It was 8 a.m. on a Friday morning in 2021 when Bret Storck first saw the car that was perpendicular to the road. He knew something wasn’t right, so he pulled his car over to see if he could help. In seconds, his firefighter training kicked in, and he was at the driver’s door trying to communicate with an unresponsive woman. Then, he caught a whiff of smoke.

“Car fires can blaze quickly,” said Storck, a Collin College Fire Science Academy instructor and Dallas Fire Department captain. “我知道情况会变糟。 I unbuckled the seatbelt and pulled her out of the car onto the grass into a safe location.”

对的时间，对的地点

Steve Cruz, Collin College fire instructor and captain of Station 5 in Frisco, and his fire company responded to the call.

“The car was fully involved, which means it was blazing,” said Cruz, who graduated from the Collin College Fire Officer program in the late 90s. “There was no wind, so the smoke and flames were going straight up. The flames were four feet high, and you could see smoke from a half-mile away. The only way she was able to get out is that he physically took her out. 他救了她。”

According to Cruz, his firefighters were prepared and dressed in the appropriate gear when they arrived on the scene because Storck was relaying information about the unresponsive individual and the vehicle fire.

“I was relieved that Captain Cruz showed up,” said Storck, who teaches a hazardous materials response class at the college. “他很聪明，我和他一起教书。”

“Being a firefighter is not a job just anyone can do,” said Pat McAuliff, Collin College director of Fire Science and chief training officer. “You need people who are passionate about it, and clearly these two are. 我为他们感到无比骄傲。 Collin College’s Fire Science program is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and I believe the strength of our program comes from our instructors who are from a wide variety of different agencies in the area. But all of them have the common thread as firefighters who help others on or off duty. 这是他们DNA的一部分。”

教育下一代

Storck explains that when firefighters are at the scene of an accident, they react in the way they were trained. 他称之为肌肉记忆。

“同样的重复对学生是有帮助的，”他说。 “We go over motor vehicle collision (MVC) at the college. We teach students how to do things safely, how to approach a car from the side, how to pull people out and get them out of the situation.”

那个决定命运的星期五是斯托克的休息日。 If you ask him why he stopped he’ll explain, “That’s what I do.” The reality is that it is also who he is a firefighter who wants to help people, make split-second decisions that save lives, and teach the next generation who will follow in his footsteps.

斯托克说：“我决定教书，成为一名更好的消防员和军官。” “I have the opportunity to work in a high-tech facility and learn from firefighters who work in big and small cities and everything in between. That is the best thing for me, the students, and our community.”

有关消防科学学院的更多信息，请访问www.collin.edu/firescience。