Hatcher Johnson stood on his front lawn with a grin as a bright-red fire engine pulled up beside his house in Manhattan Beach on Tuesday.
The second grader, with his parents snapping their digital cameras and videoing with their iPhones, hopped in the front passenger seat. For the next 20 minutes, he would be Fire Captain.
“Are you ready to take a ride?” asked Brian Yount, engineer and public education officer for the Manhattan Beach Fire Department.
“Yes,” Hatcher said.
“We just do what this guy tells us,” Yount said, pointing to the front passenger seat, where Hatcher would soon sit. “Are you ready for that responsibility?”
“Yes,” Hatcher said again. With that, he hopped into the front seat, secured the headphones on his ears to communicate with his fellow firefighters, and fastened his seatbelt.
Hatcher was one of six Manhattan Beach second-graders who won the Manhattan Beach Fire Department’s contest to create the best escape plan from his home. For that, he won a ride to school in a fire truck. Hatcher worked on his plan for two days, circling his house over and over again, memorizing and documenting the location of windows and picking a meeting spot for his family in the case of a fire.
With sirens blazing, the fire engine turned the corner, pulling up to the front of Pacific, where the entire school cheered, “Hatcher! Hatcher!” while waving blue and yellow pom poms.
After Yount introduced Hatcher to the crowd – Hatcher plays soccer, loves pizza and wants to be a lawyer like his father – Hatcher climbed out of the truck to greet a line of classmates waiting to give him a hug and congratulate him.
“Good luck with all the new popularity,” Yount called out to Hatcher upon leaving.
The contest was an education effort in the spirit of National Fire Prevention Week, and Safety Month at Pacific Elementary School. Two weeks ago, Yount visited all the second grade classrooms to talk about fire safety and presented the guidelines for the contest. “For all the stuff we see everyday, its kind of nice to have moments with the kids,” Yount said.
