This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.
Well, since then, I have actually been using my products and I've had incredible success.
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which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their protocols free of charge.
Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols, and you can find that on JamesGearing.com under the Products tab.
And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder Ernie Colling, or go to TranscendCompany.com.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show veteran firefighter, one of the founding members of the Triple F Group,
and the creator of the female firefighter plush dolls, Tina Geiler.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from Tina's journey into the fire service, diversity through mentorship, her powerful cancer recovery story,
uniting female firefighters, inspiring young women to become firefighters through toys, and so much more.
Now, before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating.
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 950 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you, Tina Geiler. Enjoy.
Well, Tina, I want to start by saying thank you so much for taking the time also being flexible because I know that we had to reschedule before and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
So where on planet Earth we find you this afternoon?
So I am in Miami, Florida. Yep. And I work for Miami Dade Fire Rescue.
Yeah, several of my friends there, Jason Roseau, some of the guys from my higher class that lasted in high school for I think about two weeks.
Oh, there you go.
I'm gonna smash that by you guys.
Lasted two weeks. I hear a lot of that from a lot of different departments that people, you know, get hired there and then they end up leaving because they're just trying to get into this department.
I mean, there's just we're just so big that there's so much opportunity.
So I think that's why a lot of people come here.
I think this is an interesting parallel.
We're jumping way ahead now, but I talk a lot about the recruitment crisis at the moment, because, you know, as you know, the fact that it's not being fixed is just simply putting more and more workload on our
responders that are in those departments and the mandatory overtime and all that stuff. But creating that destination department, creating a department where people don't leave, you know, where you're not a stepping stone, you're not a revolving door that's costing you tens and tens of thousands of dollars so that you don't bleed firefighters in other department is a big selling point for fixing this recruitment crisis.
Yeah, definitely. I agree. I think pay has a lot to do with it. Opportunity to move up, you know, to become an officer and just doing different things in the fire service. Not every fire department has the same structure or the same, you know, disciplines as other departments.
So there's different opportunities, depending on what people want to get into.
But for my department, we have the most women in the United States. We have 262 women firefighters. So, you know, to go anywhere else in the country, there may be one, two on a department or a handful. You know, the bigger departments have more women, but, you know, for the smaller departments, especially volunteer, there's, you know, not a ton of women. So volunteer actually probably has more women.
Than the paid departments do. But, you know, that's exactly why I started my group page, you know, to show women in the fire service that have a place to go and talk to each other because there's not a lot of support for women in the fire service, which is why we're only 6% of all firefighters in the United States.
Yeah, I want to dive into that, that area deeply when we get to it, but let's start at the very beginning of your timeline and we'll walk into the fire service. So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
So I was born in Miami, Florida. I was born and raised here. My dad was actually a firefighter back in the 70s, but he left and retired out, quit basically to take another job when I was like not even four. So I literally don't remember anything of the fire service that my dad was in. I just remember seeing a few pictures, but I don't remember anything of the fire service.
I just remember seeing a few pictures, but we never went to the firehouse, you know, never really talked about it. You know, he's kind of old school, so he didn't even see anything about firefighters when he was on. So he worked for the city.
But, and then my mom was a flight attendant and did various jobs throughout her career. But I actually became a firefighter because I knew five older women. There were friends of mine and they were probably like 10, 12 years older. One used to babysit me and one of my best friends.
And she worked for a department in Broward, which is just north of Miami. And then I had four other friends that worked for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. And we had, you know, same friends in the same area. So we used to hang out all the time.
And they're like, you know what, you guys should be firefighters. And they would tell me, you know, you can be a firefighter. And I never really gave it a thought before, honestly. I didn't grow up in the fire service.
So I never even saw a female firefighter besides my friends. And that was, I was already like 19, 18, 19. So I never saw it. And, you know, Miami has a ton of female firefighters. So they basically got me in the mind frame, like I can do this.
So I was about 18. I'm like, yeah, I think I want to do it. And I loved adventure. I was into sports. I did all kinds of crazy stuff throughout my life. You know, backpacking, all this stuff.
But anyway, I loved helping people. So I thought, wow, that's kind of like the perfect job is to be a firefighter because you can help people in this. You get this really cool adventure. So I'm like, I'm in. I think I'm going to do it.
So me and a bunch of other friends, you know, were told by these older women that we knew, you can do it. And we're like, yeah, that's right. If you guys can do it, we can do it. So we did it.
All of us, you know, a bunch of us started getting hired one after the other, you know, with Miami Dade Fire Rescue. So that was pretty cool. And then I ended up working with them, you know, throughout the years.
They've been retired now for, I don't know, 10 years or something. But yeah, so it's, I'm on 25 years now this month. So yeah, it's been a great career. And that's pretty much how I got into the fire service.
I do have two older, two sisters, but right now, I mean, honestly, I've, I've lost my whole family. I don't really speak to part of my family, but my mom passed away from cancer.
My grandparents both passed away. They were, you know, almost a hundred and ninety nine and a half. So, I mean, they had a good life, but, you know, I don't really have any family at this point. It's just me.
