Tracy Gordon Fox
Hartford Courant (Connecticut)
Copyright 2007 The Hartford Courant Company
All Rights Reserved
COLCHESTER, Conn. — Heather Giguere would much rather hang out at the firehouse than go to the mall.
It may sound like an unusual choice for a 16-year-old high school student, but for her and 17 other cadets in the Colchester Hayward Volunteer Fire Department, it is way more exciting to respond to a fire than to go shopping.
“After school, you don’t get `Will you drop me off at the mall?’ It’s `Can you drop me off at the firehouse?”’ said Heather’s stepfather, John Greenman, who is one of the advisers for the program, now in its 43rd year.
“I just like hanging out, and actually going on a call and doing something,” said Giguere, who has been a cadet since she was 14.
Once in a while, the cadets, most of whom are students at Bacon Academy, will get to leave school if there is a working fire during the day and they are needed to help the adult members.
A school administrator got on the intercom on March 23 when a fire tore through a home on Hammond Court, less than 2 miles from the high school.
Many of the cadets responded, and instead of sitting in class, they helped clean up the debris from the fire.
“They are very useful for cleanup. The firefighters are exhausted from fighting the fire,” said Susan Dubb, who advises the cadets.
Dubb said the cadets are always in the “cold zone,” meaning they will not go into a working fire. But they are adept at fetching tools and equipment from the trucks for the firefighters, she said. They can also respond to medical calls once they have the proper training and reach the age of 16.
“When they become 16, they are able to become medical response technicians, which helps us to fill out crews for the ambulance,” Fire Chief Walter Cox said, adding that the training to become an MRT is less intensive than an emergency medical technician.
Cadets are not allowed to respond to calls involving violence, Cox said. They are allowed to respond with senior department members to calls from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and until midnight on weekends.
“And when the need comes up, two or three times a year, the school does let them out during a fire,” Cox said.
If there is a fire drill at Bacon, the cadets also help out by searching the rooms to make sure everyone is out of the building. The cadets, who can range from age 14 to 18, also earn a high school credit for participating in the program.
“A lot of my friends think it’s cool,” said Sara Beer, a junior at Bacon. “I love it.”
Many of the cadets say they want to be career firefighters or emergency medical technicians, and the fire department is the perfect training ground.
Rank is not set by age, but by qualification. Kyle Logiudice, 18, is the only cadet who is a certified emergency medical technician. He rides on an ambulance crew.
Most others are medical response technicians, including Adam Wagner, who turned 16 in December, and took the test early.
“It runs in my family. I like helping people. I really do,” Wagner said.
Logiudice said he heard about the program, observed it a couple of nights and “fell in love with it.”
“I like the brotherhood. Every day is a new adventure and you know other people out there need your help,” he said.