ANYONE passing could have been forgiven for thinking firefighters were in the middle of a real daring rescue.

Inching along a zipwire with a casualty on a stretcher, crews bustled around a crane in the middle of a Kidlington building site.

But rather than an injured builder, the person on the stretcher was in fact a dummy and Saturday’s ‘call-out’ was a just training exercise for firefighters at Kidlington Fire Station.

Developers McCarthy and Stone are starting to build 31 new flats in The Rookery and the crane provided the perfect opportunity for a crew of six firefighters to test out their skills in a mock rescue.

Crew manager for Red Watch Mark Oddi said the practise run gave firefighters the chance to make sure they could deal with an emergency at the building site should one occur.

Mr Oddi added: “With construction now under way on the development in Kidlington, as the local fire and rescue team we need to ensure that we can act quickly to secure the safety of workers on site in the unlikely event that a rescue situation arises during construction.”

The new development, called Heron Place, will include housing for elderly people, featuring a landscaped garden and 24-hour emergency call points. The first residents are due to move in by spring 2016.