Search and rescue has entered College Station. This week, teams from South America to New Jersey have made a trip to Disaster City for the week-long 2025 IRECA/TEEX Annual Conference and Challenges. Here, emergency response teams compete in real-life search and rescue scenarios that help them hone in on life-saving skills and show them where areas of improvement may be necessary.
This week is action packed for competitors with challenges and sessions — events which target physical fitness, basic life support, first response rescue and technical rescue — ending with a celebratory banquet on Friday, June 20.
The event is spearheaded by International Rescue & Emergency Care Association or IRECAs, Conference Chair Gary Leafblad. Since taking on the role as conference chair in 2002, Leafblad has organized the annual conference, which has taken place in states ranging from California to Florida, and is here in Texas at Disaster City this year.
Marketing manager for Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, or TEEX, Kara Humphreys, expressed her excitement of the growing relationship between IRECA and TEEX.
“We love having IRECA host their challenge and conference… here at Disaster City,” Humpreys said. “… We’re really proud of our facilities. We provide training props that are as realistic as being, you know, on a real disaster scene. So we’re giving them the best, you know, training facility for this event.”
The facilities at Disaster City are what has drawn IRECA back for its fifth conference in College Station. The challenges the event offers help response teams prepare for scenarios and teach them how to handle emergencies in real time.
“… Anything that, you know, people can go on the ropes, they have to be able to be prepared for it,” Leafblad said. “I can sit and throw free throws a hundred times, but put me in a game… and then all of a sudden it’s like ‘wow,’ you know you got the fans, you got people yelling at you, screaming at you. And in this case, lives are in it and can be at stake.”
The events seen in the competitions attempt to simulate real-life scenarios. Patients — painted with dirt and fake blood — lie waiting for the teams to come to their rescue. Seasoned competition veteran Kris Pollio, who represents Chevron Phillips Chemical, knows all-to-well how the competitions can translate into the real world.
“We’re fortunate to get some good training, to be able to come out here and do these scenarios,” Pollio said. “You know, they set up some scenarios that could be what we see back at home. I love putting everybody in a position where we can learn and grow together, you know, to become a stronger team.”
Since taking over as conference chair in 2002, Leafblad has seen his own fair share of both challenges and innovations that have helped shape the conference’s over 70-year history. One of which was adding a youth team to the conference mix.
“… We have one team, which is a youth team from a high school program,” Leafblad said. “… They’ll be competing, just, you know, right with these guys. So it’s really quite amazing what they’re doing. It’s testing their skills and preparing them.”
But the competitions — between vets or rookies — aren’t just about training. It’s about community.
Each year, IRECA encourages competitors to bring their families to the week-long competition. This year, all attendees are staying in the Stella Hotel where they go to sessions together and join their families in camaraderie.
“We encourage family members to come because it is so long,” Leafblad said. “You know, a lot of these families, they already know that, you know, dad, mom, they do this and this our vacation. They come and hang out with us just like everything else.”
While the competitions are serious, the atmosphere at the Stella is the opposite — laid back and filled with the sounds of everybody catching up, year after year.
“You don’t realize the camaraderie that comes and the communication that often happens between all the teams, too,” Leafblad said. “I mean, they know, right now, it’s all serious… but you know, come tonight, they’re gonna sit back and they’re gonna laugh and joke. I’ve always said it’s kind of like the old movie, you know, same time next year; every year you come back.”