So, and I have my chosen friends, which are my family. But as far as family now, I don't have any family. You know, everybody's passed away. But that's how much, I mean, pretty much how I became a firefighter is because of other women.
I heard you on, was it her fire inside? Have I got that right? Podcast you just did very recently.
And fire inside her. Yes, if I inside her. Thank you. I always want to give credit to people when I listen to my guests on their podcast. But you seem to just in passing mentioned that you didn't have much of a relationship with your dad, especially now.
When you look back with this mature lens that you have in twenty twenty four, were there any elements of his upbringing or possibly even his service that contributed to the fracturing of that relationship?
I mean, he's not a nice guy. But I mean, I didn't really he was never there. He was working 24 seven. If he was a firefighter, he stayed a firefighter. He would have had two jobs and, you know, would have probably been life would have been better.
But because he was doing this job, he really was never around. He just provided, you know, a roof over my head and I was able to eat. But other than that, he was never around.
So that's kind of why I didn't really have much of a father figure. I had my best friend's parents who were kind of like pseudo parents for me.
So I saw what it was like to grow up being married and they're still married to this day. But my parents got divorced when I was like eight.
So I mostly lived with my mom and I lived with my dad for a little while. But, you know, there just wasn't a relationship with me and my dad. He was never really a good person, a good man or a good father.
So, you know, I learned from my friend's parents basically what parents were supposed to look like. My mom was around except for, you know, five years when I was in high school.
She lived. She moved away and we only saw her on weekends basically. So but after that, I, you know, she was there for me, of course. It was just those five years.
But yeah, my dad was never around basically. When I was born, she lost her job. So she got fired because back then you could get fired for being pregnant as a woman.
So we've come a long way. You can't get you can't get fired anymore. But, you know, back then you could. So she lost her job and then just did odd jobs since then.
You know, office work stuff. She owned her own company at one point. It was a carpet cleaning company and I was in high school.
But then she left that company and then she was just doing odd jobs the rest of her life.
So and then she was retired.
OK. Well, you mentioned about playing a lot of sports. What were you doing as far as exercise and sport when you were in the school ages?
I did everything I could to get out of school. Pretty much. I played soccer, softball.
I was even on the bowling team because a bunch of my friends were on it. We're like, yeah, we can get out of school half the day if we want to join the bowling team. So I did that.
You know, I was volleyball. It wasn't in school, but I played recreational.
So I was always busy playing sports and I'm just doing stuff playing outside, playing like kickball with the guys in the neighborhood when we were kids and stuff like that.
So I was always like to be outdoors. We didn't have computers. We didn't have games like we had.
I think Atari was the only game we had back then.
And I didn't stay much playing indoors with that unless it was raining or something. But I was always outside doing stuff.
What were you dreaming of becoming during the high school age?
So I believe then I wanted to be like a hotel manager. I wanted to be, you know, and then maybe own a chain of hotels.
That was like my big thing back then. That's what I thought I'd go to college for.
And I ended up not going to college for that. I ended up going to get my fire degree. So, you know, it changed.
So, you know, any I mean, the oldest guy in my class was 47 years old. He got hired when he was 47. And there was another guy that was hired when I was 45 when he was 45.
So, I mean, you can become a firefighter at any age. And I don't know what their story is, but, you know, why they wanted to do it at that age.
But, I mean, that's pretty, pretty cool to be that age and then just say, you know what, I'm going to be a firefighter and go to fire college and become a firefighter.
I mean, they've been long since retired. But we just, in fact, had our 25th reunion beginning of this month.
So one of the guys came back that's been retired. He's been retired about eight years now.
And he came back and we all got together, the guys and the girls in our class. And it was just it was a blast.
We had a good time hanging out and reminiscing. And we actually went to the same restaurant that we used to go to when we were in fire college just to blow off some steam on Friday nights.
We go to the restaurant, hang out. But yeah, it was pretty cool. So that was interesting to see where everybody has gone in their career.
We lost a couple guys, unfortunately, one to suicide and another one just got sick and passed unexpectedly. So they were both pretty traumatic, you know, for all of us, not to mention their family.
But yeah, so it was pretty cool to get everybody back together and just reminisce about all that. And we've got a bunch of chiefs.
And almost everybody got promoted to some aspect in the fire service. There was only like a handful of us that never got promoted and was stayed a driver or went into inspections or something like that.
But we all did something in our career, which was pretty amazing to see that all of us just didn't just stay a firefighter.
We did all kinds of amazing things in the fire service. So it's pretty neat to see.
How many people were in your class?
I think we had about 54. So it was like a double class. And we had there was 54 of us, I think only six women back then.
But but yeah, it was pretty neat. And about 30 30 plus of us showed up for, you know, the reunion. So that was pretty cool.
Because if you think about statistically, you've got 50 plus people, arguably some of the fittest, more resilient, most resilient people in the community. And fast forward only, you know, not even the end of the career yet.
