Firefighting - it's all in the family

Not many college students know what careers they want to pursue, let alone high school students. But Presley Pritchard says she knew she wanted to be a firefighter or a police officer since she was a little kid.

"It's in my family," she said. "My father is a firefighter, my uncle is a firefighter-paramedic, another uncle is a policeman, and my grandfather did police work."

Pritchard, who will be a senior at Whitefish High School this fall, has already spent a year with the Whitefish Fire Department — she has her own bunker gear and a locker at the new Emergency Services Center, and she has completed and passed an EMT Basic course at Flathead Valley Community College.

But still unsure if she wanted to pursue a career in law enforcement, Pritchard attended the Junior Police Leadership Academy in Helena on July 11-16. The academy is sponsored by the Montana Association of Chiefs of Police.

Pritchard said she was the only person from Whitefish among the 30-some students. The students were divided into teams that competed in different activities over the week. In one exercise, teams used compasses and protractors to locate dog tags hidden on a 180-acre site in Helena. Her team included four boys and three girls.

The students also learned about crime-scene investigation, including identifying shoe molds and fingerprinting; participated in SWAT team exercises in buildings with mock hostage situations; performed emergency driving in patrol cars on marked courses; and shot 'sim rounds."

"I wanted to see if I really wanted to make the switch from firefighter to police," she said. "I prefer being a firefighter — I like helping people save lives, and I like the excitement."

Before moving to Whitefish a year ago, Pritchard participated in a law enforcement Explorer program in Springhill, Fla. Explorer programs around the U.S provide hands-on opportunities for teenagers to learn about law enforcement and firefighter-paramedic careers.

After learning that the Whitefish police didn't offer an Explorer program, Pritchard approached Whitefish fire chief Thomas Kennelly about creating a local program. The chief agreed, and two other Whitefish high students, Amy Perkins and Chanse Shuffield, joined Pritchard in the new program.

"It's a volunteer job," she said. "We did a lot of chores and took a lot of training. We went on calls, but because we were under 18, we were not allowed to actually fight fires. We were allowed on medical calls and do things like take blood pressure and help with backboards."

Pritchard plans to continue with the firefighter Explorer program here in her senior year. Last year, she left school on Thursdays after lunch for time at the fire department in addition to one day each weekend with the firefighters. She also plays on the Lady Bulldog soccer team.

"I look up to Sarah Peterson and Heather Bellings the most," she said of two Whitefish firefighters. "I worked on Sarah's shift, and she gave me a lot of tips and was very patient with me."

Pritchard said she's been to several vehicle accidents, calls for people with diabetes, heart problems and chest pain, and "a lot of falls in homes or on ice." She says she's not scared of "blood and gore" and likes the adrenaline rush. After graduating from high school, she plans to spend two years at FVCC and two more elsewhere for a paramedic degree that can guarantee her a good job.

She was explaining that her favorite television shows are "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Law and Order SUV" when she heard a siren. She looked down at her cell phone and read a text message from the dispatcher, smiling as an ambulance sped past the Pilot office.