The Elite Challenge: SCDF’s DART Selection

21km route march

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) recently collaborated with Straits times RazorTV to produce the first local webTV reality series entitled The Elite Challenge. Styled like the acclaimed US reality series Survivor and Boot Camp, 10-episode The Elite Challenge featured 18 Emergency Response Specialists who are regular fire fighters from different fire stations in Singapore going through 8 rounds of tedious and challenging tests in 28 hours to be selected in DART.

 

Breaking a brick wall using a chisel and a mallet

The Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) is an elite specialised vocation in the Singapore Civil Defence Force, formed in 1990 to handle complex rescue and fire fighting incidents, such as urban search and rescue; prolonged fire fighting; height and confined space operations; and water rescue. DART members form the bulk of SCDF members dispatched overseas for search and rescue operations. In October 2005, a 44-member contingent was sent to Pakistan to help in the relief and rescue operations following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The DART also assisted in the rescue operations in Bandar Aceh, Indonesia during the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that claimed almost 150,000 lives. Their most recent overseas stint was the relief and rescue operations following the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, where a 55-member contingent was sent to China.

7 km run

The first test DART selection candidates have to complete is a 7-km run through Lim Chu Kang cemetery in 50 minutes with their backpacks loaded with operational equipment, weighing about 5kg. After the run, candidates will undergo the standard DART Breathing Apparatus Endurance test, which involves uncoiling of hoses, pitching a ladder, hauling the hoses and recovering everything to its original location, within a cruel nine minutes.

Hidayah, the only female candidate

The Heat and Humidity test comes next. Candidates have to carry a dummy on a stretcher up and down the furnace staircase, before moving to a high temperature room to carry out tasks that test their mental awareness. For those who made it through, the next task is to carry the dummies and loaded jerry cans across a 21-km route. The candidates have to proceed to the Mandai Training Village next, to break through a bricked wall, armed with only a chisel and a mallet, to force an opening wide enough for entry. With fatigue setting in, the candidates have to endure further test components that include the standard DART skills such as rappelling and confined space rescue.

Rappelling

Dart selection candidates that passed all the tests would have to undergo a seven-week course before they become full-fledged (and super fit) DART Specialists.

So do check out The Elite Challenge series at RazorTV.

 The episodes will be uploaded to http://www.razortv.sg/site/servlet/segment/main/lifestyle/Elite_Challenge/ on a weekly basis, starting from 19 August 2009.