Top European Award for Cork Red Cross team

The Cork team including Anne Vaughan, Deirdre Brosnan, Mary Keogh, Cecily Lyons, Aileen Murphy and Padraig O'Connor beat the UK into second place. Austria came third and Germany came fourth.

The winners, who beat off strong competition from 23 other teams from all over Europe, returned to Ireland on Sunday, 1st September.

FACE, one of the biggest international events in the Red Cross calendar includes team from all over Europe. The teams are judged on their ability to access, manage and deliver First Aid in a variety of different scenarios including a car crash, motorbike crash, collision with a pedestrian and other accidents.

This is the fifth time in eleven years of the event that the Irish Red Cross has taken the top prize.

The Irish Red Cross Dublin Borough team came third in a special Mini FACE, a competition organised this year for the teams who were registered for FACE 2001 in Macedonia, which was cancelled.

Mr. David Andrews, Chairman of the Irish Red Cross congratulated the Cork and Dublin teams and said they did the organisation and the country proud.

"This is a great honour for Ireland and the Irish Red Cross and I congratulate the team members for their hard work and commitment. As well as their personal achievements, they have promoted a very important life skill, First Aid. By having these skills everybody has the ability to save a life," he said.

FACE provides a forum where participating organisations can exchange information and experiences and compare the methods and standards of first aid training.

The main role of the convention is to strengthen the co-operation between the individual societies and to harmonise training and procedure in First Aid. The European First Aid Convention started in 1987 when the German Red Cross invited other European societies to participate in a First Aid Competition.

The 23 teams that participated in FACE 2002 included Ireland, Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Italy, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands (2 teams), Slovenia, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

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