TORONTO

As heroes go, Canada’s 424 Tiger Squadron were already legendary for being as brave as they come.

They’ve now added another chapter to their already incredible story, which includes action in the English Channel in the Second World War.

This time their battle was trying to save a man from the top of a crane as a fire burned below.

As he was being lowered from the Griffon helicopter to a man stuck on a crane, the heroic Royal Canadian Air Force search and rescue technician was not awestruck about what was unfolding on the ground.

“I was just zeroing in on the man at the end of the crane,” Sgt. Cory Cisyk told the Toronto Sun Tuesday night. “I was told later about everything below but I really needed to focus on him.”

No one in Kingston will soon forget the day the search and rescue 424 Tiger Squadron whirled into town from their home base at CFB Trenton.

Certainly not that crane operator, who was hanging on for his dear life 180 feet above the ground as a fire ravaged his downtown construction site below.

“He is lucky to be alive,” said Kingston’s Tony Rogers, who like much of the city looked on as the lone crane worker’s life dangled while a major fire smoked out several city blocks. “One wrong move here or there and who knows?”

A Kingston firefighter had come into his Rogers Towing and Crane Service looking for some way to go up and rescue the stranded man.

“My crane only goes up 114 feet and they needed 180,” said Tony. “We were really worried about him.”

They didn’t know what they were going to do to try to save the man.

As Kingston firefighters valiantly took on the inferno on the ground, seemingly out of nowhere the Tigers showed up like needed angels dropping in from heaven.

A yellow CH-146 Griffon helicopter came in right over the crane as the inferno burned below.

And out popped Cisyk on a cable as he was being lowered to the man in distress.

“He was kind of curled up there and I just wanted to make sure he was OK,” Cisyk said.

But there was a problem.

“There wasn’t too much room on the end of the crane, maybe a foot or a foot and a half,” said Cisyk. “That’s where Cpl. Ian Cleaton realized we were in trouble and started to make some adjustments with the winch.”

He said pilot Capt. Dave Agnew and First Officer Jean-Benoit Girard were taking turns flying and steadying the helicopter while Master Cpl. Matt Davidson was providing direction and information as they tried to get the man to safety.

“Those guys were just outstanding,” said Cisyk, originally from Regina and who served Canada in Afghanistan in 2002.

In those days he was in the infantry. The past six years he has been serving in the search and rescue trade and says helping rescue and find people is his crew’s passion. When they are called to duty, they dive in and try to make a difference.

It happened on a December Tuesday in Canada’s original capital.

But when Sun Media’s Pete Fisher tracked him down, the guy was so humble he didn’t want to tell his story or get his picture taken.

Pete in person and me on the phone urged Cisyk to tell the story of his crew so we could show just how proud the country is of them.

“We are trained to do this and it is a crew concept,” he said of why they don’t normally boast of their fearless missions. “We all did this. I am just a monkey on a hook. We did it together.”

The most important person, he said, was the man they were sent to rescue.

Cisyk said the man on the crane was his own form of valorous as he tried his best to help the search and rescue technician get the harness around him.

The problem was he had been up there for up to two hours and with the sound of the helicopter was having difficulty communicating.

“It was very loud up there,” said Cisyk. “You know, I always double check every time I put one of these things on, it’s like a horse collar, but this time I admit I triple checked,” he said.

Davidson and Cleaton pulled the two of them up and into the helicopter.

“The first thing I asked him was if he was OK and he seemed to be,” he said. “We then flew him straight to the Kingston hospital.”

Down below all of these action, award-winning Sun Media photographer Ian McAlpine was capturing the images.

“It was wild for sure,” the Kingston Whig Standard veteran said. ““We have done some rescues before but this was not an ordinary day. I don’t think I have ever seen a rescue like it.”

And Rogers said there is one thing everybody in Kingston he spoke with later in the day agreed on.

It was a Christmas miracle. It could have been a Christmas disaster but thanks to this incredible rescue, the crane operator suffered only minor burns.

“These guys are heroes,” said Rogers.

Cisyk, 35, a family man who with his girlfriend is raising a son in Belleville, said while they knew it was a big rescue, he and the crew were just pleased it worked out so well as they downplayed the hero talk.

“We don’t look at it that way,” he said. “We just did our jobs. That is what we are trained to do and that is what Canada pays us to do.”

Rogers said while he appreciates the humble nature of these kind of brave service people, the truth of their valour was on display above the city for all of Kingston to witness.

“They are absolute heroes and there is no doubt about that,” he said. ”The crane operator could have easily died and so could everybody on the helicopter.”

The calm, cool, collected and legendary 424 Tiger Squadron was not going to let that happen.