The accidental trail blazer

[nadinbrzezinski]

Well, today as we were coming home from the theater, we drove by Balboa Park and into Hillcrest, and the Gay Pride Parade. By the way, Happy Pride. So that got me thinking, how many of us have been trailblazers and how hard that has been? It does not matter if you're gay, straight, male, or female, sometimes you will find yourself changing the world.

Well for me it was purely accidental. As a young kid I used to love watching Emergency... Paramedics De-Soto and Gage always saving lives, with the heroic help of Rampart. Well, in my last year of High School we had the chance to take a course given by the Mexican Red Cross, five actions to save a life. Essentially first aid and CPR. After we were all certified, we were invited to join up. One of the instructors was a Paramedic, a newly minted medic.

So I went and signed up. We were a weird cadet corp, as most of us were women. Realize until our class no women were accepted. We were given the same kind of training men were. This meant, runs, drilling, firefighting the same crap of basic training, and of course first aid, advanced first aid. Then came graduation and we had our command cords... very military, very german, put on us. Our instructors, in a tradition I repeated years later when I taught classes in Tijuana, pinned theirs on us. We were now part of the corp, but there was one caveat. Women could not work third shift. Why? We were women and they were afraid for our safety, the highers ups that is. We weren't quite pleased, after all during training there were no exceptions made and we had to run that damn click in a minimum time that boys had to run it in. So it seemed a little unfair.

So that started a small fight. To make a long story short, I ended up moving to San Diego, but continued to work in Tijuana. It is there that I managed to convince my commanders to try letting us work the third shift. It was a pilot program. It worked like a charm. I never saw myself as a trail blazer, but the other day I went to have some yogurt, and struck a talk with a female firefighter. One of the reason the fire department decided to allow them in, women, was believe or not, what they saw in Tijuana. That and LAFD and a few other departments, but we were closer as an example. A few in the department used to volunteer also in Tijuana and they saw me and a few others pulling hose the same as the boys... we were part of the team, not damsels in distress to be looked at but not touched. We fought fires, we rappelled, we did EMS, our primary function... and we did it the same way, with seemingly few complaints. (I personally fired a couple women that would not do that, because I am not kidding one feared breaking a nail.)

So I realized... I became quite the accidental trailblazer...

Oh and remember, when I started, there were no boots made for women in the fire service, so we had to do with what existed, men boots. I recommend very heavy sucks if you are ever in the need to wear them and you are a woman.

So anybody else here who became an accidental trail blazer? I have come to realize that even if I kick the bucket tomorrow, or tonight, I did manage to change the world, I believe for the better... and not intentionally either. It was one of those things that hit me like a sack of rocks... your life already mattered to more than just your patients.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. kick, I really want to know

[autorank]

2. That's a good story

The shoes make sense but living in SD and commuting is the best. Clearly, you didn't let the expectations drive
your preferences so you were indeed the "accidental trailblazer." Wonder what the ratio is in the fire department now? They should name a fire house after you.

I'll leave out the specifics of my trail blazing escapades, not nearly as pro social as yours. What I learned is
this - oftentimes trail blazing is a good way to turn yourself into a target. You did tit the right way, just
doing what you needed/wanted to do.

k*r

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I wonder that too, but I see more and more women

donning the structural fire gear and all that.

I chuckled with her, at least your chipewa fit you. She was surprised until she realized when I did it, there were no boots.

The boys in her shift didn't realize that, and I explained to them one way to experience that is, if they had narrow fit to try a boot that was wide, or just two sizes larger and walk all day on that.

They winced.

She winced.

I still have my pair somewhere, they went to so many scenes, if they could talk...

Oh and I said boys for a reason, that particular fire engine crew is YOUNG... even the Captain is younger than me. The youngest in teh crew, a recent graduate, looks like a kid... does mommy know you are playing fire fighter? The days you feel OLD.

[autorank]

4. Battling an element

What a great profession - it's all about one of the classical elements.

Walk a mile in your shoes, no way.

Breaking the mold and trail blazing the way you did it is about as good as it gets. It's not about anything other
than the reasonable expectation that you should be able to do the job. I'd say the environment that you were
in was cool, sounds like anyway. Most people run into a way when they try to break the mold, particularly in
public office. Very few try and when they do, it's adios!

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Well I had to prove my weight every call

every day... that was the way it was

I knew I made it when one of the guys said, she is one of the guys...

:-)

That's the day I did not have to prove myself as much any longer

And that was for free, I was a volunteer. Best job ever.