On View : Real Life’s Success Story : NO DRAMATIZATION HERE: ‘RESCUE 911’ IS A HIT

Sitting in on the research meeting for “Rescue 911” allows one to really see the beginnings of what makes this program tick.

“Well, we’ve been looking for a stop, drop and roll story and I’ve got it,” says one young researcher, as she goes on to tell of a 6-year-old boy who’d attempted some flame throwing on his own and was miraculously saved by friends. “He’s remorseful now, so there’s our lesson,” continues the researcher, who acknowledges that she had to talk the boy’s mother into allowing the show to re-create the incident. “She was afraid he’d get the idea that you can do something wrong and still end up on national TV.”

The boy’s story will likely will air later this season, “Rescue 911’s” fifth. The mother’s reluctance was brief and rare--since it seems everyone in the country either watches or wants to be part of this show. It was last season’s 12th highest-rated show. It is now seen in 60 countries and is being syndicated in half-hour versions to 92 stations in the U.S.

Along with “Cops” and “Unsolved Mysteries,” “911” spawned a rush of “reality” shows, many of which have come and gone. But few that have matched “911’s” overwhelming success. It all started when former CBS programming chief Kim LeMasters heard a 911 call on the radio and, in turn, asked award-winning documentary maker Arnold Shapiro (“Scared Straight”) to find a way to build a series around it.

Executive Producer Shapiro and a handful of assistants developed the format--a combination of reality and drama--and brought William Shatner in as host.

Nancy Jacoby, who was Shapiro’s first producer-director, recalls those early days. “First, we didn’t know if anyone would ever go on TV to talk about these things that had happened to them,” says Jacoby, who now has her own production company. “Then, we didn’t know if we’d be able to get the 911 recordings, legally or otherwise. Finally, we wondered if we would have enough of these stories.”

That was 500 stories ago. What makes them work may seem obvious, but a lot of of thought and politically concerned discussion goes into every one.

“In selecting a story, there has to be something positive viewers can take away from it,” explains Shapiro.

“We’re also very careful about not showing violence,” adds Shapiro, “as we are about racial stereotypes. We won’t show blacks as perpetrators unless there are also other black role models in the same piece.”

When the show started, Shapiro & Co. assumed that most of the stories would focus on professional rescuers. “But just as many of the stories are about good Samaritans who became unexpected heroes,” Shapiro notes. “Ultimately, that’s why viewers respond to the show, because it’s about people in their finest moments.”

About 100 people put “Rescue” together every week in a three-story office in the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood. Storyboards are everywhere, listing such working titles as “Boy Scout Treehouse Save,” “Boat Blast,” “Suicide Son Save.” But most of the action takes place in the locations where the various “rescues” took place.

Those televised rescues come in three forms: mini-”documentaries,” wherein crew members go out with a rescue, police or hospital team hoping to catch a real crisis as it happens. Then there are stories that revolve around a piece of dramatic news footage, though “Rescue” adds its own interviews with all the key participants. Finally, there are the “re-created” pieces, in which an actual past rescue is dramatized, often with the real participants playing themselves.

“We’d assumed the actual victims and participants would not want to be involved retelling their stories,” says Shapiro, “but many have found that by reliving the events, under safe and controlled situations, they undergo a catharsis of sorts.”

For those who work on the series--many have been there from the beginning--things stay remarkably exciting. “It’s a privilege to be with people who allow you into their lives at these times,” says Robin Groth, one of “Rescue’s” field directors. Groth specializes in the documentary segments and happened to be driving with an emergency response unit in Boston when it received a call from Charles Stuart who said he and his pregnant wife had just been shot.

The story--which turned out to be one of the most heavily covered of the year--was clearly a coup for “Rescue 911.” But the series, in an admirable act of restraint, treated it like any other “rescue” story, waiting to check all the facts before airing--about three months. The real story was that Stuart, who had claimed his attacker was a black man, had shot his wife. Stuart later killed himself. Stuart killed himself before he could be arrested.

How long can “Rescue” go on? “As long as our stories don’t seem repetitive,” says Jean O’Neil, an executive producer. “They play like contemporary fairy-tales and they are obviously reassuring for people to watch.”

But, says producer-director Jim Milio, “We’re still looking for a good shark attack.”

“Rescue 911” airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CBS. Repeats air Saturdays at 8 p.m. on the Family Channel.