Speaker 1: You're tired your head or as you've been out there
Speaker 1: for twelve fourteen hours already, you're coughing, breathing in smoke,
Speaker 1: just trying to get a breath of air, pulling your
Speaker 1: shirt over your face, trying to find some way to
Speaker 1: get a good breath as you're trying to defend this house.
Speaker 1: That's firefighter Carry Crivello in California, where she works. The
Speaker 1: challenges are huge right now as historic fires ripped through
Speaker 1: the state. But for Carrie, the satisfaction and sense of
Speaker 1: purpose are worth the danger. I'm Kim Azzarelli, and this
Speaker 1: is Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. We're bringing you
Speaker 1: one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women.
Speaker 1: You need to hear now. Carrie Crivello is at the
Speaker 1: front lines during a record year for California wildfires. To date,
Speaker 1: more than four million acres have been burned. Smoke often
Speaker 1: fills the sky in the Los Angeles area, where nine
Speaker 1: thousand people have been told to evacuate. There aren't too
Speaker 1: many firefighters like Carry. She's the mother of a six
Speaker 1: year old son in a profession that's ent mail. In fact,
Speaker 1: she was the only woman in her graduating class of firefighters.
Speaker 1: Her job is physically and emotionally demanding, and she's often
Speaker 1: working twenty four hour days, if not longer. Why did
Speaker 1: she do it? Listen and learn why. Carrie Crivello is
Speaker 1: one of Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today, Thanks for having me. So, Carrie,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what you do. So,
Speaker 1: I'm a firefighter and a paramedic for the City of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles UM SO, as a municipal department for a
Speaker 1: big city like this, we cover every type of emergency
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and being in California where brush fires
Speaker 1: are a huge thing, of course, we also go out
Speaker 1: and we help with brush fires. Sometimes they're within the
Speaker 1: city and that's something we're going to pull all our
Speaker 1: resources immediately out and do our best to control the fire.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're larger fires somewhere else in the county or
Speaker 1: even somewhere else in the state, and then we pull
Speaker 1: our resources in what we call a mutual aid and
Speaker 1: we pack up and head out to go help um
Speaker 1: wherever we can. On a day to day basis, we're
Speaker 1: more more than anything, we're doing medical calls in the
Speaker 1: city working as a paramedic, whether I'm on a fire
Speaker 1: engine or a fire truck or on an ambulance, the
Speaker 1: majority of the nival one calls we get in the
Speaker 1: city are actually for medical emergencies. How bad are the
Speaker 1: fires in California and how dangerous is it for those
Speaker 1: fighting them? Yeah, We've actually had a string of tough
Speaker 1: years for fires in California. UM, this year it's been
Speaker 1: particularly bad. We had a really dry winter, so the brush,
Speaker 1: especially that the grasses in the shrubbery dried out really
Speaker 1: early this year, and that kind of fuel leads to
Speaker 1: the types of fires we're seeing with this massive amount
Speaker 1: of acreage that's spreading really quickly, that's really difficult for
Speaker 1: firefighters to get a hold of in the initial phases
Speaker 1: of the fire. UM. On top of that, it seemed
Speaker 1: like sort of a perfect storm of factors all came
Speaker 1: together right around Labor Day when there were some storms
Speaker 1: with lightning and also a ton of heat waves all
Speaker 1: in a row. Um, which creates sort of a situation
Speaker 1: where the fuels, like I'm talking to you know, the shrubs,
Speaker 1: the grasses not only are they dry to start out,
Speaker 1: but overnight the temperatures aren't cooling, there's no moisture coming
Speaker 1: back into the fuels, so any small thing can spark
Speaker 1: it off, whether it's lightning or whether it's started an
Speaker 1: accidental start from some campers or some even unfortunately intentional
Speaker 1: starts sometimes by arsonists. And these fires have just been
Speaker 1: spreading extremely rapidly, and when they all sort of kicked
Speaker 1: off simultaneously throughout the state, it became more challenging for
Speaker 1: us to manage as firefighters because our resources are spread
Speaker 1: more thin throughout the state. So we share resources like
Speaker 1: the super scuber airplanes and the water dropping helicopters, and
Speaker 1: those are often leased or shared between different fire departments
Speaker 1: and agencies, and we're just spread really thin and having
Speaker 1: to rely on national resources which take a little longer
Speaker 1: to get here. So when you're fighting these fires, what
Speaker 1: is a day like? I understand you work shifts, sometimes longer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we normally work twenty four shifts. So in the city,
Speaker 1: when we come to work, become at six one morning
Speaker 1: and don't go home until six o'clock the next morning,
Speaker 1: and that's our standards. So we're all pretty used to that.
