The $6000 mannikin was part of training exercises in extracting people from crashed vehicles, New Zealand Fire Service trainer Dean Ligtenburg said.
‘‘We had a few hours of theory [on Saturday] before getting them out to deal with a number of different scenarios, including T-bone accidents, cars wrapped around poles and this, which is the most difficult - a car upside down between two trees,'' he said.
The exercise to get Rescue Randy from a car wedged between two trees off Glenorchy road took about 40 minutes, while the firefighters removed the seats and then used hydraulic rams to make space to get him out.
They had to get through to the front of the vehicle from the back because the trees pinned the doors shut.
Mr Ligtenburg said firefighters aimed to get a person out in 20 minutes from the time they arrived.
He told them that even when there was no sign of life they had to do whatever they could for the victim until told to stop by paramedics.
The exercises were as real as possible, requiring the help of tow-truck drivers, wreckers and the other emergency services.
‘‘A lot of people have given up their weekends to do this,'' Mr Ligtenburg said.
As well as learning from the specific situations they had encountered over the weekend, Mr Ligtenburg said the firefighters also learned how to assess events and come up with alternative solutions if necessary.
‘‘If something isn't working they have to be able to say ‘stop, let's try this another way', rather than continue down the wrong track.''
