Pictures of the USAR MPV vehicle at Mallory Park in Leicestershire

Excert
"A vast number of trench’s are constructed every day throughout the country with a low percentage of failures occurring. It is however important due to the complex nature of the potential rescues that we are correctly informed and prepared.
So what is a trench? The definition given by The Trenching Practice carried out on behalf of CIRIA is “an excavation forming a structure as a result of digging, lifting and removing earth, fill or other materials from the ground. The purpose of which may be to form foundations, install services, drainage etc”
A trench by law need not be supported as long as the depth does not exceed 1.2m, the ground is self supporting and a safe working method can be employed. Over 1.2m alternatives to trenching should be considered and a suitable support system designed by an experienced person should be
employed.

In a study of fatal accidents in trench’s in the period 1973 – 1980 it showed that:

63% of deaths were due to unsupported excavations
20% of deaths were due to working ahead of the support system
14% of deaths were due to inadequate support systems

I have added some photos of a recent MPV (multi purpose vehicle) course which can be seen here
These have been provided by the ODPM as part of the UK USAR package, the vehicle is made by Bobcat and is a Toolcat 5600 turbo
The vehicle is proving to be a very versatile tool, its been used at a number incidents involving gaining access to disused building involved in fire where the car parks have blocked off, large skip lorry container fires, to move large amounts of debris following factory fires.