Speaker 1: When we get out on a brush fire, um initially
Speaker 1: we're usually going to be sent out for a minimum
Speaker 1: of thirty six sometimes even forty eight hours before you
Speaker 1: get a break, so you may be actively fighting fire
Speaker 1: without sleep for multiple nights in a row. Um, you
Speaker 1: may not even get your first meal or food for
Speaker 1: sometimes twelve to six eighteen hours into the fire before
Speaker 1: you're able to get a break, just to have something
Speaker 1: to eat, um, so that can be really challenging. We
Speaker 1: we've all are as prepared as we possibly can be.
Speaker 1: Every day on the fire engine, we have with us
Speaker 1: a bag. We call it our go bag, so we
Speaker 1: all always have some stuff with us, some screened water, chapstick, um,
Speaker 1: everyone has a couple of little snacks, whether it's like
Speaker 1: beef jerky or trail mix or protein bar, is something
Speaker 1: that you can have so that in the event we
Speaker 1: do get sent out, we can get by with what
Speaker 1: we have just in our little pack for the first
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and maybe a dry t shirt or
Speaker 1: some clean socks to throw on. And then it's not
Speaker 1: really until these fires develop into a bigger incident, so
Speaker 1: maybe forty eight hours in or sometimes even longer than that,
Speaker 1: when they establish a full base camp, and that's at
Speaker 1: that point we're going to have resources we need. They'll
Speaker 1: have trailers with showers, they'll have food for us, and
Speaker 1: they'll be able to meet our needs and have enough
Speaker 1: personnel and resources so that you can take your engine
Speaker 1: and your company down off the hill for a little bit,
Speaker 1: get some food, sometimes, get a nap, sometimes a few
Speaker 1: hours of sleep, and let somebody else come and take
Speaker 1: over the work you are doing so we can sort
Speaker 1: of basically it becomes shifts then and then those are
Speaker 1: typically either twelve hour work periods or sometimes twenty four
Speaker 1: hour work periods, and then you'll get a rest period between. Wow. Incredible,
Speaker 1: Well it sounds like obviously very difficult, dangerous work. Why
Speaker 1: do you do it? Um? What motivates you to keep going?
Speaker 1: You know, I feel really lucky to have the job
Speaker 1: I have. I love it. Um. Every day we go
Speaker 1: to work is something different. It's not like I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to go in and have a meeting and
Speaker 1: write a paper or submit a draft of something. It's
Speaker 1: every single day you show up and who knows. You
Speaker 1: could be in the middle of breakfast and have the
Speaker 1: biggest fire of your career. You could be in the
Speaker 1: shower and get sent to a shooting. You could we
Speaker 1: just anything could happen at any moment, and there's some
Speaker 1: fun to that, some element of excitement and adrenaline and
Speaker 1: and just fun of the unpredictability of it. But I
Speaker 1: think the biggest thing is the camaraderie we get from it.
