//------------------------------//
// Into The Depths 
// Story: Report From Rescue Company 1 
// by BRBrony9 
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The squirrel cage was steadily lowered away by the crane operator, into the mouth of the shaft. Two Pegasi from Ladder 7 and two from Squad 18 flapped down carefully alongside the cage, to provide additional ponypower in the rescue operations, and also to help guide the cage around potential obstacles. Everypony wore their air tanks and had their masks at the ready position; they could be pulled into place at a moment's notice in case of adverse conditions. One of the Pegasi carried a multi-gas detector, and Oak Wood monitored an explosimeter. The forepony and the civilian rescue team had informed the fireponies that conditions in the shaft were not dangerous to life and health, and there were no explosives or chemicals present, but an abundance of caution was always vital in the fire service. The oxygen concentration and the presence of any hazardous gases had to be monitored at all times when in a confined space, especially when that confined space dropped five hundred feet into the bowels of the earth. 

Many times would-be rescuers, especially civilians who were untrained and unprotected, would go in to a ship's hold or the interior of a storage tank or container to try and help a fallen worker, thinking they had succumbed to a heart attack or had taken a fall, only to find that the concentration of some toxic gas was high enough, or the oxygen content of the air low enough, to knock them out in the same way as the pony they were trying to save. Despite their training, the same condition could still affect fireponies, but in this case the evidence was clear enough that conditions were survivable with no danger to health, at least at the moment. The fact that things could change at a moment's notice meant that it was important to be prepared.

As the cage dropped lower, it passed through the mist, thick and cloying fog being given off by the waste heat of the reaction from setting cement. Ember Blaze looked around, trying to peer through it to locate any sign of the surviving workers. They came down lower, and lower, and lower. The descent seemed to last for eternity, taking them farther from the source of light and the only indication of the surface. They were deep now, deeper than the subway lines and utility tunnels that fed the city with its various vital services.

'You're at 200ft down.' Chief Firebrand carried a walkie talkie that linked with the construction company's own radio net, as well as his fire department issue radio, keeping them in contact with the surface. The crane operator was lowering them steadily and monitoring the radio, giving them depth updates. As the steam cleared for a moment, the Pegasi were able to see the elevator through the fog. Firebrand called for a halt, and the cage stopped moving. The Pegasi flapped over to the elevator car. Several of the lifting cables had been mangled, and the front of the car itself had been crushed by something, presumably the falling winch. The Pegasi searched the car, but found it empty. Nopony was in there.

Firebrand ordered the descent to resume. At 250ft down they passed the maintenance catwalk where the civilian rescue team had located and extracted the trio of rescuers. But there were five others who needed help, and the squirrel cage continued down. The Pegasi gave the cage an occasional nudge from the outside when it threatened to get caught on protruding rebar. From time to time, damage was visible as a result of the tumbling winch, which had clearly bounced off of several points as it plummeted down. 

'400ft down,' the crane operator informed them over the crackly radio link. The lower they got, the less reliable the communications became, but then there was a shout from one of the Pegasi. 'Hey, I hear something! Fire department, call out!'

'We're over here! Hey, over here!' came a reply from below the fog. The cage continued on for a few more feet, and then they found themselves below the level where the cement had been applied, and thus below the fog. Now they could finally see, albeit to a limited degree. Their flashlights cut across the gloom and revealed another catwalk that ringed the shaft. Three ponies were crouching upon it, unable to climb up any farther for two reasons. The ladder above them had been smashed by the falling debris, and now hung precariously out into the void, torn away from the rock wall it had been bolted into. The other thing keeping them in place was that one of the stallions had an obviously broken hind leg, twisted out at an unnatural angle. The two other workers were supporting him, keeping him warm with their high visibility jackets.

'Cage to surface, stop stop stop,' Firebrand ordered, and the cage halted. 'Alright, Swing right...' The crane rotated, moving the cage slowly toward the catwalk. 'A little more...stop, stop, stop!' The cage was now resting against the edge of the catwalk so that rescue of the trapped ponies could be effected, but the injured stallion called out to the fireponies. 

'Not us, forget about us! Down there!' He tried to gesture, but couldn't from his sedentary position. One of the other ponies pointed down. 

'Down there! He's hanging from the pipe!'

Firebrand ordered the Pegasi to search below, and they quickly flapped down below the cage. There, another twenty or thirty feet lower down, they found another stallion, evidently having been knocked from the catwalk and now clinging to a damaged section of piping like a sloth holding onto a tree branch, all four limbs wrapped around the pipe which, like the ladder above them, was hanging out over the hundred foot drop to the bottom of the shaft. The pipe formed part of a pumping system which was meant to allow the construction company to keep the horizontal tunnel free of water as much as possible.

