First up: Medford Firefighters Rob Brennan, Nick Lanzilli and Tim Corbett. One to climb the ladder, one to steady it at the bottom and the third, the belay man, to hold the rope that would ease the victim from the second floor window gently to the ground.

The operation went smoothly, the firefighter reached the window, clipped one carabiner to the second rung from the top, threaded the rope through the ladder and then handed it over, with a second carabiner attached, to the crew in the window.

Brennan waited as the victim was clipped securely to the device, pushed out the window and lowered slowly to the ground.

As Brennan climbed the ladder, Capt. Nick Davis, the officer in charge of Medford Fire Department training, called up reminders: “Second rung from the top!” “Skip a rung and loop the rope through.”

Davis would repeat the instructions and reminders as about a dozen firefighters took turns climbing, steadying and belaying the victim from the top floor of fire headquarters on Main Street.

“The idea is to stay calm and to focus on the task at hand” said Keith Conway, one of the firefighters participating in the drill Thursday.

“This is a rapid intervention drill,” said Davis explained.

The crews were practicing what to do if a colleague was injured at a fire scene, needed to be rescued and they could reach him from outside.

It was all about the ladder, the rope and the carabiners: the tools that, combined, could be used to hoist and haul someone from an upper story.

“The ladder takes all the weight,” Davis explained, adding firefighters were creating a two-in-one system that allowed the maneuver to be completed with very little effort.

“You can barely feel it,” said one of the firefighters as he held the belay rope and guided the victim, a 150-pound dummy, to the ground.

Over and over and over: up went the dummy. Firefighters carried the inert figure, 150 pounds plus the 30-pounds of the self-enclosed breathing apparatus (SCBA), up to the second floor. Down came the dummy, clipped to the carabiner and guided gently out the window to the tarmac.

“You can rig the SCBA to be a rescue harness,” Davis said, and also pointed out that the bunker jacket, protective gear worn by firefighters on a job, has a loop on the back and the carabiner could also be hooked through the loop.

In real conditions, there would be smoke, water, alarms, flashing lights, shouting.

The intention behind the drills is to practice techniques, find the best way when there is no emergency to be prepared when there is.

“We have to all work in a sequence,” Conway noted.

Firefighters learned not to attach the second carabiner to the rope before the climb; less fumbling at the top to release it. They learned to loop the rope through the ladder before handing it off to the crew waiting in the window. They learned they had to stay on the ladder to release the rope once the dummy had been lowered to the ground.

“Everybody goes,” Davis said, as the lieutenants and captains took their turn climbing, steadying and belaying. “Yesterday, one of the deputy chiefs (Young) went.”

The city’s new Fire Chief John Freedman is a stickler for practice and drills. Training, he believes, is what keeps the department ready for emergencies and has made it a priority of his administration.

“We’re going to hone skills, keep fresh,” Freedman said.

He believes even veteran firefighters need to practice and drill as skills can grow rusty, become stale.