Report From Rescue Company 1

by BRBrony9


Stuck

'Rescue 1 to Manehattan?'

'Rescue 1, K?'

'Do you have any more information on this box? What are we going in on, K?' Captain Grey Spike asked.

'Rescue 1, we're getting more info...reporting a pony trapped down a compactor chute, K,' the dispatcher replied. 'Reported to have fallen from the 7th floor to the 2nd.'

'Rescue 1, 10-4,' Grey Spike responded. 'Alright, everypony. Prep for a possible confined space rescue,' he ordered the crew. Compactors in high-rise multiple dwellings were used to dispose of trash; residents would toss garbage down the chute, where it would be crushed into a much smaller volume by the compactor. They were the frequent source of fires, if somepony were to throw a cigarette end or some other heated item into the trash chute, it could easily ignite the rubbish and cause a very smoky fire to break out. Even if the flames were confined to the chute, quite often the smoke could spread up the shaft and fill every floor in the building, causing panic among residents.

It was also possible, though difficult, for a pony to fall down the shaft, and it had certainly happened numerous times, usually foals who were playing games, hide and seek perhaps, or cowponies and buffaloes, and were looking for somewhere to tuck themselves away. As the Rescue rolled north, however, it became clear that this wasn't the case this time around.

'Was that the mother at the firehouse?' Flagstaff questioned Blaze as they raced through traffic. 'What's her name, from the impalement?'

'Yeah, Licorice Swirl, that was her,' Blaze nodded in reply.

'What was she doing here? Not trying to offer us money again, was she?' the unicorn asked him.

'No.' Blaze shook her head. 'She just...uh, wanted to talk to m...uh, to us,' he tried to correct himself, but Flagstaff was alert to his error and quickly leaped on it.

'Wanted to talk to you, huh? Only to you?' She smirked, nudging him. 'How come she only wanted to talk to the strapping young firepony she probably saw on the news, huh? The one who carried that big heavy saw and cut her son free? Only you, but not the rest of us? How come, huh?'

'I dunno...' Blaze muttered, a bit of a blush coming across his cheeks as a telltale sign that Flagstaff had indeed picked up on the right thing to needle him with. 'I, uh...the alarm went off before I could talk to her much,' he lied.

'A likely story,' Flagstaff chuckled, giving him another friendly nudge in the ribs. 'C'mon, spill the beans! What did she want?'

Blaze rolled his eyes. Flagstaff was one of those ponies who certainly wouldn't drop the matter until she found out exactly what had transpired- not one to spread gossip, as such, but just a mare who wanted to know everything happening behind the scenes at the firehouse, all of the ins and outs of the lives of her co-workers, partly so she knew who to avoid and who to suck up to at different times, but mainly through a genuine desire to know about her fellow fireponies and be in a position to offer help or advice to them if it was required.

'Fine...she, uh...wanted to know if I'd, uh, be interested in going on a date with her...' Blaze admitted quietly, so as not to alert the rest of the crew. Flagstaff, naturally, had other ideas.

'A date, huh?' she replied in a loud voice. 'You dog, you! What did you say? Don't tell me, you obviously said yes or you wouldn't have bothered trying to hide it from me! Hey fellas! Remember the mom from that impalement call, Licorice Swirl? Guess who's got a date with her!'

'Wouldn't be you, would it?' High Line called from the rear compartment of the rig, making the rest of the crew laugh and Flagstaff roll her eyes impatiently.

'No, dumbass! It's only Ember Blaze, our resident tightrope walker!' she informed everypony else, much to Blaze's chagrin. He wasn't even sure his acceptance of Licorice's offer had been heard over the din of the Rescue's engine being fired up, and now Flagstaff was broadcasting it to the crew. Naturally it would be all around the firehouse when they returned- if it wasn't already. After all, Licorice was still there, and so was the Engine and the Chief, and she may well explain the situation to them if they came across her.

'Oh yeah? You naughty boy,' High Line laughed. 'Hey, make sure she's not just another badge bunny! My buddy in the PD had this mare, he helped her out with some domestic dispute, arrested her scumbag coltfriend. So then she kept showing up at his patrol car when he parked up. Always seemed to know where he was gonna be, like she was totally stalking him. Kinda creepy. Anyways, he told her to leave him alone, next week they found her body in the East River. Did herself in. Total nutjob.'

