Critical Rescue

On October 17, 1989, San Francisco is slammed by a 7.1 earthquake. Outside a collapsed building, firefighters can hear Sherra Cox. Rescuers try to cut their way through the rubble, but a ruptured pipe fills the building with gas. Intense heat drives two firemen from the building, but Gerald Shannon refuses to leave. He talks to Sherra Cox as others pass him equipment to help try and pull her from the collapsing building.

April 24, 2002 is just another workday in Southern California, until the 300 passenger Metrolink No. 809 collides head on with a Burlington Northern freight line. A multi-agency casualty training drill is underway nearby. Rescue crews from all over the state have been training to respond to a terrorist attack. Within minutes, hundreds of emergency personnel arrive on the scene to find passengers with broken bones, internal injuries and one critically injured woman who has gone into labor.

On March 30, 1998, Paul Vevesco and Larry Knapp arrive at a construction site in Margot Florida. At exactly 9:30, the workers freeze as they hear an ominous rumbling. Seconds later, the north wall of the trench collapses around them. Vevesco and Knapp are buried to their necks in concrete rubble. Rescuers use high-pressure airbags and air-chisels to try and free the two victims. Both victims sustain serious injuries as rescue teams race against the clock to save their lives.

In 2001 hundreds of people pour into the Lonz Winery on Middle Bass Island in Ohio for a Fourth of July celebration and to dine with friends on the terrace. Suddenly, the terrace gives way beneath them. One hundred people plummet 20 feet into the winery's cellar. Rescue workers from three different counties converge on the island. A 47ft Coast Guard motor lifeboat and several Life Flight helicopters also respond to the scene. Physicians and Rescue rush to stabilize and get them to hospitals.

A chain reaction at a Grain Elevator, two men dead, several badly burned, and 4 trapped in an underground. Only FEMA's Urban Search & Rescue team can handle a disaster this big.

November 22, 1997 Caleb Record drives his friend George Place home from basketball practice. The roads in Newfane, Vermont are slick following an early winter ice storm. The vehicle lands in the icy West River. George crawls from the wreck but Caleb is trapped inside and unconscious. As the car fills with water, George flags down the first car he sees. Both men are members of the First Response Team in Florida. The rescuers slide down the embankment and plunge into the freezing river.

On the afternoon of May 3, 1999, the National Weather Service issues serious tornado warnings via radio and television for Oklahoma City known as Tornado Alley. As John & Dixie Szymanski prepare dinner in their new home, meteorologist Gary England broadcasts his most dire warning, you have to be underground to survive this one. In a matter of minutes the Szymanski's and thousands of their fellow Oklahomans would experience and barely survive the fastest recorded wind speeds on earth.

On January 13, 1982, Washington National Airport is gripped by a mid-winter blizzard. Shortly after liftoff, Air Florida Flight 90 experiences a problem. At 4:01 pm, the jet stalls and dives nose first into the northbound span of the commuter-packed 14th Street Bridge. The 737, along with six automobiles, a boom truck and a 41-foot section of the bridge wall, plummet into the icy waters of the Potomac River. The D.C. Park Police dispatch helicopters to rescue any survivors.

The Sunshine Mine, near Kellogg, Idaho became the setting of one of the worst mining disasters of the 20th Century. Dubbed a hot mine due to extreme temperatures of over 100 degrees, the very dry mine caught fire one morning, and began circulating deadly smoke and carbon monoxide gas through the tunnels where almost 200 men were working. Rescuers would have to work quickly before poisonous fumes and intense temperatures would cause them to succumb to the same fate as 91 minors.

August 17, 1969, one of the strongest hurricanes to make landfall in the United States struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Hurricane warnings were all over the television and radio stations, and it was strongly suggested by news anchors that people evacuate. Friends decided to remain and have a hurricane party at the Richelieu Apartments on the coast of Pass Christian, Mississippi. The hurricane slammed into the apartment complex, smashing every unit into pieces. Only three people survived.

October 16, 1998 will long be remembered as one of the worst nights of flooding in Texas history. When the rescue team sent to warn residents of the rising creeks and rivers is stranded by rushing waters, Edwin Baker and his Emergency Rescue Team, employing inflatable Zodiac boats and helicopters, are sent in. Rescuers must battle the elements to save victims suffering from hypothermia stranded in overturned vehicles and flooded houses.

On rolling hills overlooking Oakland, California, thousands of expensive homes were crowded into a lush urban forest. The only way in or out of this little paradise was a series of steep, narrow, winding roads. On Saturday, October 19, 1991 the temperature was very hot and extremely dry, Oakland was in its fifth year of a drought when then the fires began. Over a hundred people were injured, 25 died. Two square miles of land was scorched; in all over a billion and half dollars' worth of damage.