CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Charlotte firefighter Paul Parks knows he's lucky he can still do what he loves.

Five months ago, Parks was trapped in a house fire in southwest Charlotte. The roof of the garage on the Rocky Trace Way home caved in on him while he was inside fighting the flames.

“It was just all at one time -- fell on top of us. You know, in my mind, I thought, ‘I'll be out of this in just a few seconds,’” Parks said.

Those seconds turned to minutes and he began to wonder if he'd make it out.

“I couldn't move at all. There was no chance of me getting out on my own,” he said. “I was just trying to stay calm.”

Fellow firefighters and paramedics helped Parks. They pulled him out of the house.

The firefighter suffered third-degree burns on his leg.

Now he wants people to know who saved him. It was a team of firefighters who are part of the Rescue Intervention Team, or RIT.

At all fires in Charlotte there's a RIT crew of three or four firefighters on standby, armed with heavy tools. Their only assignment is to save any firefighter who might be in trouble.

The team is rarely needed, but their presence is critical.

“It's a matter of life or death. You can save somebody or you can mess it up and they end up dying on you,” said fire engineer Denise Petraske.

That is why every Charlotte firefighter trains extensively to do rescues. An RIT crew set up a training scenario for Eyewitness News. The firefighters stranded one of their own inside a two-story brick building. The man was left under a pile of debris, including wood and ladders.

Firefighters filled the building with smoke to reduce visibility, and then sent the RIT crew racing in.

Firefighters crawled on their knees, feeling their way to the bedroom where they heard the fallen firefighter's safety alarm going off.

The smoke inside the bedroom was thick, so firefighters had to use a camera that shows body heat to find him.

They dragged the man out, making the training drill a success.

“It's hard because your adrenaline gets pumped when you know one of your own needs your help,” said firefighter Mark Ballew after the drill.

“It can happen to us any day at any fire. There's no such thing anymore as the routine house fire,” Petraske said.

Click on the attached video to see the firefighters in action.

LINK: Fire Training