a panic state. i think one of the reasons was that his harness was right around his legs where it should have been, but his whole weight was suspended by that harness, which was starting to cut off the blood flow. >> gero approaches the lower victim and secures him to the rope lines. >> with the main line attachment, what i did, is i attached the end knot to myself and attached him to the accessory cord. his weight is not really on me. it's just on my system. in this situation, if something failed, i would have been fine and he would have been fine. >> gero safely brings the first man to the ground. typically another firefighter would rescue the second victim, but the late afternoon dusk is turning to night, and chief flynn decides gero's experience outweighs other considerations. >> when mike went down the first time, it was just getting dark, and he had a really good look at the entanglement problems that