Speaker 1: It's like being on a team. I was on sports
Speaker 1: teams in my whole life, and then this is sort
Speaker 1: of just a continuation of that. We show up to
Speaker 1: work and we each have a different position we're riding
Speaker 1: that day, whether it's driving the fire engine to being
Speaker 1: the captain on the engine, or riding as a firefighter
Speaker 1: on the seat on the left or the seat on
Speaker 1: the right, and knowing exactly where you sit is going
Speaker 1: to dictate what you do. So if on Monday, I'm
Speaker 1: riding in the seat on the left as a firefighter,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what I'm gonna do when we show
Speaker 1: up on a fire on Tuesday, I'm riding in the
Speaker 1: seat on the right. Instead of pulling a nozzle to
Speaker 1: the fire, I'm going to be connecting to the hydrant,
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna be grabbing one tool instead of another.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like a choreographic dance. We all know
Speaker 1: exactly what needs to happen, and obviously that requires a
Speaker 1: ton of training, but there's something so satisfying when we
Speaker 1: actually get out. We have that moment we need to perform,
Speaker 1: and everyone does exactly what they're supposed to do and
Speaker 1: it all comes together in sort of this like perfect process.
Speaker 1: Of course, nothing is ever perfect. Something always is going
Speaker 1: to go wrong, but it's about adapting, overcoming, and then
Speaker 1: in the end when we solve the problem, whether it's
Speaker 1: putting out a fire or getting pulses back in a
Speaker 1: cardiac arrest, or figuring out a way to cut into
Speaker 1: a car that has been smashed and we're having to
Speaker 1: perform extrication to get a patient out, whatever it might be,
Speaker 1: it's a experience of working together with your teammates or
Speaker 1: coworkers and then coming out with this common goal that's
Speaker 1: just like, ultimately so satisfying. I think that's really what
Speaker 1: keeps all of us coming back. Sounds amazing, sounds like
Speaker 1: such purpose driven work, and I could see why, um,
Speaker 1: why you get up and we're so lucky you get
Speaker 1: up and do that every day and we appreciate it.
Speaker 1: What are the challenges of being one of the few
Speaker 1: female firefighters, especially doing this, you know, very intense physical work. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been really lucky in that I live
Speaker 1: and work in the city of l A, which is
Speaker 1: pretty forward thinking city. Um. And there were some really
Speaker 1: strong women who came before me who were truly the
Speaker 1: trailblazers who really like cut the path, and we're the
Speaker 1: first women in the fire department improved that women could
Speaker 1: do it. Of course, we get tested. Every new firefighter
Speaker 1: gets tested, and everybody is expected to meet the standards
Speaker 1: and perform the same exact tasks, whether it's lifting a ladder,
Speaker 1: pulling a hose line, cutting through a roof with an axe,
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that are truly really physically demanding.
Speaker 1: And I think the guys, once you prove that, the
Speaker 1: guy's respect the females on the job equally. There's no
Speaker 1: I've never had any experience where anyone held it against
Speaker 1: me that I was a female. I've always felt like
Speaker 1: I was welcomed in and treated with respect and treated
Speaker 1: like I was just one of the guys. UM. I
Speaker 1: think the biggest challenge females face is just the physical limitations,
Speaker 1: and that's mostly just based on size and strength, And
Speaker 1: of course there are guys who are also small or
Speaker 1: maybe not as strong as others, but just overall, females
Speaker 1: are typically stronger and typically I'm sorry, typically smaller and
Speaker 1: typically not as strong as the guys. And when you're
Speaker 1: asked to wear the same equipment and performed the same job,
Speaker 1: it's just naturally going to be more challenging. So two
Speaker 1: pound ladder. For me to put up a two hundred
Speaker 1: pound ladder while I'm wearing eighty pounds of gear, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot more challenging than it is
Speaker 1: for the two fifty pound guy who's also wearing the
Speaker 1: same amount of gear and putting up the same weight ladder.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean it's not possible. It just means
Speaker 1: it's going to require a little more strength from me
Speaker 1: than it would from him. So what made you get
Speaker 1: into this latin work? You know, I kind of came
Speaker 1: at it from a very different side than most people.
