By Theresa Tighe
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
At a St. Louis Fire Department health fair recently, an elderly woman approached Brian Torno, 17, and asked whether he could take her blood pressure. Brian is a member of the St. Louis Fire Department’s Explorer Post 9402. Instead of just pointing to the tent where blood pressures were being taken, Brian took her bags, took her arm and walked her to the blood pressure booth.
For many thoughtful gestures, and for dozens of small actions such as keeping his boots shined and uniform pressed, Brian was honored as the St. Louis Fire Department Explorer of the Year. The post’s leader, St. Louis Fire Department firefighter and paramedic Shawn Bittle, said it was unusual for a first-year Explorer to get the honor.
Bittle says Brian “is very sharp, a good kid, a hard worker. He calms people down and he can look at a situation from more that one aspect.”
Among other things, Explorers study firefighting procedures, ride along to calls on the pumpers, polish poles and sometimes cook.
Brian’s plaque contains fine words, “dedicated, professional, common sense.”
Brian doesn’t recite them, but his mother, Jo Ann Torno, does. She wanted to hang the plaque prominently in the south St. Louis County home they share with his father, Don Torno, and his two brothers.
Brian put the plaque in his bedroom, which also contains a serpentine length of gray fire hose. Someday, he says, he will drape the hose along the ceiling. For now it sits on the floor and irritates his mother.
Brian wants to be a firefighter and paramedic in St. Louis. His mother says that ambition has “made such a difference in attitude. He is more focused, more mature.”
He is a senior at Oakville High School in the Mehlville District and South County Technical High School. He is enrolled in the firefighting program at the technical high school and will graduate with emergency medical technician certification. He works part time at St. Anthony’s Medical Center as a transporter. He and his brother, Matt, 19, will begin a training program to become volunteer firefighters for the Eureka Fire Protection District next month.
Brian and Matt have police scanners. Their mother said, “They listen to them in bed, in the bathroom when they take a shower.”
Brian decided he wanted to be a firefighter because of the attack on the World Trade Center. He said of the firefighters’ work on that day, “They ran into the building when everybody else was coming out, sacrificing all they had.”
Despite his accomplishments and career plans, he is still a 17-year-old. His Explorer post sent him to promote Explorer programs at the International Association of Fire Chiefs in April in Dallas.
His memories center on two things: a shiny black fire truck trimmed with flames and the free shrimp.