by Donielle Marco ’22
Emergency Services Day was insightful, eye-opening and very exciting. The day started with a tour of 911 dispatch, showing all the systems and departments who work together to provide a central place for emergency communication, to ensure the best response time to Pinellas County residents.
We then went to the Sunstar HQ, where we heard a lot about the internal structure of Sunstar, how they keep their AAA rating, and their response time goal. It was also at the Sunstar HQ where we had the awesome opportunity of role playing CPR, using makeshift items as a tourniquet to stop bleeding, and got a demo on a cool device that is used to place an IV in the bone!
Our next stop was the Clearwater Fire Academy where we watched an incoming training class perform a safety drill, and we all got to use the water hose. Our last stop was Lifeguard Tower 0 on Clearwater Beach. It was very interesting to meet actual lifeguards and to hear about the wide variety of work they do for the safety of residents when at the beach.
The best thing about Emergency Services Day, in my opinion, was being able to actually see each department’s work in action and how they all work together so seamlessly.