Students Train As Firefighters For Class Credit
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ARLINGTON (CBDFW.COM) - Firefighters saving a life changed Brent Bousquet's life when he had barely begun high school.
"I was in a wreck about four years ago and my driver instructor actually had to be extricated from the car," Bousquet said. "An Arlington fire crew came out and extricated him. And I really noticed the teamwork, you know, everything they did together."
Their work inspired him. Bousquet joined an innovative Arlington Fire Department program that puts high school students through the same training as fire academy students.
The high school students get class credit as they train to be firefighters. The students get an opportunity to decide if that is a career they'd like to purse. The two year program leaves them ready to become firefighters and EMT's right out of high school. Bousquet is one of 13 students to complete the first two year course. He's also one of four students hired by the Arlington Fire Department.
"Firefighter aspect-wise I learned a lot," Bousquet said. I learned the basics of the basics I guess you could say.
Arlington saves money because it doesn't have to hire applicants who might wash out of training. It also gives Arlington the pick of the best students. And it gives students the skills they need to navigate out of school and into the working world.
"It did more than teach me how to become a firefighter," Bousqet said. "It really matured me. From every aspect, without this fire Academy I don't think I'd be the person that I am today."
A fire department spokesman said other members of the class are working on ambulances in other cities and one has decided she would now like to go on to be a doctor.
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