‘It’s a lot more than ‘Stop, drop and roll’'

At Highland Springs Elementary March 7, Gus Tyson, a firefighter with the Henrico County Division of Fire, is suited up in full gear – coat, boots, mask, helmet, and all – to show the young students that under all that heavy equipment is a familiar face.

Taking off his mask, Tyson says, “It’s still me! I’m still firefighter Gus.”

Just this past year, Henrico Fire expanded its elementary school program from just first through fourth graders to all kindergartners through fifth-graders at every Henrico County Public School. The goal was not just to teach more students about fire safety but also to forge connections and show the youngsters that they can trust firefighters in cases of emergency, said firefighter and elementary fire safety instructor Jasmine Wall.

“We have firefighters with their gear here so they can see that we’re the same person as I stand before you in my station uniform as when we put on all the bulky equipment,” Wall says. “And that’s what we’re doing, building those relationships.”

On this day, every student at Highland Springs Elementary is participating in a fun round-up of activities: firefighters play a ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ game with different household objects, teach students how to climb out of a window through a prop bedroom set-up, and show students the ins and outs of smoke detectors.

“You missed out on the good stuff!” third-grader Hector Ortiz says he would tell his friends who weren’t at the demonstration. “We got a bunch of cool stuff. We got some pencils, notebooks, and a sticker. I got all the swag!”

But after the fun activities are over, the elementary-schoolers will go home with a whole new set of skills and knowledge, telling their moms, dads, grandparents and friends all about what they learned, helping to keep their entire community safe.

"The cafeteria today is going to be all the buzz talking about this experience and just talking about, ‘I heard the fire alarm! I heard the smoke detector!’” Highland Springs Elementary Principal Shannon Washington says. “They go home and share that and so that's how we ensure that our community, that they know what to do.”

“That’s how seat belts became a big thing – they started at schools, and kids went home and told their families,” Wall says. “And we want fire safety and life safety skills like this to be second nature for them.”

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Fire prevention skills are crucial to keeping the community safe, Washington says, especially because a few students from Highland Springs Elementary have lost their homes and possessions to house fires in past years.

“It’s a scary feeling, because if you think about it, you go to sleep at night and you don’t think about what could happen when you don’t have anything,” Washington says. “We make sure that those families feel that they are heard and that we love them and support them because they have to create a new sense of normalcy.”

Tyson says that he encounters young children his son’s age all the time when he is called to scenes. Some of the students at Highland Springs are ones he even recognizes from past calls he has responded to, making him a familiar face of authority and safety to them.

Firefighters also have encountered young students at scenes after they have shown up at their school, and the impact of the fire safety lessons is often lifesaving, Wall says.

“One of my instructors actually, he said he was on call for a sick patient and saw an elementary-schooler in the corner and asked them, ‘Hey, what school do you go to?’ And it turns out we had actually taught that child fire safety already,” Wall says. “And that child was the one that initiated the call for service, remained calm, he knew all the answers for the dispatcher’s questions and greeted us at the door because that child knew that we were their friends.”

Some of the most important fire safety tips for families to remember, Wall says, is establishing a safe meeting place in the home, knowing your home’s safe exit points, and most importantly, checking your smoke detectors once a month and changing the batteries every six months.

“This weekend we have daylight savings time, and that’s when we recommend,” Wall says. “When you change your clocks, change your batteries.”

Tyson’s son, Trey Tyson, who is a third-grader at Highland Springs Elementary, says he learned a lot from his dad and the other firefighters at the demonstration about remaining safe in an emergency when you can’t immediately exit.

“If there’s two exits that are closed, then you have to go to either the closet or the bathroom,” he says. “If you’re in the bathroom, then you have to turn on the water and stay real close to it. And lastly, when you go in the closet, you have to go like, ‘bang bang bang bang!’ so the firefighters can hear you!”

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Trey Tyson wants to be a firefighter when he grows up, just like his dad. And now, a lot of other elementary-schoolers at Highland Springs and throughout Henrico schools are ready to suit up and become firefighters when they are older.

Showing elementary-schoolers the diversity of Henrico Fire is another goal of the K-5 program, Wall says, so that they know that anyone can become a firefighter.

“Another major part of this program is representation,” she says. “So me being here as a Black female, I have other females here, men here, different colors, heights, sizes. The message that we really want to send is that anyone can be a firefighter no matter what. And they see that.”

Tyson wants more young children in his community, like his own son, to recognize the importance and impact of public service careers like firefighting.

“You don’t always have to be an athlete, a rapper, or an actress or something like that,” he says. “I mean, being a firefighter’s a very rewarding, fulfilling, and productive career.”

Students will now have a bunch of familiar faces in Henrico Fire, who will keep coming back each year to show them that they are supported and that they are safe, Washington says.

“These firefighters, not only are they risking their lives on a day-to-day basis, but coming in to spend time with children they don’t know and to make sure that they feel safe, that they feel heard, and that they’re better than the day before,” she said. “That’s truly authentic.”

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Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s Report for America Corps member and education reporter. Her position is dependent upon reader support; make a tax-deductible contribution to the Citizen through RFA here.