By: Najla Alexander
Carteret officials have announced four new hires to the Borough Fire Department.
Fire Chief Mark Hruska said the department had been training the cadets since July in site and building familiarization, basic safety, and physical fitness before they continued training at the Morris County Fire Academy.
The honorable Mayor Daniel J. Reiman stated that the new firefighters are Amr Abedelnabi, 20, the Borough’s first-ever Muslim firefighter; Caleb Delossantos, 29; Lester Castillo, 23; and Jason Chapman, 30.
Officials say Delossantos and Castillo follow Isley Perez, the Borough’s first-ever Latin and female career recruit hired last year. All are residents of Carteret.
The recruits will participate in the Career Firefighter Fire 1 and Fire 2 courses through Nov. 22 at the Fire Academy, Chief Hruska said.
“I’m proud to say that I’m the first fire chief in the history of the Carteret Fire Department to have the first Muslim cadet since 1894,” he said.
“Last year was the first-ever female and Latin recruit, and we’ve expanded with two new Latino recruits. I’m proud to see the diversification of the fire department reflect the great cultural diversity of Carteret. That’s a big thing to me, and I’m happy to see it.”
Perez was among the firefighters who helped the new recruits with their local training, officials said, and the others are Lieutenants Eric Wahl and Tom Reynolds and Firefighters Ben Lakatos and Mike Caputo.
Chief Hruska said he was also happy to see that two of the recruits were inspired to pursue fire service careers by two public safety education programs he initiated: an elementary school fire poster contest and a Fire Prevention Week awareness event.
“I was interested to see them impacted as little kids and wanting in adult life to become firefighters,” Chief Hruska said.
“You think you’re doing these things to do them because that’s what we do, but it turns out that they have a big impact, evidently. The lasting memories when these kids were 5, 6, 7, 8 years old made them want to be a firefighter, which is really pretty sharp.”
The new hires brings the Fire Department's compliment of firefighters to 24, authorities say.