Male Bonding in Mumbai:Near Dead

In many cliched stories one reads of how the experience of a near death situation changes the outlook of life. Today we got to try it out ourselves.

We are doing a small one week course called Advanced Fire Fighting (AFF).Here we learn about fire , its hazards and ways to tackle and extinguish fire.

It is a week long course with boring lectures on Theory of Fire , Structure of the Fire Fighting Organisation Team and blah blah blah...followed by gruelling fire drills.

Fire Drills are where a team wearing oxygen tanks (called a Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) must enter a mock ship like structure and rescue a dummy or perform other drills.Today , we had the Smoke test.

Imagine a three-storey metal building.Now imagine it baking continuously under the relentless Indian sun at a  god-forsaken temperature of 40 deg c.Now imagine a fire in this metal building.All the doors of this building have been closed.All the windows are sealed.

 As I have written earlier , there is a live fire going on inside.

The entire class was divided into 5 teams of 4 members each.Team A, B,C, D, E.

I was in Team C.We were to enter the building teamwise and come out safely  .The instructor told us to go from the Bridge deck entrance and come out of the Starboard side exit.' Simple Enough !' One might think...

The purpose of this drill is to make you understand what goes on in the minds of the victims trapped inside a fire .So everyone would enter without any protection other than a simple safety helmet.

The first two teams went in and  took ages to come out.They came out coughing , panting  and gasping for air.They had lost their way as the interiors were totally dark and they had feel their way out.They nearly gave up before sounding their alaarm ringer calling for assistance.

After Team B , we were the next ones.Four of us were given one small battery operated torch and one alarm ringer .The torch gave out a weak yellow beam that barely went four feet ahead of us.The alarm ringer was given so that if anyone had an injury , or an unbearable feeling of asphyxiation or simply panicked , he could raise an alarm and the instructors would rush to his aid.At least in theory , they would rush to our aid .Reality as a whole different ball-game.

Team C , including me , offered silent prayers to God before entering the building.We promised each other that we would not leave behind anyone.And then , armed with one torch and one alarm ringer four of us entered into the Bridge Wing.

The Door slammed shut behind us.We were given five minutes the previous day to explore the whole structure and layout.No one took it seriously, and we all goofed off.

Now we all wished we hadn't.

It was eerily quiet inside .We all had remembered to take a large gulp o fresh air before going in.The only sound inside was that of the crackling of the burning wood and our own breathing.And of our hearts beating crazily .

We had to compete this test compulsorily , or else fail the entire course.And being the best amongst all the teams , we had set a goal of Three minutes or under to get out.We started going inside another entrance which could lead us from the third storey (the Bridge Deck) to the second storey.

Here , in the second storey , things were different.The heat was intense.Thick smoke had reduced visibility to zero and worse of all -we couldn't breathe.Oxygen was a precious commodity here.

Our small weak torch was virtually ineffective in the smoky confines of the second storey.We made a human chain , grabbing onto each other's overalls and started inching forward.We shuffled our feet to find if there were any obstacles in the ground , or if there were any holes in which we could fall.We felt the hot bulkheads of the building and moved ahead very slowly and carefully.Soon , we were out of breath.Our eyes were burning and watering profusely due to the fire and smoke.We had found the crucial railing that could lead us down.But one of us started panicking.He started coughing , heaving and retching violently.We decided to call for help.But panic overtook us here too.The guy with the alarm device could not activate it.Somehow , I was pushed ahead.I had no torch or alarm with me.But I groped ahead of me, trying to feel and find the raiking that would lead us to the lower deck.As a result , my head hit a bulkhead and right  then I found the step ladder which would lead us down.

I screamed at the rest of the team to follow me.I had a hard time breathing , but I had to move on.And as we came down the steps and very close to the exit , the alarm was somehow activated.

The instructor opened the door only to find our team right next to it.We came out coughing and gasping.People started laughing at us .Apparently my face had become black where my head had banged the bulkhead.All our eyes were red and we spat out expletives and smoky phlegm as we came out.

We were happy to be the fastest team that day , finishing the entire drill in 2 minutes 28 seconds.

 

P.S. After e came out we all agreed that we had inhaled smoke equivalent to 20 marlboro cartons.Some resolved never to smoke again ,and out of those  , a few went ahead and smoke 20 minutes later , saying that the new smoke from the cigarettes would displace the old firesmoke in their lungs.Idiots !