Speaker 1: I would say most firefighters. It's sort of something they
Speaker 1: wanted since they were little, whether they were a little
Speaker 1: kid growing up. Of course, kids typically idolized a little
Speaker 1: bit the firefighters. Police look up to us, see us,
Speaker 1: wave at us, all that. Of course I did that
Speaker 1: like any normal kid, But I didn't grow up wanting
Speaker 1: to be a firefighter. I went to college. I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be a doctor. I ended up
Speaker 1: going to grad school for psychology. I was planning to
Speaker 1: be a psychologist, totally on a different path. Had been
Speaker 1: working on an ambulance just to pay for my grad
Speaker 1: school and really fell in love with it. I fell
Speaker 1: in love with running nine one calls helping people as
Speaker 1: an e m T. And then I went to paramedic
Speaker 1: school liked that even more. And then when I was
Speaker 1: working as a paramedic, I was running the calls alongside
Speaker 1: the fire department, and I was having to sit outside
Speaker 1: the fire and wait for them to bring a patient
Speaker 1: out to me, or sit at the top of the
Speaker 1: cliff while they went down and performed a rescue on
Speaker 1: a hiker and brought the hiker back to me. And
Speaker 1: that was it. It was like I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be sitting there waiting. I wanted to be doing everything.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be participating and having fun with them.
Speaker 1: So I decided to become a firefighter. And it's really competitive,
Speaker 1: it's really challenging. Um the process is really hard and
Speaker 1: can sometimes be uh disheartening. It takes a lot of
Speaker 1: work and often a lot of years and a lot
Speaker 1: of tries before you actually get hired with a fire department,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely worth it in the end. UM really
Speaker 1: happy to be doing what I'm doing, happy to be
Speaker 1: getting up and going to work every day. And there
Speaker 1: aren't very many people who can say that. So it
Speaker 1: took me a little while to get there, but I
Speaker 1: finally figured out what I really enjoyed doing, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy that I was able to do it. Senecas one
Speaker 1: hundred women to hear will be back after the short break.
Speaker 1: What has been the most difficult moment you've experienced during
Speaker 1: these fires and how did you get past it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, UM, the classic answer to that
Speaker 1: would be any of the moments where all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the fire kind of turns and turns towards you. UM,
Speaker 1: whether you're fighting brush fire or structure fire, that moment
Speaker 1: where all of a sudden you feel like vulnerable, you
Speaker 1: feel the fire coming up at you. I've the distinct
Speaker 1: memory from a summer ago UM fighting fire, trying to
Speaker 1: defend a structure. The brush fire was coming up the
Speaker 1: hill towards us, and then one of the structures one
Speaker 1: of the homes to the side of our the home
Speaker 1: we were defending, took off, and then the home to
Speaker 1: the other side of the one we were defending took off,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you're you look up and
Speaker 1: you realize you're surrounded by fire. Um, the air's really smoky.
Speaker 1: We're not breathing off of a tank like we wouldn't
Speaker 1: a structure fire, So on these brush fires, you're sort
Speaker 1: of coughing, choking through the smoke, trying to put some water,
Speaker 1: trying to defend the home that we were there protecting, um,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately having to make the judgment call that
Speaker 1: for our safety we had to retreat, we had to leave.
Speaker 1: So you're there doing everything you can, putting yourself in
Speaker 1: a situation where you're physically really uncomfortable, you're tired, your head,
Speaker 1: or it's you've been out there for twelve fourteen hours already,
Speaker 1: you're coughing, breathing in smoke, just trying to get a
Speaker 1: breath of air, pulling your shirt over your face, trying
Speaker 1: to find some way to get a good breath as
Speaker 1: you're trying to defend this house, and then ultimately having
Speaker 1: to say for our safety, you know we can't. We'll
Speaker 1: risk a whole lot. If there's a somebody we can save,
Speaker 1: we'll do a decent amount. If there's a structure we
Speaker 1: can save, But at some point, no matter what, we
Speaker 1: have to pull out for our own safety. So that's
Speaker 1: a moment that definitely comes into my head. But when
Speaker 1: you ask that question initially, I think, really the biggest
Speaker 1: challenge for me isn't so much the specific moments on
Speaker 1: the fire. That's what we're chained to do, that's what
Speaker 1: we signed up for, and we all know what we're doing.
