I think Jon's story was fictious. I doubt anesthesia would agree to put the patient out between floors seven and eight. That is if Jon uses anesthesia. I know they didn't with mine.
Bert, it may indeed be a figment of Jon's colorful imagination, or it may be the dark humor of exigent circumstances.
Years ago one of my guys was pretty badly steam burned behind 1A boiler, and was stuck on the catwalk. Because we were along-side (the pier), they called the base EMTs. They showed up and attempted to render aid, but the federal safety rules were that he had to me immobilized on a stretcher before moving. There was no way that stretcher made the first turn on the catwalk, much less the vertical ladder out of the fireroom. It was probably 130-150 F behind the boiler, so the clock was ticking.
The ladder was gummed up with all the "help" that had arrived, so the engineering duty chief, myself, and a couple of burly machinist mates went down the vertical escape hatch and popped out on the lower level below. As much as MMs and BTs ride each other, the chief gave the guys the nod, and these two wadded into the gaggle, and there was a fuss, but a minute later, the two emerged carefully carrying the burned man, and had him out of the space as fast as the chief and I could clear a path.
Repair 5 (main spaces) had practiced carrying out guys with full gear on, so they made it look easy carrying a ~200lb man up the vertical ladder and out of the space. then they held him because the deck was so hot until the EMTs got their stretcher back out from behind the boiler. Then they carefully laid him back on the stretcher so that they would take him to the hospital. He was badly burned, but he survived.
It's been almost 30 years, and the details are fuzzy, but I think it was MMs Suvboda and Armour; a giant swede from the upper midwest, and a enormous but quiet share-cropper's son from the south. What they did definitely wasn't in anyone's play book, but there was grim humor in how they wadded into that crowd in that tight space and came out with the burned guy. I am proud to have served with men like that.