The Pegasi surrounded him and quickly took firm hold of him, assuring him that he would be fine and inducing him to let go of the pipe. 'We'll get him to the surface, Chief!' the two Pegasi from Ladder 7 called, both holding firmly on to the stallion and taking him up together. Firebrand nodded. 'That makes seven...where's the eighth?' He turned to the trio of fireponies on the catwalk. 'Do any of you know where your colleague is? We've rescued four ponies, and you make a total of seven. I was told there were eight workers down here.'

'Yeah!' They all nodded. 'Persimmon is down there. She was right at the bottom of the shaft!' one of them explained. 'She was guiding the lowering of the cement form into position. We tried calling out to her but we haven't heard anything. She had the walkie-talkie on her, that's why we weren't able to call the surface for help.'

Firebrand nodded. He activated the construction company's walkie-talkie and spoke into it. 'Persimmon, this is the fire department. Can you hear me?'

The connection with the surface, even during the regular operation of the tunnel, was patchy at best, but from most of the way down the shaft the signal to Persimmon's radio would be much clearer. If she was able to activate hers, then they would know she was alive. But there was no reply. Firebrand tried again several times. He then tried holding down the transmit button for a few seconds. If her radio was switched on and intact, which it most likely was given that she had been using it to communicate with the forepony during the lowering process, then it was possible that Firebrand or one of the other fireponies would be able to hear the sound of the open carrier being broadcast from Persimmon's walkie-talkie, and use it like a beacon to guide them down to her. Again, there was no sound from below.

'Alright. Let's get these guys moved,' Firebrand ordered. 'We'll get them to the surface and then come back down. You two, get those two up,' he added to the two Pegasi from Squad 18, gesturing for them to move the uninjured victims. 'Bring down a splint, too. We'll get you loaded on, buddy,' he addressed the injured pony. He couldn't be carried with his injured leg safely; the best way to get him out would be to splint the leg and move him up in the cage. The fireponies of Rescue 1 moved out onto the catwalk to create room for the victims. Firebrand didn't want too many ponies on the catwalk, as its integrity was in doubt, but somepony had to help the injured worker move. Oak Wood and High Line were assigned the task, as they were Pegasi and could take to their wings if necessary. They stepped out gingerly, testing the metal under their hooves and clipping their emergency life-saving ropes onto the metal handrail, which was separately fastened with sturdy bolts to the rock wall of the unfinished shaft. They then tied the other ends around the injured pony, so that, if the catwalk were to give way, he would be held in place by the ropes until they could grab him. Normally the life saving rope was reserved for extricating a firepony from a roof or window when threatened by fire conditions and having no other way out, but in this particular instance, attaching themselves to the railing would have actually caused potential danger; if High Line and Oak Wood were attached to their ropes and the catwalk collapsed, they would have a limited reach before the ropes reached full extension, meaning they might not be able to successfully grab and rescue the worker should he start to fall. The end of the catwalk had been carried away by the falling winch, where it had dropped onto the pipe below and knocked it loose, which was how the other worker had found himself in his precarious position.

Oak Wood and High Line checked over the injured pony, looking for any other serious injuries but finding nothing other than a couple of minor scrapes. His leg was the issue, and it was clearly broken. Neither of them were paramedics, though they were trained in first aid like any other firepony, and both agreed that the best thing to do was wait for the splint, get it on, and load him onto the squirrel cage for transport to the surface. The four Pegasi returned after a couple of minutes, with the splint for the victim, and he was packaged up, grunting in pain but enduring his predicament. Room was made for him in the middle of the cage, and he was carried on.

'Cage to surface, lift us up,' Firebrand ordered once the door was secured. 'You six take a flight down to the bottom of the tunnel and get searching for the last victim.' The Cage went up, and the Pegasi went down, accompanied by High Line and Oak Wood. Firebrand tried to relay a progress report to the surface, but found that his department radio just crackled with interference. The rest of the Rescue accompanied the worker to the surface, where the crane operator swung the cage onto solid ground once more. Paramedics were waiting to treat and transport the victim, and Firebrand stepped off of the cage. 

The construction site was abuzz with activity. Fireponies and medics swarmed over the area, the avenue outside the gate clogged with apparatus. Most of the units assigned on the 10-60 signal had arrived while the Rescue had been operating underground, including their counterparts from Rescue 2 in Hooflyn, which had responded along with their collapse rig, a second vehicle filled with lumber, cribbing and other tools for dealing with major collapses or cave-ins. Every Rescue had one in their quarters, but it took time to crew it and start it up, especially if the Rescue was not in quarters at the time. That was why the first Rescue assigned would usually respond by themselves in order to get specialist resources on the scene as quickly as possible, and the second Rescue assigned for a major incident would bring their collapse unit.

