BERNE — Adrianna Fahd recently joined the volunteer rescue squad Helderberg Ambulance. It’s one of her first steps in pursuing a career in health care.

Adrianna Fahd, 18, of East Berne, is the 2019 salutatorian at Berne-Knox-Westerlo. She intends to receive a bachelor’s degree in health studies at Siena College; after this, she plans on completing a two-year master’s physician-assistant program.

Fahd currently attends the New Visions: Health Careers program through the Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES.

Fahd said that she always has had an interest in biology which, combined with a passion for helping others, led her to pursue a career in health care. At the New Visions program, she has shadowed different departments at St. Peter’s Hospital. Her preferred department, she said, was emergency care due its fast pace.

Fahd serves as an attendant at Helderberg Ambulance, though she hopes to serve as an emergency medical technician after taking a course in college. As an attendant, she records vital signs and other information about a patient that will help with diagnosis. She recently answered a call in which a patient complained of chest pains and had to be taken to the hospital.

Fahd said she plans on volunteering for the ambulance for some time, as she will be commuting from her home to Siena College in Loudonville.

Fahd has played volleyball throughout high school, first on the junior-varsity team in her first year and then on the varsity team for the next three years. She also took pictures of sports teams for the high-school yearbook and designed pages.

Fahd has been a part of the school musical, National Honor Society, and the student service society, where students participate in programs like Adopt a Soldier or raise money for people who have lost their homes.

Fahd, whose mother works as the assistant in the high school principal’s office, said she is going to miss her school and her classmates, whom she has known since kindergarten. But for her salutatorian speech, she said she wants to focus on the future.

“What we have the ability to accomplish,” she clarified.

She also wants to remind her fellow students to be prepared for what life has to offer in adulthood.

“You can’t skip chapters,” she said. “You have to live through everything, even if it’s hard.

“But,” she added. “Everything happens for a reason.”