrication team medic, and best overall world extrication limited tools challenge.

Not content with that, it claimed second place in the best technical team and best trauma team categories.

Extrication team leader Lee Havey said: “It is absolutely fantastic to take away the winner's title from the World Extrication Challenge.

“We are very confident in our firefighters' abilities when they attend road traffic collisions and now that we have been crowned world champions it just shows what we do, we do very well.”

The Hampshire team consisted of Lee Havey, Steve Morris, Gary Cross, Trevor Griffin, Martin Gritt, Brian Saunders and Paul Jarrett.