FCN: Florida State College at Jacksonville loses young firefighter student
First Coast News
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Florida State College at Jacksonville community is mourning the loss of one of their students who died during a fire academy entrance exam.
The death occurred Saturday morning at the Fire Academy of the South.
According to Jill Johnson, college director of marketing and communications, the student whose name wasn’t released because of patient privacy laws, died at Mayo Clinc Jacksonville after participating in an application process.
We spoke to Randy Wyse, President of the Association of Jacksonville firefighters who said, “A young man lost his life trying to do something get ready for a career that is a calling.”
According to Wyse, entrance exams like the one offered by the Fire Academy of the South, require a lot of physical endurance out of its participants.
To become a firefighter in Florida, a person must certificated and trained which includes a physical agility test with tasks like: pulling the hose, lifting of weights going upstairs, going up ladders and more.
"All sorts of things that really simulated situation firefighters go through everyday," said Wyse.
Perhaps the most difficult, according to Wyse, is that once a recruit has finished the agility test, his or her last task is to pull a weighted dummy to simulate dragging someone away from danger. These tests are designed to be tough to simulate some of the very real situations fight fighters are put into.
According to officials from FSCJ the student enrolled in the school in August.