Click here to subscribe today or Login.
KINGSTON — It started calmly enough, with eager youngsters quietly staring at the giant fire engine or cautiously trying on the heavy helmets. Then Sophira Morris found the horn.
She beeped as other students paused and looked for the source of the noise in the courtyard of the Graham Academy school for children with autism. She bounced enthusiastically in the cop car driver’s seat and beeped again, grinned and beeped, bounced and laughed and beeped and beeped.
The annual “Safety Day” demonstration, with Kingston police, fire and ambulance vehicles parked for the students to tour, picked up steam after that. Nathan Sanchez, 8, dared to put on a complete fire jacket, the sleeves of the arms nearly scraping the ground. He seemed reluctant to remove it, yet when asked if he wanted to keep it, responded emphatically.
“I cant’ keep it. That would be stupid.”
Anthony Lopez opted to put his way-too-tiny feet into a pair of massive boots, then don a black firefighter jacket and walk around with nothing of himself visible beyond his eyes and smile poking above the collar.
Several children discovered the police K-9 car — dog not included for this visit — had more than a bouncy seat and horn. The siren started sounding, then the public address system was tested.
“Everybody freeze!” one boy shouted. “Put your hands up!”
“Surrender now!” another added. “Or face the consequences.”
While a few approaching the firefighter turnout gear tried on the jacket or the breathing mask or the helmet or the oxygen tank, only Ariel Heintz dared don them all at the same time, walking about with a buckle from the tank straps scraping the tarmac.
After a while, he sloughed the stuff off, shedding gear that probably nearly doubled his weight, and stated the obvious.
“I’m hot!”
Welcome to the world of fighting fires.
