She was honored for her work as a hero, but before she started her work of saving others, someone saved her.
"By the time he went to get me, the fire was dropping into my crib, and it was a wooden crib that was already on fire," Pearson said of the moment her father rescued her and her siblings from a fire.
It's a story she grew up hearing because she was only 18 months old at the time of a devastating fire that injured her and her father badly.
"My condition was grave," she said.
The story was on Action News on December 7, 1979. Video shows Pearson's father being loaded onto a medical helicopter. Shortly thereafter, nurses carried her bundled-in-white-blankets into that same helicopter.
Just a toddler, she was burned over 45% of her body. First responders were unsure if she'd survive. They brought her to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. At the time, the hospital didn't have a burn unit. Pearson was the first burn patient of Dr. Stuart Hulnick.
St. Christopher's burn center now bears his name.
"We were a part of changing her life for the better," said St. Christopher's Hospital for Children Chief Nursing Officer Claire Alminde. "I've already spoken to her, she wants to visit our burn patients in our burn unit."
Pearson's visits would let kids in the position she was in know that anything is possible, including becoming a first responder.
"I was a little intimidated by the fire department, so I chose not to take that path initially, but then I said, 'You got to go for your dreams,'" said Pearson.
She overcame medical issues caused by the fire to reach her goal.
"She's a warm, special person. She cares about what she does," said Philadelphia Fire Department Deputy Commissioner Martin McCall.
That baby who once clung to life is now a lieutenant in the Philadelphia Fire Department. She was thankful to be able to return to the hospital that made it possible for her to not just survive but thrive.
"I'm astounded by the whole thing," she said.