Ember Blaze found his brother, and exchanged a nod and a smile to show that he was alright. Dawn and his company were now standing around uselessly; Firebrand had assigned them as a first aid unit, but there were now enough paramedics on scene to deal with all of the victims themselves, leaving Engine 25 idle. Chief Misty Morning approached Firebrand.

'That's seven. Eighth victim still down there?' she asked, and he nodded.

'The other workers confirmed it. They said one worker, Persimmon, was right at the base of the shaft when the winch fell. I tried contacting her on the construction company radio and using an open carrier, but I got nothing back. I have Pegasi from the Rescue, Squad 18 and Ladder 7 conducting a search. I'll take the rest of Rescue back down, with your permission.'

'Very good. Carry on, Chief,' she replied curtly with a nod. 'If you need any more resources down there, let me know.'

'Will do, Chief,' Firebrand replied. He headed back to the cage and climbed on board. 'Alright, there's still one victim down there. We need to find her,' he informed the Rescue. A brief word to the crane operator, and they were swung out over the hole again, beginning their second trip into the depths. This time at the four hundred foot mark, they continued on instead of stopping. The lower they got, the darker it got, as the light from the surface receded still farther. Looking down through the metal grille that formed the floor of the cage, the flashlights of the searching Pegasi could be seen, sweeping the shaft and the tunnel that it connected to.

'Battalion 9 to Rescue Irons. How's it look down there, Oak?' Firebrand asked over the radio. Irons referred to the riding position of Oak Wood on this tour; the Rescue named positions in the same way as a Ladder Company would. meaning a full crew consisted of the Officer, Chauffeur, and four other positions. There was the Irons, so named because they carried the forcible entry tools at a fire; the OV, or Outside Vent, whose task at a blaze was to ventilate the building from the exterior; the Roof pony, who did the same thing but from the place that his assignment name implied; and the Can, who carried a large pressurised water extinguisher which shared the same nickname and would be used to extinguish small fires or contain larger ones until a hose line could be stretched.

'Rescue Irons to Battalion 9. Searches are underway. We've cleared the shaft and it's negative there. We're checking the tunnel now, Chief,' Oak Wood replied.

'Battalion 9, 10-4. We're almost down with you,' Firebrand replied. 

'10-4, Chief. Be advised there's about, uh...I'd estimate ten feet of water at the bottom of the tunnel, K,' Oak Wood informed them. 'We may need to set up for a dive operation.'

'Alright, 10-4...' Firebrand switched radios as they were nearing the bottom of the shaft. 'Cage to surface, stop stop stop.'

The cage continued to move, and he repeated his call. 'Cage to surface, stop stop stop...' Still nothing.

'Can't they hear us?' Flagstaff questioned with a frown. 'Hey, if they keep lowering away we're gonna go straight into that water, Chief!'

'Cage to surface, stop, stop, stop!' Firebrand repeated, slowly and deliberately, while the cage continued to descend. If the cage went into the water...firepony turnout gear was not buoyant, and a pony weighed down with their gear and air tank could not swim. Their masks were not rated for underwater operations, although, theoretically, they could do so down to a depth of perhaps twelve feet before the external pressure overcame the relatively weak diaphragm. While fireponies worked with water every day, falling into it was not something they ever wanted to do.

Luckily, this time the signal got through, and the cage slowed to a halt a few feet above the surface, just above a catwalk that ran along the side of the tunnel. The Pegasi were continuing their search, scanning from side to side and moving in a regular pattern, looking for Persimmon. Firebrand and the Rescue joined them. The tunnel stretched far to the east, into Hooflyn eventually, but it was not a river. It did not have a tidal flow, and it was unlikely that Persimmon had been washed away. The other end of the tunnel terminated in a wall of solid rock which had yet to be blasted. She had to be somewhere in the area of the base of the shaft, and the whole area appeared to be clear.

The remains of the winch which had dropped all the way from the surface lay below the water, a big hunk of metal with strands of cabling hanging loosely, draped from protuberances near the bottom of the shaft where they had caught during the fall. The water was dirty, tainted with various construction debris, but the Rescue had brought along their thermal imaging camera in case anypony was trapped out of view. Blaze scanned the tunnel with it, from the end all the way up to the winch, and there, he saw something that stood out against the cool water and concrete.

'Chief! I have something,' he called, and Firebrand trotted over to check it out, nodding and getting on his radio, though unsure if Misty Morning could receive his signal from such a significant depth.

'Battalion 9 to command. We have located the final victim, K.'

Blaze shook his head sadly. This was no longer a rescue. It was a recovery.