Speaker 1: We take the risks, we do our very best to
Speaker 1: stay safe, and of course we have scary moments. We
Speaker 1: have to take a deep breath, gather yourself and make
Speaker 1: an appropriate decision, whether it's continuing to fight or to
Speaker 1: back out, or whatever it is you need to do.
Speaker 1: But I think sort of a different answer, that's really
Speaker 1: the most challenging thing for me, and I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of the guys and girls I work with,
Speaker 1: is just figuring out how to balance such an intense
Speaker 1: and demanding job and then having a normal life too,
Speaker 1: and trying to come home from four days where you're
Speaker 1: risking your life fighting fires and come back home and
Speaker 1: be a normal parent and normal husband, wife, brother, sister,
Speaker 1: just to function in a normal world where people are
Speaker 1: really stressed out about something that, relative to what you've
Speaker 1: just seen, seems so mundane and so not important. But
Speaker 1: you still have to interact and be a part of
Speaker 1: the normal world as well. I was just thinking about
Speaker 1: that as you were talking and you were describing your work.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, Wow, what we deal with and the
Speaker 1: things that are sort of pressures in everyday life must
Speaker 1: seem pretty ridiculous when you hear about them. I was
Speaker 1: thinking that exact thought. So how do you how do
Speaker 1: you do that? I mean, you must be relatively good
Speaker 1: actress as well, or you have to learn to learn
Speaker 1: to be you know, learned to be empathetic because people
Speaker 1: are standing obviously not in your shoes, but I can
Speaker 1: understand how it could be hard. Yeah, of course, And
Speaker 1: there's I have a six year old, so I don't
Speaker 1: know if how familiar I was six year old, But
Speaker 1: sometimes very small things become very big deals when you're
Speaker 1: a six year old, and it's sometimes I have to
Speaker 1: remind myself, Okay, like he's really upset that we're out
Speaker 1: of his favorite snack. But that in that moment, that's
Speaker 1: his emergency, even though I'm thinking, like, come on, kid,
Speaker 1: you don't know what the six year old I just
Speaker 1: saw yesterday who had to deal with a family member
Speaker 1: getting severely injured in front of him, or the things
Speaker 1: that we we see that other kids e variance. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm lucky. My kid is lucky. He has a good
Speaker 1: life and he hasn't had to deal with that. So
Speaker 1: for him, maybe the fact that we're out of Goldfish
Speaker 1: is a really big deal. But so of course we
Speaker 1: have to transition well, and sometimes it can be challenging,
Speaker 1: and I think we all depend on our families and
Speaker 1: try to communicate with them and teach them to be
Speaker 1: as understanding as they can that when we Sometimes we
Speaker 1: come home from a really rough shift, maybe we had
Speaker 1: a something really stressful happen at work. Maybe I just
Speaker 1: told a mother that her son died, and then I
Speaker 1: have to come home and be a mom to my
Speaker 1: own son. Sometimes it's a lot, and you have to
Speaker 1: find coping mechanisms um and you have to have people
Speaker 1: you can rely on. So I have family, and I'll
Speaker 1: sometimes say to my mom, Hey, I need to go
Speaker 1: take a walk, I need you to watch my son.
Speaker 1: I need a little time just to calm down and
Speaker 1: clear my mind and be ready to then switch into
Speaker 1: the role of being a mom and being able to
Speaker 1: be there for him. So I think part of it
Speaker 1: is just recognizing when you are tapped out, when you
Speaker 1: do need a break or you need some help. It
Speaker 1: sounds like you know, with your ocasional background to your
Speaker 1: super well prepared UM I mean to make those transitions.
Speaker 1: I mean, how how have you found other people coping?
Speaker 1: What are the coping mechanisms that people use in these situations? Yeah,
Speaker 1: A lot of the A lot of it is actually
Speaker 1: just depending on the camaraderie we have at the station.
Speaker 1: So while of course the department has resources for us.