And two have already passed. I mean, I think this is a an important conversation. I think most people I can think of my academy, my actual basic academy.
And we lost one of our guys to he had the the bypass surgery and the colon basically ended up dying and he passed away and I'd seen him he looked good.
You know, he was slimmer. And I've had a whole episode on a Zempik recently with with a guy wrote a book about it and how that's such a safe alternative to that these days comparatively.
But yeah, I mean, you know, so interesting that you say that because one of the guys that got sick, that's exactly basically what happened.
He ended up he had the surgery a couple years later. Somehow it got infected somehow. And that's what he ended up dying from an infection, you know, from sepsis.
And he he also was religious and they religious didn't like blood transfusions and all this stuff.
So, you know, he wasn't able to get the care he should have gotten right away. And he tried to go to another hospital ended up becoming septic because he didn't take care of it right away.
And unfortunately, lost him to that. So that was pretty, pretty hard. And his brother, we did like a plaque for him at the station that he was last at.
And his brother came and his brother looks like his twin. It was very like we had never met him before.
Maybe back when we graduated from college. But other than that, we were just looking at him like it was his ghost.
He looked just like him. We're like, holy crap. It looks just like Steve.
But yeah, he had that surgery done, too, and he lost a ton of weight was looking great and somehow got an infection. And that was that.
Yeah, my wife's best best friend had the same same thing. We lost her, I think, almost two years ago now.
So, yeah, I mean, this is this is the thing. It sounds great. And neither of these people were that heavy, to be honest.
They were overweight. Absolutely. But I wouldn't say they were even the obese category.
And so obviously they were given advice. And I get it. The patient sometimes is very persuasive.
But now, you know, I don't believe in taking drugs as a as, you know, instead of exercise and food and all that kind of thing.
However, if someone is dangerously overweight, which you and I have seen multiple times in our career,
this might be a much safer alternative for those people than stapling their stomach shut.
Yeah, no, definitely. I agree. I mean, it's it's hard. Not everybody takes surgeries.
Surgery is is always life threatening thing to me. I mean, I've been through enough to where, you know, anything can happen.
I've been lucky to get through the ones that I had to get through.
But, you know, when you have to do surgery, I mean, you don't really have a choice now if it's, you know, for purposes in that.
I mean, that's life or death, too, kind of, you know, because if you're obese and you have to get that surgery to save your life
and you can't lose it otherwise, you know, I don't know. I guess there's always a choice, but it's a risk, too.
Absolutely. Well, going back to as you were kind of progressing out of school,
we're going to talk about changing the environment, inspiring young women in this case to kind of realize that they can be incredibly successful firefighters in our profession.
What was that environment, you know, prior to you actually meeting this group of female firefighters?
What was the environment that you were raised in when it came to that? Because I know you'd even mentioned it to your dad.
Well, I mean, I pretty much raised myself when I was in high school because my parents weren't around.
Like I said, I had several other friends, close friends that their parents kind of were the ones that gave me structure.
And, you know, I was able to see what a, I don't know, what a quote unquote normal family would look like.
I don't know what a normal normal isn't really a word I like to use, but you know, what a loving family that's together all the time looks like because my family was not together all the time.
So, you know, I before I got into the fire service, I was working for UPS.
So in my early 20s, I was delivering packages, you know, driving the big trucks.
So I was already pretty much fit doing that because that's a really hard job.
And not that's also not a lot of women drive for UPS back then. Anyway, this is in the 90s.
So, you know, I mean, I just I was a kid, a very tough kid.
And I always knew my mind frame was like, if I wanted to do something, I'm going to do it.
And I know I can do it. So I never really gave up on myself.
I kind of just was that kind of person, you know, and I always helped people.
I was always kind of like the mother of the group with my friends.
I don't want to say mother, but the caretaker.
I would always watch everybody's back and make sure everybody's good.
You know, I was always a designated driver if my friends were drinking
because I wanted to be able to control, you know, my life and how I'm going to get home
and make sure that nobody is drinking and driving because I really did not like that as a kid.
And even more so being a firefighter, having to see that the results of a drunk driver
and losing people since then. But yeah, I mean, I was just kind of this tough kid that, you know,
if I wanted to do something, I was going to do it.
So that kind of attitude kind of helps you in the fire service for sure.
So you mentioned I don't have any doubt.
Now, you mentioned about there being a lot of women in Miami Dade specifically.
What was the environment when you walked through the door?
And then what did you hear from the veterans by that point,
the female veterans of that department and maybe what it was like
the beginning of their career and how it had actually changed?
Well, I don't think they told us the whole truth for sure and didn't say, yeah, it's great.
You know, you'll be accepted. It's all good.
You know, so but they had been through so much in their career
as a firefighter because they had already been firefighters at least 12 years, you know.
So they were already kind of veterans in the fire service.
So they kind of, you know, went through the wringer when it came to women being in the fire service.
So they were kind of not. I would say they weren't forthcoming with all that information
because it's not something we really kind of bring up back then.
Kind of old. I'm kind of old school firefighter, too, where, you know,
we fought some fires without a mask and being on air.
