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Continued from page 1 we became comfortable with the technique.
Saturday afternoon: The Maze
After lunch, we received our first experience in a simulated fire environment: the Fairfax County Mobile Teaching Lab, more familiarly known as “The Maze”. It’s a converted moving van outfitted with sliding panels, long narrow corridors with low ceilings, shafts, ladders, an attic, utility boxes and crawlspaces to provide several hundred feet of obstacle training using the breathing apparatus. It is pitch-black inside to teach students to use their hands as their eyes. The instructors observe the students from a corridor running the length of the van’s centerline, offering advice and encouragement to anyone who has a problem.
“We can get you out in seconds,” Mr. Thompson explained. “But we’ll do it only as a last resort. Before we pull you out, we’ll try to talk you through whatever problem you are having. There is nothing inside this van that you might not experience sometime, somewhere during your fire service career. We want you to learn how to deal with it.”
Waiting inside the entry door, bent on one knee, breathing rapidly, sweating with the weight of 60 pounds of equipment, heart racing with an apprehension of the unknown, unable to see a thing, I wondered “What am I doing here?” But when the “go” buzzer sounded, I crawled into the passageway, determined to conquer the maze.
Down a corridor, sliding on my belly, tank bumping the ceiling, I felt along the walls and floor with my hands. Suddenly, the floor disappeared. I remembered what the instructors drilled into our heads: “Every box has six sides. There will always be two open, the way you came in and the way you go out. If you can’t find an opening high on the walls, feel lower.”
Finally I found what I was “looking” for - an opening about six inches below the floor level on the left wall. I snaked my way around and found myself in another crawlway which ended in a dead end - until I felt what turned out to be a ladder on one wall. Up I went, through a trapdoor into an attic, complete with ceiling rafters instead of a floor. I crawled across the rafters and an instructor told me that somewhere in the room was an electrical circuit box and a gas main with a shut-off valve. My task was to locate the boxes, determine whether the service was on or off, and if on,
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