Jeremiah Vigil, 9, was the first to throw a softball at a red metal target that dumped 13-year-old Mona Chavarría into a 500-gallon water tank. A few seconds later, seven more children arrived and formed a line to dunk the teen, including 23-month-old Dakota Abbott, sporting a stylish pair of yellow sunglasses, shorts and tiny sandals. But the ball was too heavy for Dakota, so he moved next door to stare up at the gigantic Smokey Bear balloon.

Saturday was the 11th annual Firefighter and Law Enforcement Day at Ashbaugh Park. Santa Fe Police officers and city firefighters focused all their attention on the visiting children.

"I thought the funnest part of it was getting wet and having fun," said 8-year-old Madilyn Johnson, who teamed up with her 5-year-old sister, Carly, to race against two brothers in the bucket brigade challenge.

While the water race kept some entertained, others waited anxiously for the hose drag, in which children tried to knock three softballs off the tops of orange cones by squirting the balls with a hose.

For Jennifer Guerra, 6, who came with her brother, Daniel, 10, the hose drag was fun because "I want to get all wet."

"I want to go see the helicopter," Daniel added, pointing at the red TriState CareFlight medic chopper that had landed a few minutes before in the middle of the park's field.

Inside and around the helicopter were dozens of children; some waited in line, and others sat in the cockpit or chatted with flight nurse Jaqueline Fernández-Quezada.

"Dad, dad, take a picture of me," pleaded Isaac Lucero, 10, as he tried on the nurse's communication helmet. Isaac's sister, Shauian, 9, was impressed by what she saw inside the medic chopper. "I was thinking there weren't so many buttons inside, and I didn't know they had a bed in here," she said, referring to the stretcher.

For Donovan Melton, 4, seeing a helicopter firsthand was something else.

"I'm going to go to big-boy school when I get bigger ... to fit in that airplane and fly like this," he said as he ran on the grass with his hands extended like wings.

The smallest person in the crowd was probably 16-month-old Leo Segovia, who rode on his mother's back in an Ergo child carrier as she kept close watch on her toddler daughter.

At one end of the field, people waited in line for snow cones, a turn on the climbing wall and to take a picture with the Dalmatian mascot. Others waited for free hot dogs and hamburgers. At the other end of the field, kids cheered as they took turns dunking Santa Fe police Officer Nico Butler, who taunted the boys and girls for missing the target. But they had good laughs when one of them made Butler splash into the tank.

Lucky for Butler, Santa Fe Fire Department Capt. Jerome Martinez arrived to relieve him. Martinez faced a line of 15 eager children, including Rico Gurule, 9, who was the first to dunk Butler two hours earlier.

Meanwhile, almost three hours into the event, young Jeremiah Vigil kept walking around all the booths, impressed with the men and women in uniform. After his dad snapped several photos of him standing on a 1949 LaFrance fire engine, holding a strawberry snow cone, he said he wants to join the military and become an FBI agent.

Contact Sandra Baltazar Martínez at 986-3062 or smartinez@sfnewmexican.com.