But for the most part, my whole career I did just I would say the first few years,
I saw a lot of people not wearing masks and overhaul and stuff like that.
But in fires, we always were. But like if you get a grass fire, you're not going to wear it.
But there's there was stuff all in the grass, you know, so you're breathing in plastic
or whatever was burning that people threw out into the woods.
But they were I mean, the environment when I got in was just do your job.
You know, some some of the old guys didn't like women in the fire service.
They didn't think we should be there, even though we did the same job as them.
And sometimes even better because they were a lot slower. I was a kid. I was quick.
So a lot of the times, you know, we would get it done quicker.
I mean, I my first fire and this is a funny story. I'll never forget this.
My first fire, I was on a truck with three older guys. OK.
And we were the first one into a house fire was an apartment fire.
So there was an old guy driving old, old.
He was a captain at the time, and they put on their gear so slow.
I was done in two seconds and they're still getting dressed.
So I'm like, well, I guess I'm going to get off the truck by myself because nobody else is ready.
And we pull up right next to the apartment and the house, it's on fire.
Fire is blowing out the back of this house and we pulled up in the backside of it.
So I said, well, and it's a permanent building.
So I get out and I just driver hands me the hose and I go running in.
I put out the whole fire by myself before my officer or my tailboard was next to me.
I just I just was like, I don't think this is how it's supposed to be.
But because I was trained in fire college, I didn't care. I knew I knew the job.
I felt safe enough with my equipment because I knew how to use it.
So I felt fine doing it.
And I was in the house putting out the fire before I felt a little hand on my shoulder like I'm here.
You know, because I already knew they were going to be slow because they were a lot older.
They must have been, I want to say, late 40s, early 50s, all of them.
And yeah, I mean, I was a kid. I was quick.
So I got off, pulled out, pulled off the hose and went in by myself.
So it was kind of like that back then.
And now if you did that, I mean, forget it, you'd be crucified.
But I didn't say anything. I was new. I was a kid.
What am I going to do? Complain that I was I mean, it was I'm not going to lie.
It was scary to be there by myself.
But I just felt that confident in my skills that I was taught in fire college that, all right, I can do this.
So nothing nothing like the, you know, fires that we didn't train on in fire college.
So it was kind of like that. A lot of the older guys, luckily, the guys I was working with that day were very cool.
So they didn't really harass me at all or, you know, oh, you're just a woman, blah, blah, blah.
But they were great.
But there are some stations that I went to that the guys were like, you know, you can tell that there was a little tension.
They're like annoyed that a woman was in the fire station.
But as years went on, it got better.
There's a lot of the old guys retired or the old guys would see that you can do what they do.
And they're like, all right, you're cool.
You know, we know you can do the job. So then they were OK.
But it did take some adjusting for sure.
And every woman, I think, goes through that even to this day.
Well, I've always said that there's only one prejudice that actually has a place in the fire service.
And that's you can or you can't. That's it.
And ironically, you know, if you think about an actual structure fire, you don't know which one's the gay guy or the woman or the transgender or whatever.
But you can see who's a fucking shit show and who is actually calm, composed and physically fit.
You know, so this is what's crazy is that of all the professions that we have, one of the easiest ones to not have prejudice because, you know, the ladder doesn't care if you sleep with men or, you know, the hose doesn't give a shit whether you're in a mosque or a temple.
They just need to get from A to B. And this is even with the physical fitness standards, which, I mean, obviously we have none in our profession.
But people say, oh, we've got to make it fair. It is fair.
Move the ladder, move the hose, move the dummy. Doesn't matter who you are. You either can or you can't.
And that is the only prejudice that we actually need to really discuss because it's the only one that has validity.
Yeah, I had two really big guys, the one that passed away that got that surgery.
I had two really big guys that, I mean, we're talking probably 300 pound plus guys in my fire college running.
Okay. And doing everything everybody else is doing and, you know, they were a little slower, but they kept up and did everything and they passed all their tests.
I mean, we didn't care as long as they did the job.
So we, you know, knowing that they're heavy and they're not they're not really in shape, you would say, but they did the job.
Right. Was it good for them to come in as 300 plus pounds? No.
But they literally just did everything we, you know, we did. So they ran, just ran slower, but they did everything they were supposed to do in fire college.
And they got the job done, dragged anybody out. We were able to drag them out.
So, I mean, it's, you know, I don't recommend doing that, of course.
But one of the guys, you know, he, like I said, he did the surgery and he was slimmer.
So he was better, but then, you know, he kind of paid for that later, which is unfortunate because we he was in my squad.
Both the heavier guys were in my squad and the other guy, I still work with him and he's still kicking the butt.
He does everything everybody else does. So, and he's probably lost a little bit of weight, I would think, since fire college.
But he's still a big guy.
But I think that's why it's important that we maintain a fitness standard within the career, because I mean, I don't know if you've heard this a lot, but I feel like some people just romanticize about the academy.
