Patterson EMT students pose with Fire Chief Ford (left), Lt. Governor Anthony Brown (center) and EMT teacher Jason Casey (right) (Photo: Patterson High School Yearbook Committee)

By Dabreonna Waddell,

The Baltimore City Fire Department held its annual Fire Department Thrill Show at its training facility on Pulaski Highway on October 4^th 2014. This thrill show has been an ongoing event put on by the department to gives the public a chance to see how and what the fire department really does.  The thrill show has been running for several years.

I along with several other Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) students in the Patterson High School EMT program were invited and given the opportunity to participate in the thrill show. This was a very exciting experience and I had lots of fun. The opportunity gave me the chance to interact with children by doing arts and craft such as face painting, and demonstrating and modeling how firefighters suited up and wore fire turn out gear (fire equipment). We were able to interact with firefighters and fire apparatus.

While at the Fire thrill show, we also had the chance to meet and interact with new people, including the new fire chief Mr. Ford and also Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown who was running for Governor of Maryland at the time.

I believe going to this event has given me and the others a better opportunity at becoming an EMT because we met two these two important people now that they know our name and faces and see that we are very interested in this career and they may help us out in the long run with getting an EMT job.

This experience was very fun and interesting. It gave me a better understanding of how things are done and it also showed me what my EMT teacher, Mr. Casey, loves to do. I am very interested in coming back and helping out again.