Cave Rescue Training, 14 - 22 September 2013, Paklenica, Croatia

Cave rescue Training - 2013 was jointly organized by Croatian mountain rescue service - Commission for speleological rescue with the support of the Croatian National Protection and Rescue Directorate and by Cave rescue Service of Slovenia in the frame of DPPI SEE.

This training was already the fifth in the row. The first training was organized in 2009 in Montenegro, then in 2010 in Macedonia, in 2011 in Bulgaria and in 2012 in Slovenia. All together there were more than 100 participants from DPPI SEE member countries trained in cave rescue techniques.

Slovenian cave rescue service and Croatian mountain rescue service made an important in 2012 by applying for European funds whereby these were awarded the funds for the implementation of the European project EU Proteus (ending in December 2013. Within the project PROTEUS a large-scale exercise PARADANA 2013 was carried out in Slovenia (August 2013). In this exercise all civil protection units worked together in a scenario of an accident that occurred in the cave deep about five hundred meters. Also 150 caving rescuers from Slovenia and Croatia were participating in the exercise. The evaluators assessed the exercise as a very well implemented.

The DPPI SEE Cave rescue training was attended by 20 (twenty) cavers from: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Slovenia.

Responsible instructors: Ales Cedilnik and Marko Zibelnik from Training center for civil protection and disaster relief of Slovenija; Walter Zakrajšek , Aleš S. Stražar,  Marko Erkar and Bernard Štiglic from Cave rescue service of Slovenia and Ljubo Majica and Ivica Ćukošić  of  Croatian mountain rescue service .