TULALIP — When Quil Ceda Elementary student Courtney Taylor got a perfect check-up from her dentist, Dr. Kelly Peterson, she wasn’t expecting that it would earn her a ride to school in a fire truck.

Nonetheless, a Marysville Fire District crew picked her up from her home June 4, in a fire engine from Sunnyside Station 66, and escorted her into her classroom, where firefighters answered all of the students’ questions.

“When my mom told me, I was surprised,” Courtney said, as she shared her firefighter stickers with others. “It was really cool. They even gave me this bag, but I haven’t seen everything that’s in it.”

Firefighters informed Courtney that she’d have plenty of time to find out, since they would be handing out similar bags of free fire safety swag to all of her schoolmates that day.

Courtney had explored the interior of a fire truck once before, but never ridden in one while it was being driven.

“It was fun, but really noisy,” said Courtney, who wore a headset on the way. “Every time I started to say something, someone else would say something on the headset. It was a really good experience, though.”

Courtney learned quickly that fire engines are often so packed with firefighters and their equipment that “there’s no room for anyone else,” and when asked if she was interested in becoming a firefighter herself, she noted that “it sounds fun, but really dangerous.”

Firefighter Daniel Storer, who was suited up in no less than three layers of protective firefighting gear, explained to Courtney that the object behind her back during the ride, which had made it difficult for her to “get comfy,” was a self-contained breathing apparatus.

“We have to get all this equipment on in under a minute,” Storer told Courtney. “This oxygen tank weighs 60 pounds. How much do you weigh?”

“Maybe 50 pounds,” Courtney laughed. “It’s heavier than I am.”

Courtney informed her classmates that fire hoses can be “a few thousand feet long, and they all have to be put back by hand.” In spite of this, when firefighters asked Courtney’s classmates how many of them wanted to become firefighters, a few boys raised their hands, as did one other girl.

“Why do you want to be a firefighter?” firefighter Dave Fennell asked the girl.

“Because firefighters are cool,” the girl said, drawing laughter from the firefighters.

Fennell then drilled students on what to do if their clothes catch on fire — stop, cover their noses and mouths, drop and roll — and wound up being impressed by their fire safety knowledge.

“What do you do if one of these smoke detectors goes off?” Fennell asked, while pointing to a white disc on the ceiling.

“That’s a sprinkler head,” one boy said.

“You’re right,” Fennell laughed, before admitting that he was thinking of what smoke detectors look like in people’s homes, rather than in school buildings.

As Courtney and the other students answered Fennell’s question, explaining how they’d leave their houses by staying low to the ground to avoid smoke, Courtney’s father, Jim Taylor, explained that all of Peterson’s patients who received perfect check-ups were eligible for the fire truck ride, which Courtney won when her name was drawn from a bowl.

Peterson had been the high-bidder on the fire truck ride, which was donated by Marysville Fire Chief Greg Corn, during a Marysville Noon Rotary auction conducted in November of last year. Peterson explained that he felt it would make a nice end-of-school-year present for one of his young patients.

“It’s a cool way for them to see more of their local firefighters,” Jim Taylor said. “It’s also very generous of them to do.”

“Thank you,” Courtney told the firefighters, as they left her classroom.

“Thank you for brushing your teeth,” Fennell told her.