The badge bunnies, as they were called, were mares, though stallions could also qualify, who developed an unhealthy romantic, bordering on obsessive, attraction to cops or firefighters, government agents or anypony who possessed authority and a badge of office. There were cautionary tales down throughout history, the MFD included, of fireponies or police officers who found themselves entangled with such obsessives, and such relationships could quite often end in one form of tragedy or another.

'Engine 74 to Manehattan. We have a confirmed stallion trapped down the compactor chute, at the second floor, K.'

'Huh, a stallion?' Flagstaff muttered. 'You gotta make a real effort to fall down a compactor chute if you're a fully grown pony.'

'Maybe the Mafia wanted to dispose of a body,' Blaze suggested, which drew a chuckle from the crew. Manehattan certainly had a significant organised crime presence, though compared to the olden days their influence was hugely reduced. It was very unlikely that they would ever try to hide the evidence of a murder in a public housing building's compactor chute. Of course, that didn't rule it out entirely.

Rescue 1 arrived on the scene, a fifteen-storey multiple dwelling project funded by the city and housing mostly poor residents and immigrants, including Griffons and Zebras who could not afford the astronomical rents attached to most properties in the borough. They were often in a poor state of repair, with broken elevators, leaky pipes, faulty sprinkers and the like, but they were home to hundreds of thousands of creature across the city.

Other units were already on the scene, including Battalion 11. Chief Primrose was in command of the incident, and she was inside the building along with the crews of two ladder companies and Engine 74, who had arrived first. Grey Spike headed inside as the rest of Rescue 1 gathered up tools and gear they might need. A technical confined space rescue was always tricky, and could test even the best trained and equipped fireponies anywhere in the nation- a distinction which many would lay square at the hooves of Rescue 1 of the MFD.

Blaze headed into the building with the rest of the company. A couple of building maintenance ponies were gathered in the lobby, along with half a dozen fireponies, including Chief Primrose who was overseeing the operation. She turned to Grey Spike as the Rescue entered.

'Got a confirmed entrapment, Cap,' Primrose informed Grey Spike. 'Stallion fell, reportedly from the 7th floor. Now he's wedged in between the first and second floors.'

'Copy,' Grey Spike replied. 'Any idea how he ended up down there?'

'Apparently he was drinking,' Primrose replied. 'Obviously, since it's 11AM.' She rolled her eyes, the slight shake of the head a shared expression of despair at the state of ponykind from one experienced firepony to the other. 'Decided to take the trash out, and you can piece the rest together. I have Ladder 25 trying to stabilise him, but we're going to have to get him out soon. The medics say the angle he's stuck at means his lungs can't inflate properly. They've got a mask on him but we need to free him ASAP.'

'Got it, Chief,' Grey Spike nodded. 'What's the best access?'

'We're thinking going at him from below,' Primrose replied. 'He's closer to the first floor than to the second. Not much chance of lifting him up thanks to the position he's in. I've got Ladder 35 upstairs; they've got a lifesaving rope around his hind legs. Hopefully that'll be enough to stop him slipping until you start cutting. If you cut through the wall of the chute, you should be able to get him out. Take a look and see what you reckon, Captain.'

Grey Spike headed over to the compactor room, located just off of the lobby. It contained the actual compactor unit itself, where trash would be crushed. The chute terminated about halfway up the wall of the room where it reached the unit. Somewhere behind that wall, a stallion was trapped. Ladder 25 was huddled around the compactor unit itself, which was open. Two paramedics were also present, trying their best to treat the trapped pony and give him oxygen. As Primrose had mentioned, it was proving tricky due to his contorted position, which meant he could not fully inflate his lungs to get all of the oxygen that he required. Leaving him in there for too long would mean that he probably wouldn't come out of the shaft alive, or at the very least not without permanent brain damage due to lack of oxygen.

