In the early hours of April 1, a dramatic accident on China Graveyard Road caused firefighters to extricate 20-year-old Thomas Derushe of Jackson from the badly destroyed cab of a red sports car. The Jackson Police Department immediately conducted an investigation into the actions of the vehicle's driver, Ronnie Maisenbach, leading to his arrest. Photo by: Bill Lavallie

In the early hours of April 1, Jackson firefighters put their new Jaws of Life to work in the breezy darkness off China Graveyard Road, shredding deep into layers of steel, as a man bled inches away from them.

The rescue effort concluded with that man being loaded into a helicopter with major injuries and another man having his hands cuffed and escorted to a waiting patrol car.

At around 2 a.m. in North Jackson, a red sports car came speeding down the way and took the full might of a large oak tree head-on. Franck Tremaine, a captain with the Jackson City Fire Department, lives on China Graveyard Road, just minutes from the accident site. Tremaine's family heard the shattering impact through the walls of their house.

Tremaine went outside, soon finding the car's driver, 24-year-old Ronnie Maisenbach of Jackson, outside of the vehicle, which was impaled on the tree trunk. Maisenbach appeared alright. However, his friend, 20-year-old Thomas Derushe, was badly hurt and still trapped inside the wreckage. As more firefighters from Jackson and other agencies began to arrive, Tremaine determined that Derushe was pinned down by his legs and feet under a curving knot of metal from the car's ruined front end. Slowly and methodically, fire personnel began to use the Jaws of Life to dismantle the vehicle.

Just eight weeks before, the Jackson firefighters had completed a 16-hour state fire marshal certification class for auto extraction. The training was meant to familiarize their department with a brand new collection of rescue gear they'd been granted from the National Highway Safety Administration, including cutters, spreaders and RAM hydraulic tools. Among the items they'd spent the most time training with were the Jaws of Life.

"We used the new equipment," Tremaine said. "It was exactly the kind of situation we'd taken the younger guys through in our recent training back in February."

Tremaine and his crew eventually cut the entire dashboard of the car away in order to free Derushe. "I wished it had gone faster than it did," the captain recalled. "But the conditions of the accident were what they were. He had all this metal curling around him and there was only one way to get him out."

Also on the scene was Jackson Police Officer Brad Crisp. As Derushe was loaded into a helicopter and medi-flighted to Mercy San Juan Hospital, Crisp placed Maisenbach under arrest on suspicion driving under the influence of alcohol.

Derushe's condition was unknown at press time, though emergency responders had listed him as suffering from major injuries. Tremaine credited Derushe's rescue to a collaborative effort between the Jackson Fire Department, CAL FIRE and the American Legion Ambulance service.

"We all worked together on this one," he said.