Named the winner of the 2025 Intercollegiate Mine Emergency Rescue Growth competitors held Feb. 17-21 on the Colorado College of Mines in Golden, Colorado, the workforce of Statler Faculty consultants and eight college students from a number of disciplines now boasts three consecutive worldwide victories together with 4 nationwide wins.
9 groups from america, Canada and Germany competed on this 12 months’s worldwide competitors.
“Overall, our team performed incredibly well. Our biggest strengths are that we work hard in practice and train for the unexpected,” mentioned Hansen, workforce briefing officer and a mechanical engineering pupil from Westlake, Ohio. “As a team, we also utilize each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses. We prioritize working together like a well-oiled machine.”
At this 12 months’s competitors, the WVU Mine Rescue Group earned first place in 4 classes: the workforce mine rescue train, the smoke maze, the person BG-4 bench and the person 240-R bio bench. These victories secured their third consecutive general champion title.
“We continue to prove that consistent practice and old-fashioned hard work produces results,” Brady mentioned. “The team works like an in-shape human body — each member has different responsibilities, and they have again demonstrated working together as one is unbeatable.”
The workforce mine rescue and smoke maze workout routines occurred within the underground Edgar Experimental Mine. College students have been tasked with navigating a smoke maze and finding lacking miners, administering first assist and performing a high-angle rope rescue to save lots of a simulated miner stranded 30 ft within the air.
Anticipating this problem, workforce members Shilling and Rice earned rope rescue technician certifications through the summer season as a part of the workforce’s rigorous preparations. This problem supplied essentially the most practical mine rescue expertise that almost all workforce members will encounter of their careers.
The WVU Mine Rescue Group didn’t simply win this class — the workforce was the one one to position since different groups exceeded the train’s time restrict.
“We spent months training three days a week at 6 a.m., plus an additional week-long emergency response first aid course,” Hansen mentioned. “We challenged ourselves by practicing different medical triage and underground mine rescue scenarios.”
The person bench challenges examined workforce members’ capability to troubleshoot points with respiration apparatuses generally worn by mine rescue groups. Whereas teamwork is essential, particular person dedication performed a key function in dominating these classes, as Waybright secured the BG-4 bench and Stengel received the 240-R bio bench.
Within the last class — first assist — groups responded to a simulated mine explosion, managing the emergency and helping actors portraying victims. WVU positioned second on this train.
“The entire team stepped up when needed and we all worked together. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” mentioned Waybright, workforce captain and a mining engineering main from Parkersburg. “These challenges not only tested us mentally, but physically as well. All five of us underground persevered through everything that was thrown at us, and we were able to make decisions that won us the competition.”
Greater than a prestigious title, participation in occasions like this one supplies college students with priceless, real-world experiences which may’t be discovered wherever else.
“The skills I have learned in these competitions have prepared me to work under pressure with a team and as an individual. All of us utilize our strengths to come together to solve our competition problems efficiently and effectively,” Hansen mentioned. “In terms of career preparation, we have learned how to show up early in the morning consistently, how to solve problems on the fly and how to communicate and collaborate under pressure.”
Brady mentioned the competitors can also be in regards to the networking and connections college students make on a world degree.
“The competition exposes our students to different cultures, methods and problem-solving approaches,” he mentioned. “Each team member has made lifelong friends from around the world, sharing experiences that will influence them as engineering students and professionals.”
Editor’s Be aware: High photograph reveals the WVU Mine Rescue Group, based mostly on the Benjamin M. Statler Faculty of Engineering and Mineral Sources through the 2025 Intercollegiate Mine Emergency Rescue Growth competitors on the Colorado College of Mines in Golden, Colorado. (WVU Picture/Josh Brady). Second photograph reveals members of the WVU Mine Rescue workforce competing within the workforce underground mine rescue class, which concerned the excessive angle rescue of a miner about 30 ft within the air, through the 2025 Intercollegiate Mine Emergency Rescue Growth competitors in Golden, Colorado.(WVU Picture/Josh Brady).