Oh, that's when I used to be in shape. And, you know, we both know that our academy is literally labeled minimum standards.
That's the shittest you should ever be in your entire life.
You know, so if we, if we say, oh, come on in, there's no standard now, then the ones that aren't very motivated, the ones that were maybe heavy when they came through the front door.
But now they're going to be the 40, 50 year old cardiac arrests in the station.
Yeah. I mean, even the fit guys though, do go into cardiac arrest, probably not as much as somebody that's, you know, not healthy.
But it does happen, you know, to fit guys too. So really, I think it's our job.
Honestly, I mean, I don't know what, what it is, but some people, you know, are not in shape and they'll go their whole career without any injuries or medical, medical problems.
And then there's people in shape and you're like, why did he have a heart attack? You know, because you would look at other people.
So that's why we can't really gauge by what people look like either. We know they're not healthy, but you know, I don't, I don't know how we can standardize that in the fire service.
It has to be within ourselves, right? So it has to be that we have to do this job and our, everybody's life depends on how we are in shape.
I'm one, I'm not in shape that I was in fire college. There's no way I stayed in shape for, you know, a good part of my career.
But at the end of my career, I did let myself go where I shouldn't have. And that's on me, you know, but then, you know, I got cancer.
So there's that I've been off the trucks now for like seven years, but so I couldn't do the job now.
I know that for sure. And it's not just me not being healthy. It's just because of the cancer. But, you know, I don't know.
I don't know what the answers are to get people to stay in shape their whole career. I don't, some people do it and some people don't.
I think drivers get away with it a lot because they're not going into the fire. They're taking care of the trucks.
And those are the guys that you see or girls that you might see that are not as in shape as they were, you know, when they were younger for sure.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's something I talk about a lot. If you create an environment that promotes health,
look at Norway, for example, you're going to end up with healthy people, whether it's in a nation or in a profession.
But if you promote, create an environment that promotes disease, which is the fire service, you're going to end up with people struggling to, you know,
keep their weight off and struggling with their mental health. And one of the least discussed elements is the sleep deprivation and the shift work that we do.
There's no way around it. We have to do 24 hours. But giving firefighters more rest and recovery in between, like Boca, like Boynton now, I think is the next step.
It's not the only thing, but it's a massive elephant in the room. And then especially at the moment, all the mandatory overtime that's around, you know,
now it's not a 50 hour work week, it's an 80 hour work week that week, you know.
So this is the reason I think why a lot of us are struggling and the fit guys and girls, you got to remember they need more rest and recovery
because they're taking their job seriously and they're pulling hose on the back apron and they're going to the CrossFit gym or whatever.
Well, if you don't repair after that, you break so that, you know, the arrhythmias and some of those things, it is the fit people that get hurt more so than there's a science behind that.
It's physiology. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fire service, even if you're fit or not fit, doesn't matter. You're going to get some injuries.
I mean, it's just going to happen. I mean, I've torn my knee up.
You know, I played softball on the side, right, when I was on probation and I ended up tearing my knee in the outfield, just running.
There was a pothole, you know, a hole in the ground, didn't see it, got my foot in there, twisted it, boom, popped my ACL and then, you know, prolonged my probation, which was stupid.
I shouldn't have been doing anything on probation. But, you know, I was a kid. I was playing. I was having fun, staying fit.
And, you know, it happened and I went on my duty. So, you know, even, you know, and that's, that can't really be blamed for the job because I haven't really been there that long.
But, you know, think about it. All my career, I played softball or some kind of sport, hiking, all kinds of camping, all the stuff.
And, you know, people do that throughout their lives. But then when you get this job, you can still be in shape and things are going to happen.
So that's why it's even more important to stay in shape so that injuries don't happen.
But I've had back injuries because we didn't used to have the little hit the button and up the stretcher. We used to have to lift the patients up.
So, I mean, you know, you got back problems. Now they're kind of spoiled, which is great because they won't have to have messed up backs like we do.
But, yeah, I mean, there's just so much within the fire service that people really have to take into account, you know, to not get hurt.
Do you go skiing? Skiing is a huge thing that people get injuries on.
I went to triage. I had never skied in my life and I went skiing when I was 40. And I thought, I'd rather run into a burning building than go ski again.
You know, I did it. I wanted to do it. I did it three times on a green, but I won't go skiing again.
That was the scariest sport I think I've ever played for sure. I mean, just doing was skiing.
That was, I thought I was going to go off the side of the mountain. I couldn't stop. It was crazy.
And the guy said, yeah, you're great. Just go up. You're the best I've ever seen in the beginning. And I'm like, yeah, okay, says that to everybody.
But yeah, I mean, injuries can happen, but I could just feel like how that happens.
So you just literally have to be careful your whole career because you don't want to, you know, go and do something like that and ended up going to work and then getting hurt.
But you got to live too. So it's, it's definitely a balance that you have to create, you know, in your life because of this job.
Yeah. And that's the thing. You know, some people will talk, you know, badly about hobbies that people have outside the profession, but that's what keeps you good at the job as well.
