It was a fine autumn day, and Rescue Company 1 was parked up on the apron of the firehouse, undergoing a thorough scrub and washdown from its crew. The Engine was out on Building Inspection, or BI, a routine investigation of structures in their first-due response area for any defects or breaches of the fire safety regulations, as well as to note down any unusual conditions or features that would warrant recording in the MFD's dispatch system; things like the presence of hazardous chemicals in a workshop, security bars on windows, extra locks on doors or solar panels on rooftops which could affect the required procedures during a fire or emergency. Another tedious but necessary part of the job, it was conducted by Engines and Ladders in the morning of each weekday, interrupted only if the unit received a call.
The Rescue had seen a relatively quiet shift so far, though it had only begun less than two hours ago. A single call had come in for a run to the Luna Drive for an overturned car, but they had quickly been cancelled once a unit arrived on scene and found there was no entrapment. As a result, Captain Grey Spike had the crew cleaning their rig, stopping occasionally to pose for photos with eager tourists or locals who recognised the most famous fire truck in town. As they worked, however, they received another visitor, this time one that Ember Blaze recognised when he happened to glance up from the door he was waxing.
'Hey! Hey, buddy!' He grinned. 'How are you doing? Hey, everypony, we have a young visitor!'
Blaze and the rest of the crew trotted over, for they were being visited by none other than Sulfur Springs, now riding in a wheelchair pushed by his mother. The young colt they had helped to save after he fell onto the fence outside his apartment building appeared in good spirits, though still unable to walk.
'Hey kid! How are ya feeling, huh? Better, I hope,' Flagstaff smiled and tousled his mane a little, making him blush and smile in reply.
'It's good to see you're out and about, Sulfur,' Captain Grey Spike addressed him.
'He's just a little shy...' his mother replied. 'But he insisted that I bring him down to say thank you to the ponies that rescued him. I called the fire department and explained, and they said that was you here in Rescue 1.'
'It sure was,' Grey Spike nodded. 'We were happy to help. I'm glad we could make a difference, ma'am.'
'Please, call me Licorice Swirl,' she replied. 'And you already know my son.' She smiled. 'Well, go ahead, Sulfur.' She gave him a little nudge.
'Thank you...' Sulfur mumbled, clearly not one for public speaking, even though he had been the one who had apparently suggested the visit. 'Thank you for saving me...I think fireponies are way cooler than cops,' he added, which made everypony laugh.
'Well I'll let you in on a little secret, young stallion,' Grey Spike grinned. 'You're absolutely right.' There was more happy laughter, including from Sulfur himself. While some fireponies tried to distance themselves from their calls and from the victims they saved, in order to maintain balance and objectiveness and not get too hung up on the ones who didn't make it, almost everypony still appreciated the visit or the follow-up phone call from somepony who, quite literally, had been given a second chance at life by their actions. It was always gratifying to hear of a recovery, that somepony was doing well, that they were walking again or back at work or whatever big step they had taken. Sulfur Springs was not alive because of Rescue 1; he was alive because of Rescue 1, Engine 74, Battalion 11, Ambulance 12B, and the surgical team at Meadowbrook Memorial. But the most active role had been performed by the ponies Sulfur and his mother were now thanking, because they had been the ones who had freed him from his temporary prison, and they had been the ones who had helped in the operating room.
'Here, uh...Chief, is it? Captain?' Licorice took something from her purse and held it out to Grey Spike. 'Please, take this.' She held a large wad of money in her hoof, twenty-bit notes. Grey Spike shook his head.
'Captain. Captain Grey Spike. I can't accept this, ma'am. You keep it for yourself. Buy your son something nice.'
'No, no...' Licorice insisted. 'Please, take it. You all deserve it. You could buy yourself a new television for the station or something. There's five hundred bits there, I know it's not much but it's all I can afford. You saved my son's life...'
'And that's all the reward we need, ma'am,' Grey Spike replied, drawing an immediate and sincere round of nodding heads that represented the whole of the Rescue crew. 'Department regulations prevent us from accepting monetary rewards directly, but we wouldn't accept it even if they didn't. It's just good to see that your son is recovering well. If you really want to make a contribution, ma'am, you can send a donation to the MFD's welfare fund, or the burns unit at Meadowbrook Memorial. But I think you should keep it and spend it on yourselves.'
Licorice smiled and sighed, putting her money away. 'Thank you, Captain...gosh, I'm sorry. I must look like some kind of nut, just walking up and trying to give you money. I just...I needed to say thank you. So, thank you. Thank you for all you do, every day. It's not just my son you ponies have saved. You protect everybody who lives in this city, every day. I just...I read about how underpaid our public servants are, and I wanted to try and do a little towards making sure you all got something more.'
