Every day, a select few students from the Charles County Public Schools go to a not so typical classroom. This classroom comes along with cars to be cut up, materials to take care of injured and sick people, a three level building for burning, and a large open fire pit. These students have signed-up to be put through a rigorous year long program with the equivalent of three years worth of training and 16 college credits. This is not your average high school class, this is the Charles County Fire and EMS Cadet program at the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute Southern Maryland RegionalTraining Center and offered through the Charles County Public School’s Career and Technical Education Program.
The Fire and EMS Cadet program is a program where students spend three hours each day out of their school schedule training to further themselves in the fire and/or EMS field. The students are put through such classes as Firefighter 1 and 2, Emergency Medical Technician-Basic, Hazmat Operations, Rescue Technician, and others. This is the 16th year of the program with a total of 15 students from Westlake, La Plata, Thomas Stone, and North Point High School.
Upon the BayNets visit, the students were doing their last modular test of the program which included a written and practical test on trauma care before they appear in front of the state evaluators to test for their EMT-B certification next week.
All students who are interested in participating in the program in the future should contact their school’s guidance department and as a requirement of the program, must maintain an active membership which remains in good standings throughout the duration of the program. Adults who are interested should contact their local fire and/or EMS department for more information on participating in the program.
This story is a part of a weekly feature from the BayNet which features a different department/organization from the Southern Maryland tri-county area each week that serves our community. For information or to be featured, have your chief or head of your department/organization contact Ryan DeGruy at ryan.d@thebaynet.com.
