Firefighterette Gillette: A Firefighter Who Crashed and Burned a Success Story - Hardcover

Gillette, Kathy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1603480226 ISBN 13: 9781603480222

Publisher: Alacheri Pub Llc, 2007

Synopsis

A female professional firefighter with over 22 years of experience begins her memoir with an introduction as follows: Too many memories of the last 20 years are fading. Some are nightmarishly clear, the memories of the dead ones, especially the children. When I allow myself to think about them, I feel a lump developing in my throat and the hair rising on my arms, so I don’t think about those times, much less talk about them. Some nights, those memories wake me, especially firehouse nights, and then I can’t get back to sleep. If I am not awakened by their faces, then it is the alert that is waking me, mostly for medical runs, but sometimes fires. The night runs are hardest on firefighter hearts. Being wakened to burst into action all hours of the night for 20 or 30 years sends a lot of us to an early grave. Night runs are also hell on kidneys. We jump out of bed into boots and nightpants, get on the fire apparatus, and on the way to the run, realize how bad we have to pee. This is a bigger problem for the women than the men. The older guys can hardly buckle their night pants giving them a head start on peeing. They rely on suspenders to hold up their unbuckled pants.Wow! Enough of the negative stuff, because you are going to think I don’t like my job. I love my job! I feel lucky and privileged to have served as a professional firefighter in my lifetime. It also feels good to have my 20 on and be eligible for retirement, although I probably won’t retire until my husband has his 20 on, but maybe I will. Like Scarlett, I’ll decide that tomorrow.My handsome son, an adult now, was a baby when I was hired as a firefighter. Recently he rode with my crew and me. After the frantic excitement of barreling down the street with lights flashing and sirens blaring, he witnessed our cool, calm, organized reaction to a flopping, seizure patient on a store floor, where people were rushing out of the building spluttering, “She’s crazy!” The fire, which happened late that night, had flames leaping from every window. He observed as we quickly doused the blaze. Getting involved in the action, he helped pick up hose and met my chief. Impressed, he decided he would like to follow in my footsteps. “Oh my God, Mom, I never realized what you do!” Anyway, I might be getting a little off track here. I should start at the beginning. I should start with my decision to become a firefighter.Gillette closes the book with optimism and hope. In between she chronicles the ground breaking accomplishments women firefighters must complete to become accepted members of a fire department. A deliniation of the troubles our health care system suffers is offered with concrete evidence from emergency runs she participated in.A sad account of the racism and sexism she fights is told in detail.An introduction by a Canadian firefighter illustrates that firefighting techniques and hardships are similar in other countries.Bibliographies of fire terms and slang finish the book.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

I am Kathy Gillette, a professional firefighter with over 22 years of experience, making history as the first woman to drive a fire truck for the Indianapolis Fire Department. Being female in an exclusive men's club makes life unusual for me, running into burning buildings with experienced male firefighters who, in the beginning trained me. Now, with many fires under my belt, I train the subs who come through my firehouse. In my first year, I was burned in a flashover, a killer fire phenomenon which later took the lives of two men on our department. Suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and drinking heavily, I had sex with several of the male firefighters at different firehouses. After being assigned a permanent duty station, I crashed my 100 foot aerial truck into a new engine, causing $65,000 in damages. My firehouse friends stuck up for me preventing the chief from yanking my engineer certification. A backdraft disabled my entire company. This was in my first five years. You are invited to enjoy the best adventures of my first 20 years.|I am Kathy Gillette, a professional firefighter with over 22 years of experience, making history as the first woman to drive a fire truck for the Indianapolis Fire Department. Being female in an exclusive men’s club makes life unusual for me, running into burning buildings with the experienced male firefighters who, in the beginning, trained me. Now, with many fires under my belt, I train the subs who come through my firehouse. In my first year, I was burned in a flashover, a killer fire phenomenon which in a later incident took the lives of two men on our department. Suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and drinking heavily, I had sex with several of the male firefighters at different firehouses. After being assigned a permanent duty station, I crashed my 100 foot aerial truck into an engine, causing $65,000 in damages. My firehouse friends all stuck up for me preventing the chief from yanking my engineer certification. A backdraft took out almost my entire company. This was in my first five years. You are invited to enjoy the best adventures of my first 20 years.

About the Author:

Born in 1954 and raised in Indianapolis, I, Kathy Gillette, left for a few years while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany. I missed home and came back to major in Physical Education and play basketball at Indiana Uni- versity. After a knee injury during basketball practice, I switched majors and earned degrees in German and Bus- iness Management, taking five years to finish my college education. Unsatisfied with the business world and hear- ing my brother’s adventures on the fire department, I de-cided to apply. After a lengthy process, with thousands of applicants, I was hired in March of 1985 along with 31 other people. Twenty-two years later, there are 21 of us from my class still fighting fire. I signed papers announcing my retirement effective March 9, 2010. On my days off, I manage a successful rental business. My son is grown, knocking heads as a bouncer. My husband is a police officer and we have his two teenage daughters at home.

Born in 1954 and raised in Indianapolis, I, Kathy Gillette, left for a few years while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany. I missed home and came back to major in Physical Education and play basketball at Indiana University. After a knee injury during basketball practice, I switched majors and earned degrees in German and Business Management, taking five years to finish my college education. Unsatisfied with the business world and hearing my brother’s adventures on the fire department, I decided to apply. After a lengthy process, with thousands of applicants, I was hired in March of 1985 along with 31 other people. Twenty-two years later, there are 21 of us from my class still fighting fire. I signed papers announcing my retirement effective March 9, 2010. On my days off, I manage a successful rental business. My son is grown, knocking heads as a bouncer. My husband is a police officer and we have his two teenage daughters at home.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alacheri Pub Llc
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1603480226
• ISBN 13: 9781603480222
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 305