'We can cut through the wall easy enough,' Grey Spike agreed with his Chief. 'The shaft itself won't be a problem either. How far up there is he?' The Captain bent down to take a look up the shaft where the medics were trying to treat the unfortunate victim. 'Hm...Alright, he's about three feet up. We can cut away the hood of the shaft, bring him down on a backboard.'

Primrose nodded. 'Agreed. Get to work. Ladder 25, back them up. I'll have the Squad bring extra saw blades when they get here, just in case.'

'Copy, Chief. We shouldn't need them, but best to have them at hoof just in case. Alright, Blaze, get the air chisel. High Line, Oak, get the spreaders. Flagstaff, support the victim with your magic as best you can. We need to hold him steady when we make the cuts. I'm not convinced the rope will be enough to keep him in place once we widen the shaft. Fairway, bring the backboard.' Grey Spike turned to the officer of Ladder 25 as his ponies hurried back to the rig to gather the tools. 'Lieu, get through this wall, then we'll get through the shaft.'

By the time Blaze had returned with the air chisel, the fireponies of Ladder 25 had hacked away at the plasterboard and wood that formed the wall of the compactor room. In doing so, they had revealed the metal compactor chute itself. Saws could be used to cut through it if, for example, there was a fire inside the compactor itself, but they couldn't be used safely in this instance for two reasons. Firstly, the saw blades would produce a tremendous amount of heat and sparks, which could ignite the collected garbage in the bottom of the shaft and in the compactor unit, which had been shut down and disconnected from the power supply by building maintenance. The other problem was that the sparks could also ignite the oxygen being fed to the trapped stallion by the paramedics, and without the concentrated one-hundred-percent oxygen being fed to him, his lungs, unable to inflate fully, would not be able to deliver enough of the life-giving gas to his bloodstream to stop his brain and other organs to start shutting down.

With the chute exposed, Blaze was able to bring the chisel into position. Grey Spike conducted a final survey in conjunction with the Lieutenant of Ladder 25, then made a series of marks with chalk on the bare metal surface, to indicate where Blaze was to make the cuts that would hopefully free the stallion from his confinement. Once the rest of the crew were in position to help support the pony as he was removed, Flagstaff used her magic to immobilise him in much the same way as a backboard and neck brace would if they could have been able to access him properly. A rope rescue from above might have been another possible way of freeing him, by lowering a firepony down, but given that the stallion had not fallen all the way into the compactor unit, but rather had become wedged part way down, meant that there was the risk of the same thing happening to any would-be rescuer, besides which it would take longer to set up safely than cutting through the chute.

With a nod from Grey Spike, Blaze got to work, the air chisel safely slicing through the relatively thin metal without creating any sparks or risk of fire. With Flagstaff holding the stallion in place, there was no likelihood of him sliding once the metal was removed. Blaze cut a square as indicated by Grey Spike's chalk markings, and Fairway and two of the members of Ladder 25 reached in to remove it. Finally they could see the stallion directly, now seemingly suspended halfway up the wall, only his head and upper body visible. The oxygen mask fixed on his face by the medics was being fed by a cylinder from below, meaning it could be kept in place even while the chute was being cut and giving him at least some air. Now that the fireponies could see their victim, they could also get a better idea of how badly wedged in he was.

Grey Spike shone his flashlight up to take a closer look. 'Alright, I think a couple of inches will be enough. High Line, go in with the spreaders. Take it an inch at a time and then Flagstaff, see if you can move him.'

Blaze stepped back, his part played. Now it was over to the others to complete the release of the temporary prisoner. Oak Wood brought the metal jaws of the spreader up to the chute which contained the stallion. With Flagstaff keeping him in place, Oak Wood prised the metal sides of the chute away about an inch. Flagstaff then tried to move the stallion, but he was still trapped. Oak went at it again, bending the metal wider, and this time Flagstaff was able to move the victim out. Fairway and the paramedics had the backboard ready, and she used her magic to lower him onto it carefully. Once he was laid out flat, his lungs were immediately able to take in more of the oxygen being fed to him, now that he was no longer crumpled up. Once the medics strapped him to the board, he was able to be moved out to the ambulance, and another call came to a successful conclusion- leaving one public housing building to await the arrival of repair crews to fix their compactor chute. But other than that, everything had worked out just fine.