You know, so it's a double edged sword because if you just sat in the library or play video games on your days off, you'd be a really shitty firefighter.
Exactly. Well, the reason why we're firefighters is because we are adventurous. We love to get out there and do crazy stuff, you know, so, but that also helps to get us injured.
So, I mean, like I said, it's a balance, you know, you have to be really careful. Don't do really stupid things when you're, when you're working because you want to get through your whole career without any kind of major incidents, you know?
Absolutely.
But I wonder what the, I wonder what the stats are for all firefighters, you know, as a whole, how many injuries do they get in a, in a career span? That would be interesting to find out.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think there is research on that kind of thing where there isn't research is on the disease from sleep deprivation.
I just had a Sarah Jenke on a few weeks ago talking about that, you know, because people ask me, oh, can you send me data? Can you send me research?
Because I'm trying to push the 2472 as a national standard for us. And she basically did a great, beautiful job of showing, I think she works so much with the injury, but definitely with, you know, reproductive health and hormonal disruption and some of those things.
But then we were asking about the sleep deprivation. She's like, no, there is, there's none. So I think hopefully it was a real kind of mirror in front of the fire service. Like you haven't done any, you can't ask for data that you haven't done.
Yeah.
But a million videos with someone with a tiny house, you know, blowing into a window, but none of you have done anything about the shift work that's behind so many of these deaths. So, you know, some of this data is more observational than, than, you know, research based because there isn't a desire to figure out why firefighters get hurt.
What do you guys run? What are your shifts?
So I transitioned out six years ago to, to focus on this solely, but most of my career, I worked 2472, sorry, 2448 with no Kelly was most of my career.
So.
Yeah, we do 24 on 48 off with a Kelly, but I just feel like if you had a really bad 24 hours and you didn't sleep at all, and then you're going to work 12 hours or 24 hours of overtime, like the next day or swap or something, and you don't sleep again.
It's I went 36 hours once without sleep and I didn't even know how I was going to drive home. It was bad. So definitely I think, you know,
2472 maybe or something like that would be obviously better.
So we can get more sleep because you feel like you're sleeping the whole next day and then the next day is the only day you have to go do something fun, but you got to work the next day.
So it doesn't give us, you know, mentally enough time to, to really repair ourselves more or less, you know, sleep.
So, I think my departments try to do it a bunch of times and you know our union shot it down because we love this, that kind of shift but if you really think about it, it's really not enough.
It's really not enough sleep and time off for mental purposes. I mean, you know, PTSD. Everybody's got a little level of it at some point in their career, you know, it's, it's tough I mean it's becoming.
We just lost another firefighter the other day.
I think from it a week or two ago or a couple days. I don't remember.
But, you know, it was a I think it was like a murder suicide or something.
So, yeah, that's the one.
So like that obviously is probably PTSD I don't I don't know for sure but, you know, I'm sure it has something to do with it.
Yeah, yeah, no, this is the crazy thing when there's opposition from unions or administrations. If you look at the economic side, the overtime the workman's comp claims that in a medical retirements all these things that compound.
They're bleeding so much money the way they work them and if you actually put it down as a common sense question. Why should a firefighter be working 48 or 56 hours a week minimum, when the civilian population works 40, and yet you're asking a firefighter to come from a dead
body to you know climb on a rig make an entry finding a kid and then doing an algorithm on them. So it's insanity that way. And when you look at the opposition to, you know, changing it's like yours. You as a union have blocked your workforce from getting more time off.
You're in the way of actually fixing some of these issues and you listen to add the chief appointed on I had the union president or one of the union boards gives me a Pasco County. I just interviewed the guys from Gainesville who are literally about to go to it in August, I think.
And it's all the same, we were bleeding money and morale was bad, you know all the things. And they realized that it was just much better to invest the money up front, rather than just waste it on broken firefighters so it's kind of disgusting really if you're in a union or admin position or
political position you're opposing your first responders getting more time off then shame on you.
Well I also think it's the firefighters themselves don't realize that's what they need. You know, I think firefighters are our home, we're our own worst enemies you know.
So I think they don't realize well they like the shift work and they like the Kelly days and everything but they don't realize in the long run, 25 years down the road, how that's going to help them.
You know, I don't think they really realize that I mean, back in 2018 I ended up getting breast cancer.
And that could be from, obviously, you know soot getting on your skin seeping into the skin it could be breathing, you know in stuff on overhauls, you know fires and, you know, sleep deprivation, and it's also food, I believe our food in the United States is pretty bad.
So, a lot of GMO stuff and just non healthy stuff but um yeah all that combination of stuff I think that's pretty much why I got cancer.
And that's not fun.
That's not fun at all.
And there's not, they're doing a lot more studies now with firefighters and cancer in the fire service so that's good that's a really good positive thing.
And different states now are becoming, you know, have the cancer initiatives where the, it'll be a workman's comp issue.
You know, I didn't get the privilege of that unfortunately but it came out right after I was done with all my cancer treatments.
