Teen volunteers with public safety

CHRISTIANSEN-Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU -- During the March windstorm, fire and ambulance crews around the borough responded to call after call in what seemed like an endless string of emergencies. Most of the emergency responders are volunteers, people who schedule a few hours each month for training, and when their pager goes off, they leave their dinner table and drive to a fire station or drive directly to the scene of an emergency.

14-year-old Nicolai Tykalsky sometimes hitches a ride with his older sister to the firehouse. He also responds to "page-outs" on his mountain bike, pedaling from home in Brentwood to station 61, the Cottonwood Creek Public Safety Building.

"I like to help people -- and I'm not one of those people who likes to sit around like a couch potato. I like to move around," Tykalsky said.

Tykalsky is an eighth-grader at Teeland Middle School. He plans to run track when he gets to high school. Currently he enjoys riding bikes with friends and hiking. But he's also a member of the Explorer program which takes up a bunch of his time. Explorers meet once a week for training. They hone their skills and they take tests to earn certifications in CPR and other emergency response techniques. Tykalsky is an Emergency Trauma Technician or ETT.

The Explorer program is about as close as you can get to being a paramedic or firefighter if you're 14. Explorers do get close to the action, within limits set by Borough Emergency Services officials. Tykalsky helps out at the firehouse managing gear such as the fire hose that needs to be run through a hose washer after a fire. There was a lot of that sort of thing during the March winds because station 61 had so many calls.

As an ETT, Tykalsky has worked as an assistant to emergency medical technicians at a structure fire. The EMTs monitor firefighters as the firefighters rotate through their positions on the fire.

Tykalsky said he wants to become a certified EMT when he turns 18, the minimum age for EMT certification. The Explorer program allows him to meet and train with paramedics, but it does have limits.

"I can go to code yellow calls and if they get bumped up to code red I have to get out," Tykalsky said. He doesn't know if that's ever happened to an Explorer before.

Most people might imagine a 14-year-old to be fascinated by flames, ‡ la Beavis and Butthead, but Tykalsky's primary interest is emergency medicine. He carries a trauma kit in his backpack in case he ever happens to be the first responder to the scene of an emergency. He said the variety of trauma and emergency medical care is also attractive.

"I like the medical, because there are tons of medical emergencies," Tykalsky said. "Medical emergencies are normal. It's normal to have medical emergencies and you practice them over and over."

Tykalsky said that borough firefighters and EMTs treat the Explorers as peers. He may spend time cleaning up after fires, but so do adults. Besides, it's kind of cool to go inside a building that's partly burned.

"It's not like the Explorers are at the bottom. I've made friends with firefighters who work there," he said. "'We'll help you through it, because we're not going to let you fail.' That's their attitude."

This year, Tykalsky will be responding on his bicycle if his pager goes off, but he also has plans for a better vehicle soon.

"James Steele (a firefighter and Deputy Chief) and I are negotiating a deal. He's going to give me his command vehicle and I'm going to give him my bicycle. I just need to put some blue lights on my bike -- he also says he needs a siren."