A NEW twist to one of the many improbable Sichuan earthquake stories involves the survivor
who was buried for five days - he is now working as a firefighter with his Shanghai rescuers
and his boss is the man who plucked him from the rubble, Nancy Zhang reports.

One year on from the Sichuan earthquake, one of its most improbable success stories has a new twist. Jiang Yuhang, the young man who was rescued from beneath the rubble after a record 124 hours, has found new purpose and direction in life. He is now fighting side by side with his rescuers, the Shanghai firefighting squad, as one of its new recruits.

Graduating top of his class from the squad's cadet training program on May 1, Jiang has requested, and been granted, a position on the Special Forces team in Pengpu area. The reason: he wanted to be on the frontline of fires and other rescue missions around Shanghai, directly interacting with people who need his help.

Furthermore on these missions, Jiang works directly under Zhou Qingyang, the man who personally lifted him out of the rubble on May 17, 2008.

It is, Jiang said, the ultimate act of gratitude.

"I want to give something back with my actions everyday, both to the firefighters who saved my life and to wider society," he said.

"We are now brothers on the battlefield, and in life," added Zhou, his superior and newly promoted vice chief of the Pengpu division.

Today the man whose life had hung by a thread not long ago is fitter and physically stronger than the majority of the population due to the tough training for firefighters. A taste of their regime includes running up to 5 kilometers a day with 25.4 kilograms of equipment and uniforms.

Still, of average height, slim and very quiet, Jiang seems like a very ordinary man. And before the earthquake he lived a very ordinary life as a new college graduate hoping to work in the logistics industry.

But the quake threw him into extraordinary circumstances.

Jiang survived completely unscathed where 80,000 others were killed. Among those dead are both his roommates at the time of the disaster.

One year ago Jiang, a Guizhou Province native, was an intern at a motorway toll station in Yingxiu Town, Wenchuan. He was 20 years old and had just graduated as a logistics major from Sichuan University. After working a night shift, Jiang was sleeping in his room at a hotel near Yingxiu power station when the earthquake hit.

"You really feel different if you can rescue just one person."

From his hospital bed in Chengdu, a rescued Jiang told Chinese media that at the time he felt a violent shaking of the bed and had a vague vision of the ceiling falling down. The next moment all was dark and he couldn't turn over. He also became extremely hungry and thirsty.

"When I realized there had been an earthquake and I was still alive, I felt very lucky," he said at the time. "I told myself, I must endure, I must hang on to life as long as I can."

Being unable to move or do anything but wait, Jiang came close to despair several times. But increasing signs of rescue efforts above ground and thoughts of his family helped him through. He held on to slivers of light and the sound of voices.

Jiang was buried for five days. In the morning of May 17, the Shanghai firefighting squad working alongside police forces detected Jiang's presence beneath the rubble. There followed over eight hours of digging which resulted in him finally being released at 4:31pm.

By that time his parents had already arrived at the scene after seeing news of the quake on TV. Jiang was both surprised and moved to hear his mother calling his name just before his rescue.

"Hearing her voice, I realized how precious my life is - to myself and to my family," he said.

Near death experiences often, ironically, have a life affirming effect. The earthquake brought out mental strength and raised forever Jiang's expectations and ambitions for his hard won chance at life.

After his recovery, Jiang went on to volunteer in Sichuan in the quake-hit areas along with his mother. He also was an Olympic torch bearer. It was also during this time that he decided to join the firefighting force. He arrived in Shanghai to start his new job by last December.

His superiors describe Jiang as particularly hard working and able to endure hardship during his training.

In the middle of our interview at the fire station, the fire alarm suddenly sounded and, in a flash, Jiang was gone. Not more than three minutes later he could be seen in the courtyard already changed into a firefighter's uniform, rapidly preparing the fire engine for action. The sound of the fire alarm, he had told us just moments before, caused a rush of adrenalin. Observing his rapt attention, it was as if the rest of the world had disappeared.

Since his graduation from cadet status just six days before our interview, Jiang had gone out on over 10 missions. Working at one of the busiest fires stations in the city, there is on average two to three missions a day and over 1,000 missions a year. His first mission was on May 2 to a residential fire in Pengpu area where Jiang helped an old couple leave the burning building safely. On May 4, Jiang was part of the team that helped persuade a suicidal woman in Baoshan District from jumping from her building.

Jiang experienced something of the unique gratification that his rescuer and mentor, Zhou, felt when his team rescued 48 people in Sichuan last year.

"You really feel different if you can rescue just one person," said Zhou of his experiences as a firefighter. "On a mission, none of us thinks of anything else, not even our own lives."

On the interview occasion, Jiang's team was sent to retrieve the body of a 50-year-old worker who had fallen into a canal in Baoshan District. The worker was already dead and, in their line of work, facing death is also a fact of life.

When he was first rescued from the debris of May 17 last year, Jiang expressed deep sadness for his two roommates and colleagues who had slept in the same room and yet did not survive.

"We were together everyday and, suddenly, they were gone," he had said. Even more unthinkable, he said, was the fact that Yingxiu Town, which had a population of 10,000, was reduced to only 2,000 after the quake.

Now he still writes letters to surviving colleagues at the toll station where he used to work. "It was my first place of work, my first place in society." But he has not been back to Sichuan since joining the firefighting force as training criteria specify new recruits cannot leave Shanghai for the first two years.

Memories of the disaster are something he avoids. He keeps busy with the force's daily physical training lasting from 5:30am to 9:30pm. The exception was this year's tomb-sweeping festival in April when memories of the quake and those it killed came naturally to the fore.

"None of us likes to recall that time," said Zhou. "We can't even look at the photos - it was too tragic."