Speaker 1: We have psychologists, we have UM liaisons, peer support groups
Speaker 1: that will actually come out to your station after a
Speaker 1: particularly stressful incident to do a debriefing, and all of that.
Speaker 1: That's all there for us. But I find more often
Speaker 1: than not that the guys really just want to all
Speaker 1: sit around the kitchen table, have a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: and vent to each other. There's sort of a the
Speaker 1: experience we have is really hard for outside people to understand,
Speaker 1: so it'd be hard for me to come home and
Speaker 1: tell one of my friends the details about what I
Speaker 1: saw at work, because it would either be traumatic to
Speaker 1: them or they just wouldn't understand it or wouldn't exactly
Speaker 1: know how to respond in a way that I needed.
Speaker 1: And so we really depend on each other for that.
Speaker 1: So we'll come back anytime there's a stressful call. People
Speaker 1: always seem to gather in the kitchen, sit around the
Speaker 1: table and talk and talk about what I saw, what
Speaker 1: did you see? What did we do right, what did
Speaker 1: we do wrong? And most of the time it's like
Speaker 1: we did everything we could. That was just a bad situation,
Speaker 1: and this is the outcome. And and there's rarely a
Speaker 1: time where people are blaming themselves or getting really down
Speaker 1: on themselves or anything like that. It's usually just just
Speaker 1: benting together, experiencing that camaraderie and support from each other.
Speaker 1: And then of course, if it's something beyond that, then
Speaker 1: we absolutely will use the resources that are there for us. So,
Speaker 1: in this period of COVID, how has the job changed
Speaker 1: and what has been your experience as a frontline worker
Speaker 1: during this period. Yeah, so this has been a really
Speaker 1: tough year for us over here because we started with
Speaker 1: COVID and then we went right into UM the BLM
Speaker 1: and the riots that went along with that, which hit
Speaker 1: our city pretty hard, and then right now into one
Speaker 1: of the worst brush seasons we've ever had. So it's
Speaker 1: been a a long year for the firefighters. The COVID.
Speaker 1: When it first started, we were um sort of just
Speaker 1: scrambling to keep up with the demands and scrambling to
Speaker 1: try to figure out how we could keep ourselves safe
Speaker 1: as there was I'm sure everyone experienced, but lots of
Speaker 1: different information that didn't always line up coming in. So
Speaker 1: we were having our protocols constantly being adjusted as information
Speaker 1: was coming in so that we could keep ourselves safe UM.
Speaker 1: Primary goal being that we are not bringing anything home
Speaker 1: to our families of course, UM and sort of seemed
Speaker 1: like we got. We took a little bit, but we got.
Speaker 1: We got on top of it, and we had all
Speaker 1: the necessary equipment in gear and we were doing our
Speaker 1: best to take care of all the patients while keeping
Speaker 1: ourselves safe. And we were very lucky as a department.
Speaker 1: The number of people who got COVID UM wasn't super high. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we did have one fire rider pass away from it.
Speaker 1: But for the most part. We were able to keep
Speaker 1: it in check within our department, just using good practices
Speaker 1: with sanitation and UM cleaning everything every day, multiple times
Speaker 1: around the station, cleaning the resources, wearing appropriate pps. I
Speaker 1: think the biggest challenges any department is going to face
Speaker 1: is just all of us. So there's thirty firefighters in
Speaker 1: the city of l A. All of us go home
Speaker 1: and interact with different people. The people we interact with
Speaker 1: off duty are also interacting with different people. And then
Speaker 1: we're bringing all of that to the station. And we
Speaker 1: lived together, we cooked together, we sleep in the same room.
Speaker 1: There's really social distancing is not possible. Really. Of course,
Speaker 1: we did our best, but there's just no way when
Speaker 1: you have eighteen guys living in the station together that
Speaker 1: you're not going to be sharing a space. And so
Speaker 1: the biggest concern was just if and when one person
Speaker 1: at the station got it, how to keep it from
Speaker 1: running through all the guys at the station. Wow, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's incredible. I have a We talked to
Speaker 1: some other folks who are UM intensive care doctors also,
Speaker 1: and it's just so hard to predict what could happen.
