In the three-and-a-half years that I've been writing this column, I've slithered through roach-infested apartments with Code Enforcement head Bill Gray, pursued drug-toting car thieves at midnight with Police Lt. Rocco Santorsola, and fallen through mold-slickened floors in abandoned beachfront buildings.

Still, as someone with a low tolerance for car wrecks and flames, I was praying for a blessedly uneventful day when I visited the Asbury Park Fire Department last month.

Asbury Park has the busiest Fire Department per capita in New Jersey and one of the busiest per capita in the country, handling approximately 5,000 ambulance calls and over 1,000 fire calls per year.

By the time I arrived at 9 a.m., the members of Tour 2 had already been briefed on the previous day's calls and had spent an hour testing their rigs and equipment, vacuuming the floors, and cleaning the bathrooms.

"Join us for breakfast," invited Battalion Chief Kevin Keddy, as we entered the glassed-in kitchen where Tommy Gironda was dishing up oversized egg, cheese and pork roll sandwiches.

"Uhm, thanks, I already ate," I demurred, heeding my stomach's warning twitch as Keddy liberally splashed ketchup over his eggs.

Yes, city firemen really do their own food shopping and cooking on a large commercial stove donated by Corbo's Restaurant Supply (Captain John Kelly is also a Tour 2 cook) and, yes, some of them actually slide down a gleaming brass pole when a late-night fire or ambulance bell rings.

Breakfast was barely over when the bell clanged twice and I found myself in the front seat of an ambulance piloted by Carney Conklin and Dave Weedon, happy that I'd skipped the pork roll and ketchup.

The call was a fairly routine one - a senior citizen required oxygen, but not a ride to the hospital - and Conklin and Weedon filled me in on the city's emergency medical services after toting their stretcher and oxygen equipment back down from Robinson Towers.

Every Asbury Park fireman is cross-trained as an emergency medical technician, they told me, completing a 150-hour emergency medical training (EMT) course. To maintain certification, they must also complete a hefty 48 CEUs (continuing education units) every three years in topics ranging from pediatrics and geriatrics to domestic violence and blood-borne pathogens.

And the unpredictable nature of the problems they handle - from heart attacks and accident victims to attempted suicides and endangered swimmers - prompts them to schedule daily training exercises.

"We get calls for everything from a dog caught behind a radiator to an arm caught in a machine," Fire Chief John Murphy told me. "Train accidents, shootings, stabbings, people who jump off buildings. I've even delivered three babies."

In Asbury Park, city firemen practice water rescues in the ocean, lakes, and Boys and Girls Club pool, and Captain John Kelly explained that rescue strategies vary depending on whether the victim is cooperative, thrashing (that would be me), or unconscious.

Kelly demonstrated a variety of water rescue tools including an inflatable boat, wet suits for summer, dry suits for winter, throw lines, and poles.

Winter rescues on frozen lakes typically require a different strategy, with the lead rescuer propelling himself across the ice using custom-chiseled ice picks and a boogie board, while a second rescuer anchors him with a safety line.

Needless to say, the work requires more emotional and physical stamina than most of us typically imagine ("the heaviest people always live on the top floor," Murphy sighed), which no doubt accounts for the super-sized breakfasts.

Asbury Park's volunteer fire department was started in the late 1800s, and became a career force in 1928. Our medical unit, founded in 1929, is one of the oldest fire department-based medical groups in the country.

The department has successfully billed ambulance patients with insurance, Medicare or Medicaid for the past seven years in an effort to recoup some of the city's significant costs, but many city residents are uninsured.

City firefighters - divided into four shifts or "tours" - put in 42 hours a week, and traditionally work two 10-hour days and two 14-hour nights every eight days.

The department is currently experimenting with a new schedule that has proven more efficient in cities around the country: Each 10-person tour works a 24-hour shift, starting at 8 a.m., and members are then off-duty (although some are on call for back-up services) for 72 hours.

Firefighters are required to be city residents at the time they are hired, and new hires are drawn from a state civil service list. The NJ Department of Personnel typically schedules written and physical exams every two to three years, and the next test is scheduled for early 2006.

At present, the department boasts only one female member - Tee Gates, who assists Chief Murphy and the members of the Fire Prevention Bureau - and the mix of any future hires will depend on which residents take and pass the state civil service exams.

For more information on the 2006 test, consult www.state.nj.us/personnel (click on "Site Directory", then on "Fire Fighters") or call the NJ Department of Personnel at 609/292-8668.

Next: What happens when the fire bell rings.