ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — Ever since she was 3 years old, Sch'Erica Wilson wanted to be like her mom.
"I used to come to the fire house all the time, I was playing in the uniform. Halloween, I would always dress up as my mom. she would put me in her uniform and i would walk around and be so proud to be in that uniform," Wilson said.
Her mother, Scherese Bishop, led by example, proudly serving the community as an EMT with Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District—until one day in 2011, when Bishop went on a call for a cardiac arrest and collapsed while performing CPR.
"I remember getting a phone call that they were working a cardiac arrest and that it was Scherese Bishop," Chief Quinten Randolph recalled.
In a cruel twist of fate, Bishop also suffered a cardiac arrest and died a few days later.
"It was a lot of grief, because as a 7-year-old girl, I lost my mom. I lost my best friend," Wilson said.
She knew that she wanted to continue in her mother's footsteps and become an EMT, just like her mother.
"It was all in our best interest that she be successful and her best interest that we wanted her to be successful," Randolph said. "We really wanted her to be part of our family because she always has been."
Wilson's next goal was to become a paramedic—a goal her mother had been just days away from accomplishing herself.
Wilson achieved it for both of them.
In a Tuesday night ceremony, Randolph placed a pin on Wilson's uniform.
"I present you all She'Erica Wilson, paramedic firefighter of the Northeast Ambulance Fire Protection District," Randolph said to cheers and applause.
Wilson smiled as she posed with a portrait of the woman whose footsteps she followed in.
"She would be so happy to say that she created a legacy for me that I am fulfilling and that i have taken and ran with it," Wilson said.
She isn't stopping here; she also plans to enter the fire academy in January and eventually become a cardiac nurse.