It's 25 degrees, 10 with the wind chill. You've lost control of your car and have landed in an embankment just off of the Nisqually.

While you get your bearings and wonder if your arm is broken, a tone sounds at Joint Base Lewis- McChord. JBLM firefighters spring into action and will be at your side in minutes, bringing their extensive training and experience.

That training and experience was on display Jan. 26 during low-angle litter rescue training on JBLM Lewis Main. Preparing for an in-house technical rope rescue evaluation scheduled for late February, firefighter-paramedic Jason Kenney led more than a dozen firefighters in a mandatory training scenario that put an injured crash victim at the bottom of a steep, wooded hill off a JBLM roadway.

"I-5 has a lot of steep embankments," Kenney said. "It's been more than once where someone has gone off an embankment 70 feet and we had to bring them back up the hill."

In addition to the installation's operations and training areas, JBLM firefighters are responsible for a section of Interstate 5 from the McChord Field exit to the Nisqually River Bridge. JBLM Fire Department spokesman Rob Ford said JBLM firefighters have been forced to use technical rope rescue techniques "two to three times in the last couple of months" in response to emergencies along that stretch of highway.

Kenney said with "systems" that take into account variables in angle, drop, distance, manpower, and weight, litter rescue training requires a measure of engineering smarts to go along with a firefighter's basic load of courage.

"It's like skinning a fish - everybody has their own way," he said. "You have to be able to think outside of the box."

Technical rescue can involve nearby objects like highway guard rails or even emergency vehicles, which can be vital anchor points for suspension. Like everything rescuers do, safety contingencies for firefighters amd community members form a large part of the training.

"As long as it's safe, it's right, but there are 10 different ways to do things and you have to know them all because of the nuances," he said. Kenney shares primary instructor duty for technical rope rescue training at JBLM with Capt. Eric Teel.

"We don't do anything that isn't redundant. Everything has an entire system that it's backed up by. If one fails, or an anchor spot fails, that other system can take their entire load and we'll still be safe."

Technical rescue skills, along with hazardous material management skills, are disciplines that require stringent certification levels. Half of JBLM firefighters must be rated to perform at the expert or "technician" level and the other half at least at the ‘operational" level in each specialty, Kenney said.

Captain Mike Gilbert, from JBLM Station 102, who went through the training, said last week's event meant more comfort for him as a technical rescuer.

"Training is everything," he said. "We train with this (equipment) constantly as part of our program so it's always fresh in our minds in the event where we have to apply it in a real-world situation."

Operations Battalion Chief Arthur Doss, program manager for JBLM Fire Department's technical rescue areas, said low-angle training is only a part of his firefighters' toolset. The training continues to add to JBLM Fire Department's readiness. More than three years ago, Doss wrote the training plan and brought a team of instructors who trained JBLM firefighters to standard.

"Once that was accomplished, all 22 firefighters with rope rescue had to be trained in an ongoing program," Doss said, "and (last week's) training was part of that."

Firefighters rolled right into high-angle techniques Monday, which means the rescue approach angle was less than 60 degrees. Kenney said though the angle was tighter, details differed but the concepts remained the same.

"It's all in the techniques," Kenney said. "It's ‘do you have a free-hanging basket?' or one that people walk down (a more gradual slope) with?"

In the end, when the firefighting force at JBLM isn't responding to its average of 3,200 calls a year, it fills the rest of its duty time hoisting people out of holes as firefighters did last week with low-angle rescues. The training is never predictable, because real-world scenarios, like losing control of your car near the Nisqually River, never are.

"I make a conscious effort to be random (with the training scenarios), otherwise people will get stale," Kenney said. "We don't do (low-angle) once a month for (actual) rescues, but when we do need it, it's usually a matter of life or death."