— Noise was blaring from everywhere and Nick Brigante couldn't see. Then it happened.

"You're tying to get oriented and I went past the room," Brigante, a Boonton firefighter, said. "That blew my mind. It's a terrifying feeling when you've put in this time, put in this effort and you're going forward and you miss something."

But it was OK. It was just a training exercise at the Rapid Intervention, Safety and Survival weekend at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy Sunday. The next time, Brigante said, he wouldn't miss the room or the chance to save someone's life.

More than 50 firefighters — most from Morris County — participated in the three-day, nearly 24-hour program created by Wharton's Scott Warner, a retired Dover fire captain, and Roxbury's Joe Lang, a Harrison fire lieutenant.

Scott DiGiralomo, a Morris County Department of Law and Public Safety director, said the program is invaluable.

"This weekend-long training program is about saving firefighters' lives," said DiGiralomo, who also thanked the Morris County freeholder board for backing the program. "This has already been demonstrated by firefighters who have sustained critical injuries and credited their survival to this specific training here at the Morris County training facility. I can't think of a training program that is more important."

Morris County Fire Training Coordinator Jack Alderton agreed.

"This is a physically challenging weekend for the firefighters," he said, "but it could mean the difference between life and death."

Brigante knows that situation all too well. The 20-year-old was on his first call as a fireman near Rowan University a year ago when he had to respond to a report of a woman whose car was hit by a tractor trailer on Route 55.

Brigante and his crew worked fast to save the woman's life.

"There's no time," he said. "And that's what these guys have been training us. It has to become muscle memory. You have to just know it and get to work."

Lang said the program has been running in Morris County for about four years. He said the facility at which the training occurs — a 20,000 square-foot building — allows for firemen to train for all locations—offices, apartments, hotels, homes, hospitals and more.

After a night of lecture, the participants are thrown into real-life situations—carrying bodies up steps, wandering through rooms without being able to see, escaping via ladder.

The program's most difficult, and perhaps most important exercise, was the "confidence course," Lang said. "It's 75 feet of pure hell."

Participants dodge a variety of obstacles — from collapsing floors to falling debris to limited oxygen and sight — and learn to think under extreme pressure, Lang said.

Nick Dimegerodakis, 39, of Morris Township said the course helped tame a fireman's biggest fear: getting trapped.

"It allows you to build your confident for, God forbid you're by yourself at a later date anad you have to make your way out," he said.

Warner said that was the plan.

"Not only do we try to save civilians," Warner said, "but when we get in trouble, who's going to save us?"

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