A city fire cadet died Friday after collapsing during a routine training exercise in a three-story West Baltimore row house, officials said.
Chief Kevin Cartwright said it was not clear why the cadet, later identified as Rachel Wilson, collapsed shortly after noon in the vacant building at Frederick Avenue and Calverton Road. A class of approximately 40 recruits was fighting a planned fire, he said, when Wilson was stricken and pulled from the building.
Paramedics rushed her to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Dr. Thomas Scalea said, providing her with medical care that was “nothing short of spectacular,” but she died shortly after her arrival.
“This individual received everything ? everything ? that we have to offer,” Scalea said.
Another recruit and the driver of a ladder truck also were hospitalized with burn injuries from the training exercise, Cartwright said. At least one suffered second- and third-degree burns trying to rescue the dying cadet.
Mayor Sheila Dixon and City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake flanked fire officials at a mid-afternoon news conference outside the hospital, expressing sympathy to Wilson?s family.
“The people of Baltimore are safer because of the courageous individuals who choose a life of public service,” Dixon said later in a statement, “and risk their lives to protect the members of their community.”
Cartwright said the training exercise was “very, very routine,” with the vacant building set on fire and the recruits going in to fight it.
“This is actually what our firefighters go through before they” work real fires, he said. When Wilson collapsed, he said, “they immediately ceased the operation” and pulled her out of the building.