So that's good, people have it from now on but, you know, I just wish we could fix cancer period, you know, not just, you know, give us workman's comp but yeah I went through a double mastectomy.
I went through chemo. I went through radiation.
And I actually have to get another surgery now, because implants didn't take, this is the third time now. So I've been dealing with that for, I don't know what year is it, 2018.
So I need to get another surgery just to replace it, or just take them out completely.
So, so yeah, I'm in pain from that every day. I have neuropathy in my feet and in my hands I tend to drop stuff with my hands because of the neuropathy and maybe a little bit of carpal tunnel from the job.
But, so yeah, I mean I couldn't be on the trucks now, for sure from that I just feel very weak up, you know, in my chest area.
But, you know, I mean I just I can't, I've done a lot of, you know, speaking about cancer in the fire service to through UN, even in my department, I've done some training to show others, you know, please, you know, wear your mask at all times, be on air.
Don't breathe it in. Whenever you, you know, never breathe it in. That's the main thing, and also take the soot because in South Florida, you know, it's very muggy, very hot so our pores in our skin stay open when when it's that, you know, humid down here.
So when we get soot on our skin, that's going to seep inside the skin, unlike whereas maybe up north where they have snow, their pores are closed because it's cold. So that that soot may not seep in as fast but down here, it's quick.
You know, it's going to seep right into your skin. So those little things we didn't know before that we know now.
So I mean, at least the cancer studies are are getting better. And Sarah knows a lot about that end too. But, but yeah, I mean, it's, that's something that I definitely go around telling guys and girls, please just wear your mask.
Don't go off air to fight any fire because even if it's a grass fire and overhaul which is really hard to wear your bunker gear I mean just don't wear it just wear the jacket and the, you know, and your, your SCBA, because that's, that's what's going to make you live a long life.
But people are stubborn, you know, the fire service we're all stubborn and we want to do what we want to do, and they feel like it's not going to affect them. You know, oh it's not going to happen to me.
But it does mean I didn't think it was gonna happen to me.
And I'm getting cancer.
So, and that's not in the history of my family either nobody has breast cancer in my family that we can go back years and years and years and decades and nothing.
So I mean it had to have been from the fire service.
Well I think as well people focus on the fires and I think the clean cab conversation is is important. I mean just like you said when I started my career in 04.
It was a tail end where there was a lot of kind of laxness about wearing it and I can think now about the proximity to car fires and then you go into your career a little bit longer like you're saving anything in a car fire why are we standing on top of it, it's a big dumpster fire basically.
But the conversation then started being about you know carcinogens and things like plan events and you know extractors are phenomenal and absolutely needed, but in all the cancer studies no one is talking about shift work which is a known carcinogen.
And a perfect example really creek where I worked before.
They never saw fire like almost never and they had lost people left right and center to cancer, but they did run a lot of calls nearly all the MS but they were up all the time. So the common denominator there is not the actual exposure to carcinogens so much as the body's resilience to carcinogens.
And so you know you've got these people that you know some of them probably never fought fire to be honest be completely honest and yet they died of cancer, you know so were they just physiologically weak or were they being broken down over years and years and years so this has to be in the other side of the cancer conversation
the same with COVID. Yes it was a real virus, but let's talk about the resilience of the population to any virus.
Yeah, yeah I think also not just fires are cancer causing but our trucks, so we go into the bay, right. The bay doors as soon as we get in we're closing the bay doors, right.
So the truck just turned off. You just put all those diesel fumes inside the bay. You just now closed it up.
And now we open the station door, go inside, guess what comes inside our where we sleep and where we sit there and hang out, eat dinner and watch TV or whatever we do in there.
It's all coming inside the inside the station. So there's that aspect too which I thought about before we used to have our ice machines, you know spare ice that we'd use for whatever inside the bays.
We keep our gear inside the bays. Guess where all the diesel fuel goes into? The ice went into our gear.
And there's still gear in a lot of stations in the bays and there's no exhaust system that will take out the exhaust enough to where when we go in the station, none of that fuel, the fumes is going to go inside the station.
So there's that aspect. I think that a lot causes cancer and we're sleeping in that too if we get to sleep.
So I think that's a big deal. So we took the ice machines out of the bay and now they're inside the station.
But now you still have whatever residual fumes are still coming in the station. So I think that is part of cancer as well, even if you didn't fight fires.
Yeah, I know the Plime event worked really well. Anaheim was very diligent about that.
We'd always, you know, the engineer would wait at the back door. You'd hook up the Plime event. Then they'd pull in the bay doors to stay up.
But the last place again, Reedy Creek, they ended up getting some ridiculous extraction system that were these boxes that sat on the ceiling that were, you know, 20 feet in the air.
And, you know, there's just no way in hell that was pulling it down. And obviously now it wants you to close the doors when you had natural, you know, ventilation from wind blowing everything out if you left them all up.
So this is the issue too, is there's some people out there selling, you know, technology that doesn't even make any sense as far as extracting this stuff.
Yeah, our department had those for years and years and years, just these vents that would really not exhaust anything.
