The blades of the Army UH-60 Black Hawk medevac helicopter beat the air as four firefighters rushed to it with 200 pounds of specialized extrication gear.

The 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron Airmen knew this time it wasn’t a drill. Two trucks were in a near head-on collision 10 minutes by air from here. The accident trapped one of the drivers.

The Nov. 1 call for help had come just five minutes earlier. The fire and rescue department station is almost a mile from the helipad and darkness had fallen three hours before. So each rescue air mobility squad member grabbed “battle rattle,” a weapon and ammunition and rushed their Humvee to the helicopter.

The chopper had the “RAMS” Airmen on scene in minutes.

But it was going to be a tough rescue. The driver was stuck sideways, with one leg pinned on top of the steering column and one below it. Plus, darkness, leaking fluids and the position of the rescue area -- above everybody’s heads -- added to the rescue’s complexity. It took more than an hour and a half to free the trapped troop.

“I’ve done more than 100 extrications in my career as an Air Force firefighter and volunteer fireman. But this, by far, was the hardest I’d ever seen,” Senior Airman Tom Knob said.

Airmen 1st Class Chris Cruz and Kyle Henson had to use a K-12 saw to cut the hinges off the truck’s door for better access to the cab. But that was just the start of the job.

The Airmen had to take the cab apart, piece by piece, as Army Staff Sgt. Lee Bucklin, flight medic, stood in the engine compartment providing medical care to stabilize the patient. The Soldier also provided another set of eyes as the Airmen worked.

“It was like a jigsaw puzzle,” said Tech. Sgt. James Ralls, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the rescue team. “Everybody had good ideas. Each person took a piece of the puzzle until we had it solved.”

Less than two hours after the call, the victim was out of the truck. The RAMS had used almost every power tool in their inventory, worked in darkness and in harm’s way -- but managed to avoid causing the victim additional injuries.

“Our mission is treatment and transport,” Sergeant Bucklin said. “We can’t do either if the victim is trapped in a vehicle.”

So when the medevac unit can’t finish a mission because of complications like that at the accident scene, they call the RAMS. The Airmen had only trained twice with the Soldiers since September before the incident.

There are 14 Airmen on the RAMS. They cover all of southern Iraq -- about a one hour radius by Black Hawk. Each member is hand-picked at their home station.

When the alarm for help sounds, the first four Airmen to the Humvee go on the mission. The Nov. 1 incident put all the squad’s training to the test, Sergeant Ralls said.

The victim of the crash was last reported recovering in a local hospital.