Almost any non-crime emergency is going to fall in the lap of a fire department: fallen trees, car wrecks, hazardous materials situations, people trapped in a variety of places... nearly anyone in need of help.

Middletown Division Chief Dave Thompson instructed our class how to respond to a car accident. He first showed us the tremendous force behind the deployment of an air bag. Even though we knew it was coming, the explosion startled us, even inducing a yelp out of one of my fellow journalists, who shall remain unnamed.

If any injuries are suspected and if victims need to be helped out of a crashed vehicle, the first thing firefighters do is prop the car up on "chalks," wooden blocks next to each tire that keep the car from moving, and that movement from causing further injury or pain to the occupants of a vehicle.

Thompson says if getting out of a car can cause more pain or injury, the car is removed away from the victim. That's where hydraulic tools come in. You often hear the "Jaws of Life," but that is only one brand nickname. In actuality, these tools can cut, pull apart, crunch and manipulate a car frame so it is out of the way for ambulance crews.

My turn with the "jaws" was nowhere near as easy as I imagined. The tool weighs more than fifty pounds, so lifting it into a vertical position to get a good angle at the top of a car door was difficult and cumbersome. You open or close these giant pliers with a handle skin to a motorcycle accelerator. It takes me a good ten minutes, but I finally succeed with a huge pop and the car door flying off.

A few random notes:

Getting someone out of a piece of machinery (including cars) is called an "extrication." If someone is trapped in a structure, building or trench, getting them out is a "rescue."

Firefighters do not wear "oxygen tanks," they use air canisters with the same proportion of oxygen in normal air, 21 percent.

Each firefighter goes through about 100 hours of training every year. Like the military, the fire profession believes that such training makes decisions automatic and instinctual when under duress, "in the line of fire."