Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

A Northern Virginia team prepares pulleys to lift team members to the top of the Mill Mountain Star on Monday. Team members are encouraged to think about solutions step by step.

A Northern Virginia rescue team clambers up the Mill Mountain Star on Monday as part of the Rescue Challenge, held in the Roanoke area.

Members of the Northern Virginia rescue team gaze up at the Mill Mountain Star. The Rescue Challenge features eight rescue scenarios.

Brown water ran down the horse's legs as it hung in the air, suspended by a backhoe and a series of ropes and straps.

The dirty water trickled to the hoofs and dripped into the muddy pit the horse had been stuck in.

For that brief moment, everyone on the U.S. Army task force team helping to move the horse was still.

There was a problem.

In an instant, the team was in motion. A few people held the ropes tight to keep the horse from falling nose-first into the pit, while a few others looked around to assess the problem.

Meanwhile, the team's commander gave instructions.

"Tell the horse it's OK," the commander yelled to his team members at the rear of the horse.

The horse was quiet and still throughout the ordeal.

It was a dummy, with a 325-gallon plastic tank for a body, wood posts for legs and pipes for the neck and head.

Partially filled with water, it weighed about half a ton.

The "horse" rescue Monday at Mowles Spring Park in Salem was part of Rescue Challenge, an annual training event in Virginia hosted this year by the Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem fire departments.

Throughout the four-day event, the Army team from Fort Belvoir, Va., and nine other teams, including the Roanoke Regional Technical Rescue Team, will perform eight rescue scenarios.

The rescues require skills and tools beyond what's needed for firefighting and medical emergencies. They include rescues from collapsed buildings, caves, trenches and confined spaces, plus large animal and heavy equipment rescues.

Though it's called a challenge, the event is not a competition. The facilitators want the teams to stay safe and use their training.

Technical rescue team members are taught to be innovative and to think like engineers, envisioning step by step how a rescue will happen and anticipating problems before they arise.

The problem facing the Army team was that they couldn't hoist the horse high enough out of the mud pit to clear the ground because they had run out of rope.

So, a few people grabbed shovels and started digging.

After throwing some mud around, the horse's legs were finally lowered onto the ground next to the pit.

"We call it coordinated chaos sometimes," said Alan Austin, a captain with the Roanoke Fire-EMS Department who is also a member of the Roanoke Valley team.

On Mill Mountain, teams used ropes to traverse the star and rescue two dummies stranded on the top and upper left points.

From the ground, firefighters raised and lowered rescuers so they could reach the dummies.

Perched on a thin steel beam on the star's left point, Lou Simpson, a member of the Northern Virginia team, brainstormed -- and at times disagreed -- with the firefighters below him about what their next step should be.

"We kind of play off each other," he said. "You've got to be a little fluid."

Capt. Chuck Swecker of Roanoke Fire-EMS Department coordinated the rescue at the star.

"The most challenging thing about this is they don't really know what they're getting into until they get here," he said.

As the team packed up the ropes and headed to a picnic shelter for lunch, Swecker joined his colleagues under the star.

"We didn't drop anybody or anything," he told them.