search and rescue, country style

I love drill day. I especially love drill day when the drill is in a crappy little mobile home that I know we get to burn in a few weeks. This drill, though, is SAR- search and rescue-to help Captain Snappy, the training officer, train all the newbies. The mission: Find and remove from harm our victim, Rescue Randy.
Let me set the stage:
The mobile home is set on a hill of dirt. The only vegetation is dead blackberry brambles, each stalk as thick as a rope. The carpet on the inside of this place is soaked with what I'm hoping is water, as opposed to some other unpleasant substance. There's also a large bag of Krusteaz Buttermilk pancake mix torn open in the middle of the floor, and a layer of flour coats everything. There's quite a paste forming on the carpet of the living room. There are toys and cast off things everywhere; cabinets torn from hinges, holes in the floor. You can see the ground several feet below.
I'm engineering (if you can call it that) so that the newbies get some experience with the officers on SAR. About 25 minutes left of drill time, and Captain Snappy decides he wants the last two senior firefighters (that would be myself and Ms. J, the only other female on the department) to do a run through. We mask up and head in, faces covered with our hoods so we can't see. I have the nozzle and the halligan, Ms. J has the radio. We head right, a quick search through the kitchen, and continue down the hall, pausing at each doorway. I leave Ms. J and the nozzle at the door, and take the halligan in, sweeping it with my left arm while keeping my right foot or hand in contact with the wall all the time. On one broad sweep, my halligan hits something. It makes a very loud noise. The noise it makes as it falls on me is even louder, and the noise I make as it lands on me takes the cake, particularly since I have my amplifier turned on. I'm flat on the floor on my stomach, spread eagle under a damn door. I'm laughing so hard I know I'm sucking air. . .I hear Ms. J at the door of the room screaming "Firefighter Girl! Can you hear me!!" And the most I can get out between guffaws is "collapse!" "collapse!" And all the firefighters watching me from outside do just that. In fact, they are so entertained that they decide to come in and follow us through the rest of our initial search. I can hear their little comments and shuffling bunker boots behind me as I crawl through the hallway.
The next doorway, it turns out, leads to the bathroom. I know this because when my Krusteaz coated gloves hit the linoleum, I shoot right over the nozzle and don't stop until my halligan hits the base of the counter 4 feet away. I've still got the hose with my foot, thank goodness, and I've definitely maintained contact with the wall. I search the cabinets and the little closet, and then. . .I've found our victim, Randy, in the bathtub.
He's a heavy bastard, 175 lbs of dead weight, missing a forearm from an escapade a certain firefighter had with him last year that may have involved a long chain, the staff rig, and a gravel road, although I could be wrong. More likely, the arm came off from somebody yarding on it during a different SAR drill (you know the firefighter motto. . .if it doesn't work, force it. . .). In any case, the easiest way to get this sexy beast out of the tub is with webbing. I loop my webbing under his armpits, and then get Ms. J's done up the same way. About then is when I realize there's a toilet between the bathtub and the doorway. I know this because I smacked my head on it when I tried to get at Randy's feet.
Victim removal is not a tidy thing. It's not particularly gentle, either, and in zero visibility, frankly, you're going to run into things. I accept this. Chances are, your victim's going to end up with some bruises. I accept this, as well. Ms. J is on the other side of the toilet, and can't get much purchase, so it's pretty much up to me. I grab onto the webbing, we count to three, and I feel Randy lift over the edge of the tub. The last thing I want is him wedged between the toilet and the tub, so I keep pulling. I've got both feet propped against the edge of the tub, and I'm pulling, up and over, up and over. And there's a scraaaaaaape craaaaaash boom spray and water everywhere. I check the bale of my nozzle, which has somehow miraculously remained closed during the fray. I hear Ms. J on the other side of the toilet, her voice more muffled than usual. The sound of water flowing is getting louder, and I hear someone from the audience start laughing. (thank you. thank you very much.) And it turns out that I took off the lid, seat, and tank cover from the toilet, pulled part of the tank away from the wall, and managed to turn on the bathtub faucet. As I said, victim removal is not a tidy thing. But Randy's out, although he's now on top of me.
From there, we're pretty much home free, just have to get him outside. There was a small incident with Ms. J mistaking me for Randy, yanking on my boot and screaming "I've got him! I've got him!" While I was trying desperately to maintain my hold on Randy's leg. When what she thought was Randy started kicking her, she re-evaluated her decision. By this time, she's trying to give a report to command on what her hold up is (she wisely decided not to mention that the two of us were now wedged into the doorway, weak with laughter. She did manage to tell command that we were planning an exit through the back door, although I'm not sure how much of that was understood by command because Ms. J was snorting so loudly.) The actual exit was uneventful but less than graceful, because I fell out the back door over two steep stairs, and Randy landed on his head next to me.
Guess what? Mission accomplished. Our victim is most likely now a paraplegic, but hey. . .details.