LIKE DAD, LIKE DAUGHTER

Morgan Reice follows in father’s footsteps as firefighter, paramedic

LIMERICK >> In the photo from 17 years ago, Bill Reice is wearing his Harleysville Fire Company shirt as 2-year-old daughter Morgan clutches her balloon string with Bill also keeping a protective finger on the string as Morgan looks skyward at other balloons.

Fast forward to today and they’re both wearing Limerick Fire Department shirts. Both are volunteers with the fire company where Bill is a driver/operator and Morgan is a firefighter.

When photographer Ken Zepp took the photo for the Souderton Independent newspaper at Faith Bible Fellowship in Harleysville’s Community Heroes Appreciation Day a year after Sept. 11, 2001, Bill was a Harleysville Ambulance paramedic.

Bill is now a paid paramedic with the Trappe Fire Company.

Morgan, who graduated from Boyertown Area High School in 2018, is planning for a similar career.

“I’m looking into EMT school now, to be a firefighter EMT and then eventually to be a firefighter paramedic,” she said.

She’s aiming to start the Emergency Medical Technician training next year.

“In order to actually get into a paramedic class now, you have to have a few years of 911 experience as an EMT in the field be

fore they’ll even look at you,” Bill said. “It used to be you could just walk into the paramedic class right off the street if you wanted to do that.”

His own involvement in the field began when he was working as a truck driver and four of his friends were working as orderlies at Fox Chase Cancer Center, he said. They told him they were going to take an EMT class and asked if he wanted to do it, too.

“I said, sure, why not?” Bill said.

As far as he knows, he’s the only one of the five still doing emergency medical service, he said.

For Morgan, growing up with a mother who was a nurse and a father who was a paramedic, there was always an interest in doing similar work.

After graduating from high school, she started as a probationary firefighter with the Limerick Fire Department, then completed the 180 hours of training at Montgomery County Fire Academy and became a full member of the fire company, she said.

At that point, she had known for awhile that she wanted to be a paramedic, she said.

“Firefighting interested me. I never really thought much of it until I joined and realized that there was a lot I could learn about it and a lot I could do with it,” Morgan said. “It’s pretty cool. I enjoy it.”

It’s not unusual for two generations of families to be fire company volunteers, the father and daughter said.

“We have fathers and sons. We have a couple fathers and daughters here at Limerick,” Bill said. “We actually have one other father/daughter team here at Limerick

“Firefighting interested me. I never really thought much of it until I joined and realized that there was a lot I could learn about it and a lot I could do with it. It’s pretty cool. I enjoy it.”

— Morgan Reice

who is also a paramedic and an EMT that I work with at Trappe.”

Morgan’s boyfriend, who is currently on leave from the fire company while serving in the Navy, and his father are also both Limerick Fire Department members. She and her boyfriend met through the fire company, Morgan said.

While he’s always been more of an emergency medical services provider, Bill said he’s also been involved with fire companies since the 1990s.

BOB KEELER — MEDIANEWS GROUP Father and daughter Bill and Morgan Reice, of New Hanover Township, are both Limerick Fire Department members. He is a paramedic with Trappe Fire Company and she plans to become a paramedic.

BOB KEELER — MEDIANEWS GROUP Morgan Reice holds a copy of a photo of her father and herself that ran in the Souderton Independent in September 2002.

BOB KEELER — MEDIANEWSGROUP Father and daughter Bill and Morgan Reice stand beside a Limerick Fire Department truck.