You are a member of a rescue team. The team has received a request for a rescue at the scene of a motor vehicle crash. No other details are available.

You are allowed to respond with only five hand tools. Which five hand tools do you choose and why?

Here are the ground rules:

1. No medical services will be rendered by your team; an EMS crew will handle those responsibilities.

2. All five tools you select must be hand tools only. They cannot be powered by electricity. No hydraulic-powered tools qualify. No air-powered rescue tools are allowed on your list. Only hand tools that are manually operated are acceptable.

3. Your rescue team consists of a leader and four rescue technicians; five persons total.

4. Support operations such as fire and safety control, crowd control and traffic control will be handled by other personnel. Your team must concentrate only on the physical tasks of extricating occupants who may be trapped in the wreckage when you get to the scene.

Possible evolutions you may be requested to accomplish with your five hand tools may include the following:

Firehouse.Com The Firehouse.com website will conduct a national competition of Firehouse® Magazine readers to determine who can come up with the best choices. You can submit your department’s list of five hand tools along with an explanation of how each tool will be used to the following e-mail address: Rmoore@firehouse.com or through the "Hand Tool Brain Teaser" link at the Firehouse.com website. Include the following contact information: Your name and position. Fire department or agency name. UPS mailing address with street name and number. Daytime telephone number. You may use the Firehouse.com website link or the e-mail address to ask questions or request a ruling on whether a certain tool you would like to include on your list qualifies as a hand tool. The deadline for entries is Oct. 1, 1999. The department submitting what is judged to be the best response to this challenge will receive a grand prize of a DeWALT 18-volt cordless reciprocating saw kit , courtesy of DeWALT Tools. The department placing second will receive a Glas-Master windshield saw and a gold spring-loaded center punch from Wehr Engineering. The third-place department will receive a pair of extrication gloves provided by Ringers Resource.