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Stafford recruits learn as a team

December 10, 2006 12:50 am

By MEGHANN COTTER

An intimidating silence fills a classroom of 22 recently hired Stafford County fire and rescue employees.

It's Monday morning, Dec. 4, and still dark outside.

No one is whispering.

There's little movement, besides the occasional slurp from a coffee cup.

Everyone's eyes are focused on one uniformed man, sitting on a desk in the front of the room.

Chief Charlie Freeman wastes no time getting started when the clock strikes 6.

Stafford is growing fast, he tells the class. And the Fire and Rescue Department needs to keep up.

"We have a lot of holes we need to fill, and you guys are going to fill those holes," he tells them.

Until now, Stafford's emergency service professionals have taken necessary skill classes as individuals. But all future instruction will happen twice a year through the newly created Fire and Rescue Training Academy, which Freeman and Lt. Erick Kling are teaching.

Training schools are common nationwide in larger departments that hire a lot of new people each year. Many counties in Northern Virginia provide such programs to fill vacant positions and maintain skills among employees.

Most people coming through Stafford's first class are filling new positions being funded by ambulance fees that the county started collecting in October. The remaining students will fill existing vacancies.

For 17 weeks, Freeman and Kling will groom their recruits to fight fires, provide medical care, survive dangerous situations and work together as a team. They'll train physically and mentally for challenges they might encounter on the job.

By graduation in March, Freeman promises, they'll be "well certified, qualified and in shape."

But first, a few rules:

"Don't be late; you'll be in trouble," he says.

Bad weather won't change the class schedule--not even the outdoor physical training planned once or twice every day.

"It's not like we don't fight fire in the snow, so it's not like it's going to be anything new," he says.

Have integrity.

Stand at attention when officers walk into the room.

Say good morning to every person you walk past.

Give 110 percent.

"You may not like us as instructors some days. That's the way we set up the system. You may not like each other, but you still have to work together as a team," Freeman says. "You guys are recruits--remember that."

Stafford Fire and Rescue Chief Rob Brown has given Freeman conflicting orders on how to conduct the academy: Make sure everyone makes it to graduation, but be tough enough that those who make it can handle the job.

"We're making sure, when they graduate, we are putting the best of the best on the street," Brown says.

Each recruit is, at minimum, a trained EMT. But they all come from different backgrounds and levels of experience.

Some students are trained paramedics or firefighters. A handful have left jobs unrelated to fire and rescue to work for Stafford. Many are transfers from other career departments throughout the state or former volunteers making the move to paid positions.

But all students must complete refresher classes on all levels of emergency care, regardless of their skills.

"You train like you fight, and fight like you train," Brown says. "We're training them to be firefighters, the way we want them to be firefighters. If one person can't expect what the other one's movement is going to be, it can be dangerous."

After just one week of class, the students are already using their various backgrounds to help less-experienced classmates catch up.

"Up out of the hole, around the tree, back through the hole and pull," recruit Scott Zimmerman tells recruit Katie Jones, who has been working on her knot-tying skills during a break.

Zimmerman has worked for five departments and been through just as many recruit schools. He's even considered writing a book titled "The Career Recruit."

Jones has been a volunteer at Falmouth's department for 2 years. She's good at knots, she says, but always has trouble tying the bowline type.

"The first time I ever learned knots I was terrible," Zimmerman tells Jones. "I just carried rope everywhere with me."

She keeps trying, under Zimmerman's urging, and eventually she gets it.

The same kind of encouragement happens all day long, especially when recruits are hammering a heavy weight through a sled, dragging weighted dummies across the floor and running miles.

When the fastest people finish, they turn around, run to the end of the pack and cheer the slowest people across the finish line.

"The whole fire service is about that," says recruit Harlo Chandler. "Nobody goes alone."

To reach MEGHANN COTTER: 540/374-5434
Email: mcotter@freelancestar.com