While high school students tend to spend their summer sleeping, working, or out with their friends, Junior Firefighter Rachel Hernandez spent her last summer out saving lives.
She is part of a new program created last January by the Myrtle Beach Fire Department to train aspiring firefighters. This program is called the ‘Junior Firefighter Program’.
Junior Firefighters learn what “Probies” (Probationary Firefighters) do in their first year when they begin serving. Along with this, they learn the basic tasks they would have to complete as a full firefighter; such as opening fire hydrants and running lines.
“It gives you a lot of benefits because we tend to practice stuff that regular firefighters do when they start their first year,” Rachel said. “It helps us understand what we’re doing already.”
A key point of the program is that Junior Firefighters get to go on real missions and gain experience. To ensure safety, Junior Firefighters are always accompanied by trained professionals on their missions. While the professionals do most of the work and the Junior Firefighters mainly observe, they still get some hands-on experience.
“I don’t help a lot because it’s something you have to take a test for in order to qualify to help, but I do help with equipment,” Rachel said.
Rachel became a junior firefighter in her junior year when the Myrtle Beach fire department visited Socastee to recruit students for the program. She is one of a handful of students at Socastee who joined the force.
Her respect for what first responders do inspired her to stay in the firefighter program, and she wants to continue pursuing becoming a firefighter in the future.
“I really really want to become a firefighter and a paramedic,” she said. “I just think saving lives is something ‘cool’.”
The job has fun aspects to it, along with dangerous and unnerving situations.
“There was one time I had to witness someone going into cardiac arrest, it was really bad,” she said. “There was another time I had to witness a person using substances and he was unconscious; we had to wake him up.”
Rachel’s passion for wanting to help people doesn’t end there; in the future she plans to go to medical school to become a surgeon.
“I plan to become a surgeon when I get done doing some good time in service, in the field,” she said. “I plan to go back to college.”
For more information about the Junior Firefighter Program, please email [email protected]