'Well, just seeing that your son is up and about is more than enough, ma'am,' Ember Blaze pointed out with a smile. 'He's a real tough cookie.'
Licorice smiled at him. 'You were the one using the saw, weren't you? You cut him free...gosh, I must have looked like an absolute mess. I just couldn't stop crying, and I was convinced you were only going to hurt him more with that noisy thing...I'm sorry I doubted you.'
'No problem, ma'am. Just doing my job,' Blaze replied, returning her smile. 'You rest up well, buddy, ok?' he addressed Sulfur. 'And no more arguments with your mother, you hear? I used to argue with my mom, but one day I realised she was just doing what she thought was best for me. I heard you didn't wanna go to the dentist, is that right?'
'Mhm...' Sulfur nodded.
'Well, neither do I,' Blaze answered. 'Neither does anypony else, right?' He looked to the crew for support, and they all enthusiastically nodded in agreement. 'See? Nopony likes the dentist. But your teeth are important, just like the rest of you. You gotta take good care of them, or you'll end up like my old uncle Coal Tar. All his teeth fell out because he didn't go to the dentist, and he couldn't chew anything! You wouldn't want that, would you?'
Sulfur shook his head.
'So ya gotta go to the dentist once in a while,' Blaze continued. 'But hey, it's cool. You get a lollipop if you do go.'
'And ice cream!' Licorice pointed out. 'I told you I'd buy you ice cream afterward.'
'So whaddya say, buddy? When you get better, are you gonna go to the dentist?' Blaze questioned. 'Are you gonna be good for your mom?'
'Yeah...' Sulfur nodded.
'Good colt.' Blaze grinned, and Licorice smiled at him again.
'Thank you, Mister...?'
'Oh, Blaze. Uh, Ember Blaze,' he replied with a small nod of the head.
'Thank you, Ember...now, we're not getting ice cream, but we are going to go get an early lunch...burgers, you wanted, sweetie?' Licorice asked Sulfur, who nodded eagerly. 'Burgers it is...thank you all for being so kind, and thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, for saving my son.'
'Happy to help, ma'am,' Grey Spike replied. 'You have a nice day now. And get well soon, son!' There was a murmur of approval and agreement, and everypony took turns to say a few inspiring words to the young colt. Before they could finish, however, a noise rang through the firehouse.
Beep-Boop.
'Rescue.'
'Sorry ma'am, looks like we're needed!' Grey Spike informed Licorice. Oak Wood hurried back to the housewatch desk where he was meant to be keeping watch, and read out the ticket.
'Box 7161. Columbine Circle, on the 1 Line. Pony under!'
The crew scrambled to the rig. Blaze turned to call out to Sulfur. 'Hey, buddy! We gotta go now, but you should stick around and watch us. If this doesn't make you wanna be a firepony, nothing will!' He grinned at the son and the mother before climbing up, slamming his door. The rest of the crew mounted up. Fairway hit the lights, then the siren, and with a roar of the engine and a blast of the air horn, Rescue Company 1 pulled out into traffic and began to race north, siren wailing, as Sulfur looked on in awe.
Columbine Circle was one of the few traffic islands in the city, at the bottom left corner of Celestia Park. It was also one of the busiest stations on the subway network, with half a dozen different train services passing through it, including the 1 line. A pony under call meant just that- a pony was under the train. It could happen for any number of reasons; simple accident, a slip or fall, a suicide attempt, a drunken stumble or a malicious push. To the MFD, the cause didn't really matter. What mattered was that a life was at stake, and they had to respond.
The Rescue roared north through moderate traffic, thankful that it was approaching noon and not at the early morning rush hour, when cars and trucks and buses would have been clogging the streets and turning 8th Avenue into something approaching a parking lot. Instead they were able to almost glide through to Columbine Circle. The station there was on the north side of the plaza, and Rescue 1 swung around the circle in a graceful arc before pulling up near to the entrance to the 1 Line. An Engine and a Ladder were already on scene, as well as two police cruisers and an ambulance, but the Rescue had arrived quickly and there was as of yet no confirmation of what exactly was happening underground.
The fireponies climbed down and grabbed their tools. An extrication could require a variety of implements to carry out successfully; it just depended on how exactly the pony was trapped, or indeed if they were trapped at all. Often a call to an entrapment in the subway turned out to just have been a pony who fell on the tracks but managed to get back onto the platform, or sometimes a pony who had been hit by a train, but only while standing on the platform too close to the edge, resulting in an injury but not being trapped beneath it.
