We're full of admiration for firefighters.  They are among the most highly skilled ladder users in the world and can perform feats that no-one else safely could.  The accepted wisdom for using a ladder is that three points of contact must be maintained at all times, which only leaves one hand free.  If you're up a ladder with a fire hose, you need both hands on the job, so firefighters use a leg-lock to fix themselves to the ladder safely in order to perform their duty.  In the case of a domestic fire rescue in 2002, firefighter Scott Lewis demonstrated just how skilled they are.

The video recently resurfaced on social media and it is nothing short of heroic.  Scott Lewis and colleague Bob Swick attended a house fire in Ohio, and had to rescue a baby from the first floor.  Swick climbed up first and entered the home through a window while thick smoke poured out.  He searched for the infant inside while Lewis climbed the ladder to meet him at the window.  Swick passed the seemingly lifeless baby to Lewis, who descended the ladder while performing CPR on the child.  Seeing this quick thinking in action really makes one proud of firefighters and incredibly thankful for all the training and experience they get through in order to make rescues like this a possibility.  After a check over at the hospital the baby was fine.

Firefighters in Croydon were under a lot less pressure when they were called out to rescue a cat that had become stuck in a tree.  After setting up the ladder, as the officers were preparing to climb up to bring the cat back down to safety, the cat decided it could just climb down the ladder itself, running off as soon as it got to the ground without so much as a thank you to the fire brigade!

The average person doesn't have the training and skills of an experience firefighter, but this doesn't stop them from stepping in to save the day when needed.  Three American students enacted the rescue of a man who had fallen into an ice-cold lake, while out fishing with his grandsons.  Alexander Chung had been enjoying a picnic when they were alerted to the accident by one of the grandsons, who ran up saying someone had fallen in the water.  Fellow students Anjan Mani and Felipe Santamaria were already on the case, with Santamaria in the water and Mani on the ladder attached to the pier, trying to pull the man up.  He had been in the water for some time, and was very weak from the extremely low temperature of the water and the weight of his water-logged clothing.  It was at this point that Chung also entered the water via the ladder, and the police turned up to help.  Santamaria swam around the pier to the shore, while Chung and Mani grabbed the man's arms and swam him back to safety.  As a strong, experienced swimmer Chung knew he was in a good position to help and did not hesitate to take the plunge, even though he knew the water would be cold.

A father in Birmingham took matters into his own hands when a fire broke out at the family home.  Fearing his son was trapped upstairs; Gary Tees got a ladder and started climbing up to the window to rescue him when the force of the fire blasted the ladder, and Tees, to the ground.  Luckily, Russ Jones, a passing off-duty firefighter, saw the commotion and entered the house, finding the 4-year-old downstairs but rooted to the spot with fear.  Tees suffered injuries to both ankles and feet, while his son escaped with a cut from broken glass. The family are grateful for the actions of Jones, but have been devastated to lose all their possessions and family home to the fire.  Without the quick thinking and excellent training of their knight in shining armour things could have been a lot worse.

If you are ever in a situation where life is at risk, be sure not to put yourself in danger trying to rescue them unless you are certain that it is safe to do so.  Firefighters have thorough, regular training to do their job, so let them be the heroes, and to enjoy the odd non-perilous cat rescue as a respite from the gruelling day-to-day reality of rescuing people.