ROCKY HILL - Behind the New Britain Avenue station of the Rocky Hill Fire Department and past a stack of giant trailer boxes that belong on �"Storage Wars” is an assortment of automobiles that look like they’ve been through a monster truck derby and then some.

       Down at the end, a Chevy, Ford, and Subaru’s paths have been adjoined by disaster-or, a simulated one, that is.

       It’s the evening of August 23, and least thirty Rocky Hill firefighters decked out in full gear gather and await orders. They caught a break with the weather tonight-temperatures have cooled to the low 70’s in a few-day break from the summer’s heatwave.

       Deputy Chief Mark Gentile expects the drill-the extrication of a pair of victims from each of the three battered vehicles-to be a break as well. Compared to last Friday’s real life scenario, anyway.

       A tractor trailer had crashed into a tree just off of I-91, pinning the driver’s legs beneath the wheel and dashboard. All three Department crews worked for over two hours in sweltering humidity to free the man.

       â€�"We probably had five firefighters that had to be looked at by EMS, because it was so humid,” Gentile says. â€�"Makes this one look like a cakewalk.”

       In front of those storage containers-a fire rescue course on other days-Gentile briefs the group before the start of the exercise. Simply put, the volunteers are to do â€�"whatever it takes” to free the individuals from the cars.

       There’s no set time limit, but they have their guidelines.

       â€�"We use what’s called the golden hour,” Gentile tells me. â€�"It’s an EMS term.”

       Ideally, you want to get the accident victim from the moment of the call, to the emergency room within an hour, he says.

       â€�"Obviously, the quicker you can get them there, the better,” Gentile says.

       So the volunteers swarm the three-vehicle crash and 20 plus minutes of furious cutting and tearing ensues.

       But what might look to some like chaos is controlled-firefighters have their priority target areas, and it often starts with taking off the doors first.

       â€�"You get better access, and are really able to determine how trapped they are,” Gentile says.

       But the previous Friday, the driver-his leg enveloped by the floor and dashboard of the cab-was lying on top of the door. The crews couldn’t get to him using their go-to approach.

       â€�"It’s hard to simulate something like that,” Gentile says. â€�"You have to have a plan B, C, D, and E. We ended up going through the whole alphabet.”

       Using the driver’s pain gauge as a guide, the crew shifted between several strategies on their way to freeing him.

       â€�"I’ll be honest, it felt like 10 minutes,” says Bob Walker, a Department veteran. â€�"It [the crushed front end] didn’t want to move. And he was awake the whole time.”

       Walker, who hasn’t always been Rocky Hill, but started his career in 1986, wouldn’t call it the worst accident he’s ever seen.

       â€�"But it was the most technical,” he says.

       Back on the drill, volunteers have extricated everyone except the Subaru passenger. They’re running into some problems-they’ve discovered that the front of the vehicle is secured by tough metal bands, preventing the crew from executing the textbook dashboard roll.

       â€�"That’s a perfect example of how you have to always be thinking on your feet,” Gentile says.

       â€�"I’ve been doing this, how many years?” Walker adds. â€�"And I learn something new every day.”