Speaker 1: So um, the fact that you live together, and as
Speaker 1: you said, your people, and the multiplier effect is pretty real.
Speaker 1: So obviously you must face some fear in your work.
Speaker 1: How do you overcome that fear? I mean, how do
Speaker 1: you train yourself? How do you train your mind? Um?
Speaker 1: I think the the biggest thing that helps me deal
Speaker 1: with the fear is that the knowledge that we do
Speaker 1: our very best to be safe in every situation. So
Speaker 1: of course we take risks. We absolutely take risk. Everyone
Speaker 1: who is a first responder at all takes risk just
Speaker 1: because we don't know what we're getting ourselves into on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. Um, But we train extremely hard from
Speaker 1: the time you're a brand new firefighter all the way
Speaker 1: up until you're and you promote into a captain or
Speaker 1: chief rank. Our primary goals always safety across the board.
Speaker 1: So if we ever feel unsafe, we ever feel like
Speaker 1: we're being threatened by a patient or threatened by somebody
Speaker 1: on the street or anything like that, or safety is
Speaker 1: always our first priority. And I think just knowing that
Speaker 1: I work with good people, I work with people who
Speaker 1: are well trained, they know what they're doing, they're watching
Speaker 1: out for me, I'm watching out for them, sort of
Speaker 1: provides the best sense of security one could possibly have.
Speaker 1: Of course, there are elements that we just can't control. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't know what's on fire inside of building. If
Speaker 1: somebody's house catches on fire, it spreads to their garage.
Speaker 1: Who knows what people keep in their garage. We don't
Speaker 1: know if something's going to explode. We don't know if, um,
Speaker 1: if somebody wants to hurt us. Like, there's things that
Speaker 1: we just can't control. But I think for me, the
Speaker 1: things that we can control we do, and the things
Speaker 1: we can't it's not really worth stressing over because there's
Speaker 1: nothing I can do other than doing my best to
Speaker 1: keep a head on a swivel and hoping everybody around
Speaker 1: me is also doing the same, and hoping we'll catch
Speaker 1: any signs of danger before it progresses to a point
Speaker 1: where we wouldn't be able to recover from it. Um.
Speaker 1: But we have a high risk job and that's sort
Speaker 1: of something that we accept when we take the job. Wow, Carrie,
Speaker 1: it's so so incredible to talk to you, super inspiring
Speaker 1: and obviously your work makes everything that we do possible.
Speaker 1: So thank you for joining us. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That is incredibly difficult, dangerous and crucial work, and thank goodness,
Speaker 1: there are people like Carrie Caravella worth doing it. Here
Speaker 1: are some of the points I took away from the conversation. First,
Speaker 1: women are ready to handle any job. As Carrie says,
Speaker 1: we may have to work harder than a two pound
Speaker 1: man does to accomplish the same physical task, but with determination,
Speaker 1: it can be done. Second, never underestimate the importance of
Speaker 1: role models. As a young woman in a mostly male profession,
Speaker 1: Carrie took inspiration from the groundbreakers who came before her
Speaker 1: and proved that women belong in the fire department. Finally,
Speaker 1: a sense of purpose can keep us going even in
Speaker 1: the toughest situations, despite twenty four hour days, if not longer,
Speaker 1: and choking smoke. Kerry and her fellow firefighters love what
Speaker 1: they do. As Carrie says, it's the shared experience, the
Speaker 1: ability to work together towards an important goal that keeps
Speaker 1: her coming back. Tune in Tuesday to learn about our
Speaker 1: next featured woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's
Speaker 1: one hundred Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women to
Speaker 1: Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner PNG.
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard on the show, rate
Speaker 1: and review it on Apple Podcasts. We hope you'll join
Speaker 1: us for our next episode of one hundred Women to Hear,
Speaker 1: where we can all listen, learn and get inspired. Have
Speaker 1: a great day.