Tuesday, January 26, 2021
www.the-papers.com
Serving Elkhart County and parts of Noble, LaGrange & Marshall Counties Know Your Neighbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2➤ Speak Outs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Good Neighbor. . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Business Honor Roll . . . . . 7-9 Vol. 48 No. 42
Goshen (574) 534-2591
134 S. Main, Goshen, Indiana 46526 +$1'6 21 /($51,1* ³ Maddox Riddle, a student from Concord High School, takes a turn at using a flre extinguisher to put out a small flre during a skills session of the Elkhart Area Career Center÷s flre flghting program. Keeping an eye on things is Nicole Dyer, class instructor. The EACC has offered the flreflghting program for close to 20 years. Photo provided. (;75,&$7,21 75$,1,1* ³ Kaylin Durski, a student from Penn High School, takes a turn using the jaws of life to get into a car to extricate an injured person during a skills session in the Elkhart Area Career Center÷s flreflghting program. This year, the program has 34 students, eight are female. Photo provided.
Elkhart Area Career Center’s
firefighting program
has been serving students for 20 years %\ /$85(1 =(8*1(5 $VVRFLDWH (GLWRU For those who aren’t in the profession, firefighting is fascinating. Popular culture celebrates firefighters as heroes, just look at the number of TV shows from “Emergency!” in the early 1970s, to “Chicago Fire,” “9-1-1” and “9-1-1 Lone Star,” all on TV now, not to mention the movie “Backdraft” which came out in 1991. The profession is far more complicated than TV or the movies depict. Young people in the area who think they may be interested in joining the profession, the Elkhart Area Career Center offers a firefighting program letting them learn first hand about the job. The career center’s program was started by Marty McCrindle, shortly after he retired from Goshen Fire Department as a chief fire inspector in 1998. Ray Collins took over the class after McCrindle passed away in 2016. This year Nicole D y e r took
over the program. Dyer worked for Elkhart Fire Department where she was an inspector and handled the arson K-9. There are several career centers around the state that offer a firefighting program, but the Elkhart Area Career Center and Warsaw Area Career Center are the only two in the northern part of the state that offer a firefighting program. Students in the EACC program come from 14-16 feeders schools in Elkhart, St. Joseph and Marshall counties as well as from southern Michigan. Students can go two ways in the program: firefighting or firefighting/EMS. This year, Dyer has 34 students in the program eight of them are girls. “Some are interested in the fire side and some are interested in the EMS program,” Dyer said of her female students. She explained the program mirrors what the Indiana Department of Homeland Security requires of certified firefighters. In addition, students may also earn dual credit from Ivy Tech. Students who complete the class and qualify can take the IDHS fire certification test. Dyer said when coming into the program, students are surprised at how
much they need to know to be a firefighter, from building construction, to some chemistry. “It a lot of memorization,” she said in a phone interview. “A lot of fast critical thinking and it’s fast paced. I’m cramming five college classes in one year for the Fire I class.” Dyer said she loves teaching the passion for firefighting she and her husband have for the profession. Her husband assists her since students must complete their bookwork before they can work on their skills. Between the two of them, they are able to work one on one with their students. Dyer has seen students who take the class go into firefighting, corrections and even police work. “It gives them a step up over other people because they have the certifications already,” she said. Some of those certifications include hazardous material; first responder aware-
ness; mandatory firefighter; technical rescuer awareness; fire investigator; driver operational general; driver operator pumper; public fire and life safety educator I and emergency medical responder. One drawback is while students are able to receive their certifications, they usually graduate high school around age 17-18, when most full-time departments require prospective applicants to be 21. Volunteer departments can take on younger members. Dyer sees this year as a growing year for the program. For next year, she plans to focus on the first year class being primarily book work and skills learning. The first semester of the second year in the program would have students finishing up their Firefighting II requirements and spending their second semester in an internship with an area department.