Brian Gorski has been rooted in Southwest Florida’s fire-rescue field for half a century.
He spent 30-odd years with the Sarasota County Fire Department, eventually rising to fire chief. After, he served as fire chief for the Englewood Area Fire Control District and then for the Southern Manatee Fire Rescue District.
When Gorski became division chief of North Port Fire Rescue in 2021, with decades of experience under his belt, he faced a dire community concern: North Port, a city of about 88,900 residents in Sarasota County, had a higher pediatric injury and mortality rate than similar-sized jurisdictions.
St. Petersburg’s Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and the Safe Kids Coalition, a nonprofit with more than a dozen Florida chapters, “had offered help to previous leadership, but they never really took them up on it,” Gorski says. “Well, being involved with them in previous departments, I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
He started by boosting education about pediatric safety — both for his division and the public.
In 2021, Gorski’s division partnered with All Children’s Hospital and the Safe Kids Coalition to host a one-day class on car seat safety for the public. They installed and inspected 60-plus car seats. The event drew more than 200 participants.
“No lie, we had traffic,” Gorski says. “Cars lined up for almost half a mile from the station, coming in here to get their car seat inspected.”
Eight division members have since completed a 40-hour training course to become child safety seat technicians for the community. Paramedics have completed an eight-hour newborn resuscitation course. All personnel have been trained in pediatric advanced life support.
Drownings represent a disproportionate share of pediatric deaths in North Port. So, before the 2022 summer season, Gorski’s team walked door to door in the region distributing brochures about drowning prevention. The city has since seen a drop in drowning deaths, he says.
Gorski also took note of his division’s equipment inventory. He found their Broselow Pediatric Emergency System, a color-coded guide to navigate pediatric emergencies, was outdated.
The Fort Myers-based Southwest Florida Healthcare Coalition purchased the team a Handtevy pediatric resuscitation system — an industry “gold standard” that originated in South Florida, Gorski says.
“Basically, you just put in the weight of the patient, or the age of the patient, and it does all your calculations immediately,” he says. “Then it stores the information so you can download it to your incident report.”
The coalition also purchased pediatric transportation devices for the division, altogether contributing just under $100,000.
In 2024, Gorski and his team were rewarded for their initiatives in pediatric safety: North Port’s fire rescue became the first in the state to be awarded the gold tier status in the Florida Prehospital Pediatric Readiness Recognition Program. The program recognizes EMS and fire-rescue agencies that demonstrate a strong commitment to enhancing pediatric emergency care.