The crew of Rescue 1 made their way down the wide stairs that led to the subway. Ponies were coming and going like normal, despite the emergency activity. This was Manehattan, after all, and this was normal. Everypony had some place to be, no matter what else was going on around them, and for many it was just another feature of life in the big city. Even a blazing fire ripping from the windows of a building across the street would barely be enough to make many ponies bother with the effort of turning their necks to have a look at it.
The subway station at Columbine Circle was a maze to the uninitiated, with numerous turnstiles leading to different lines, connecting tunnels that linked two separate concourses, and multiple levels of both pedestrian and train traffic. Different subway lines ran at different depths, and therefore escalators and stairs connected the higher A Line to the lower 1 Line, some 30ft below the other tunnels. The fireponies made their way down to the bottom, where the other emergency units were already on scene.
A five-car subway train had pulled into the station, and had stopped well short of where it would normally do so. A cluster of fireponies from Ladder 4 and Engine 65 had gathered around the front of the train, peering down. It did not look good for the unfortunate victim, for there was indeed a pony under the train, a stallion, a blue earth pony, wedged in between the wheels of the front bogie. There was blood, and lots of it; one of the steel train wheels had cut through his body like a knife through butter.
'Rescue's here,' somepony announced, and the Captain of Ladder 4 approached Grey Spike.
'Hey Grey. Got a bad one here, he's wedged in good. I already called for power off on both tracks, we're just awaiting confirmation. Battalion 11's got this one, right?'
'Yeah, they're rolling in on it,' Grey Spike nodded. 'Is he alive?'
'Can't tell yet. He's too far under there for us to check without getting on the tracks,' the truck Captain responded. The subway ran on electric power, and a third rail provided it, connecting to the contact shoes of each train car to provide power not just for movement, but lighting and air conditioning as well. It would not be safe for the fireponies to operate on the track bed, especially if they had to use metal tools, until the power was off, and confirmed off by the Manehattan Transit Authority.
Luckily it was not long until they were cleared to proceed. The Rescue and the Ladder crews climbed down, examining the victim along with the Rescue Paramedics, specially trained medics well versed in confined space and collapse medicine, and equipped to enter a collapse zone or similarly hazardous location to treat patients in situ, rather than waiting for them to be removed by the fireponies. Several such ambulances had been at the shaft rescue earlier in the week, though they had not entered the shaft since all of the survivors had been removed to the surface without incident.
'I have a pulse,' one of the medics confirmed. 'He's alive, only just. Can you guys get him out?'
'Yeah, 10-4,' Grey Spike replied, turning to Chief Primrose, from the 11th Battalion, who had just arrived. 'We have a live victim, Chief, pinned in there good. Suggest we go in with the air bags.'
Primrose nodded. 'Copy that. Get on it, Cap.' Grey Spike issued his orders, and Blaze and High Line jumped up to grab the air bags from the rig. The air bags were just that; large bags, surprisingly strong, which could be inflated by pneumatic pressure to lift weights that no pony could hope to raise- a subway car, for example. The bags came in different sizes, and the two fireponies picked the middle size, enough to safely lift a subway car with no issue, but small enough to slide into place. They also grabbed a stack of wooden cribbing which would hold the airbags in the right place.
Back down below ground, they climbed down onto the tracks again, prepping the air bags for deployment. Blaze tried not to think about the predicament of the poor stallion too much, nor look at the injuries he had sustained for too long. It didn't do to dwell on such things, though his mind flashed back to Sulfur Springs, who, albeit in a different situation, had also suffered through such intense trauma. If this stallion survived, it would be a long and hard road to recovery for sure. Their job was to try and give him that chance.
Once everything was set up, and confirmed by Primrose, Grey Spike, and the Captain of Ladder 4, the air bags were inflated, slowly, little by little. The train car groaned as it raised up, inch by inch. It didn't need to go far, just enough for the medics to slide a backboard in and pull the victim out. It took several minutes for them to be able to do so, but the stallion was extricated from the wheels of the train. He had a great gash in his side from the train wheel, with multiple internal organs exposed and part of the ribcage crushed, but thanks to the air bags, he had some tiny sliver of a chance of survival. The medics packaged him and rushed him up to street level to race away to the trauma unit at Meadowbrook Memorial.
Blaze and High Line deflated the air bags, returning the train car to its resting position on the tracks. It was a bloody mess underneath the wheels, but that was for transit to take care of. The fireponies' work was done- another successful rescue.