Hoffman Estates completes inaugural Citizens Fire Academy for special-needs students
Hoffman Estates’ inaugural training experience for young people with special needs was so well researched that its instructors learned only one thing over its six weeks that they didn’t know at the start.
“It made a greater impact on the fire department than the members of the academy,” said Lt. Kurt Lichtenberg, the department’s public education officer who came up with the idea a year ago for the Fully Involved Fire Academy. “It’s a good reminder of why we signed up for the job.”
By this week’s final session, the academy’s 22 members had established an easy and joking rapport with the numerous participating firefighters, knowing several of them by comical nicknames.
The students ranging in age from 14 to 35 registered for the program through the Rolling Meadows-based Northwest Special Recreation Association. To the extent each was able, they practiced such skills as vehicle extrication, operating a fire hose, forcible entry of a locked door, searching for and rescuing people from darkened environments and riding on the fire vehicles.
In one final exercise, they broke into smaller groups, with each performing a necessary function at a simulated firefight including a command team giving the orders and awaiting confirmation of successful completion of each task.
At the end of the exercise, the students were applauded by their instructors and told they had learned and done things very few non-firefighters had.
“Instead of you thanking us, we want to thank you,” Lichtenberg told the class. “The fire department is incredibly proud of you. You left your comfort zone. You made us better firefighters by being around you.”
Though visibly joyful throughout each exercise, some of the young participants said they hadn’t yet fully processed the experience they’d had as they looked forward to the graduation ceremony.
Nineteen-year-old Jack Eleftheriou of Rolling Meadows had no such difficulty, however.
“I really like how it’s a hands-on experience,” he said. “We got to ride in the rig. We got to go off-road, and I think that’s cool. I think this is one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
He admitted it was an opportunity he’d never really imagined until it presented itself.
This first session of the academy was dedicated to the memory of one early registrant who had perished in a fire himself weeks before the classes started.
Lichtenberg said he’s now convinced there will be another session of the class next fall. He’s also hoping that the program will prove influential throughout the region.
The Hoffman Estates Fire Department has already received inquiries about the methodology of the academy from others, but Lichtenberg said he wanted to wait to see if the curriculum went according to plan.
And it did.
Despite a wide range of ages and abilities, Lichtenberg said no activities were beyond the students already well known by NWSRA to take part in at some level, Lichtenberg said.