And they'd come and change the filters. And I'm like, this really isn't working. That's not.
So we're starting to get now, all the stations are starting to get where you talked about putting that on the muffler before they come in.
But are the firefighters really doing it every time is another thing. So it's not something we really think about because we just, I mean, that's another thing we have to address besides, you know, fighting fires and getting, you know, taking a shower right away, breathing in the smoke, wearing an SUV, all this stuff is the trucks.
The trucks are causing a lot of cancer too, I believe.
Absolutely. Well, let's shift to Triple F. I actually had Flora Cassie on the show, Kenyan firefighter a few years ago.
Oh, I love her.
Great conversation. I want to say thank you to Milena Mueller for connecting us as well.
That was through Triple F. I mean, obviously, Milena had met Flora through, you know, what you guys have created. And then that's what brought that together.
So walk me through, let's say some of the challenges that you personally were experiencing as a female firefighter. And then what made you join that organization and ultimately be at the helm.
So Triple F means Fierce Female Firefighters, and it was started as a group page on Facebook by a co-worker of mine back in 2013. And it was just a Facebook group page just for women in the fire service to go and talk to other women that are doing the same job, just about women's issues.
I don't know, you're just getting on the department. What kind of bra should I wear into a fire? A lot of girls want to know that. What happens when you get your menstrual cycle? How do you keep enough products in the truck? Where do you keep them?
All this stuff that guys, our brothers couldn't really answer. Those are the minimum things. But, you know, that's how it was first started by her, a girl that I worked with.
And then I took it over in about 2016. And I've grown the group to over 7,200 women in the fire service. Flora is one of them. And from 58 different countries.
And then, you know, it's just a place that we go and inspire each other. We ask questions, you know, talk about all kinds of things, whether it's positive or negative. The women have a place now to go.
It's the biggest social media place for female firefighters to go to, to talk to each other and to meet up. We've done trainings together. We do meetups together.
People do little meetups in different places to meet other women in the fire service because, you know, women only make up 6% of all firefighters in the United States.
So there's not many of us. There's girls that are the only one in their whole department. So they don't have any other women to, you know, shoot off ideas to or ask for any advice. And the guys don't know what to tell them.
So this is a place where other girls come to, to, you know, meet, talk, inspire one another, give advice to each other. And we have all ranks from fire chief to firefighter.
So it's pretty cool. It's pretty good place to, for women in the fire service. So if you're not on it, join it.
What about uniforms? One of the sponsors of the show is 511 and they had an epiphany, which shouldn't have been an epiphany, but I just showed how kind of behind we were in the fire service that a lot of our female first responders, especially firefighters, were wearing men's uniform.
And I remember I can see in my mind, some of my, my female friends back in the day, you know, looking like a, like a cloud cartoon, shoving all this in.
So 511, you know, when it ended up realizing that and designing a separate entire range of uniform for female firefighters. What have you seen as far as that in your department and obviously on the Facebook group itself?
Yeah, I mean, there are some departments that are doing it, but if they don't have a lot of women in their department, the department usually doesn't even address it. They're just like, ah, she can wear whatever we get.
So my department, obviously we have the most women in the United States. We have 262 women firefighters. So our department does have women gear. We do have women clothing now.
And we even have, you know, separate bathrooms. There's still fire departments out there that don't even have separate bathrooms for women and men. So, you know, still have a long way to go, but there's been a ton of changes.
One common theme on the Triple F group page is gear, you know, gear and clothing. They're constantly asking, what's the best women, you know, pants to get? What's the best women gloves? Gloves are a huge thing.
Always asking about. So all these women can provide advice on where to get this stuff and how to get policies made for pregnancy, you know.
What's going to happen when, you know, they want to take off from work for their baby and all this stuff. So a lot of departments don't even have policies yet, pregnancy policies.
So there's a lot of that going on. So it's a really good tool for women to use to be able to change things in the fire service for the women that are going to come behind us and for the ones that are in it now.
So that's been pretty amazing to see as well as to see how many supportive, you know, other women in the fire service come together to talk about stuff and say, OK, you can do this or they'll, you know, give a copy of their policy so they can see how they should write theirs and stuff like that.
So it's it's been a really good positive thing to see women being able to come together and help each other out in that respect, because the guys are like, I don't know what to tell you.
You know, they don't they don't have babies, so they don't know what women need, you know, if they were to have a baby in your in the fire service. So it's a lot of good information we get there.
What are some of the common accepted practices when it comes to pregnancy? Because obviously, you know, you're thinking now about another another human inside a female firefighter.
At what point does that become dangerous, detrimental to the mother and her child when it comes to some of the calls that we have to respond to?
That's really up to the individual. It's her body, you know, her body. She can discuss it with the other parent if there is one, you know, and.
It's up to them how long they want to stay in the truck. If they want to get off right away. I mean, being that I've had cancer in the fire service already.
I if I got pregnant in the fire service, which I haven't had a child, but I think I would get off the truck right away.
Just knowing what I've learned, you know, being in 25 years and having cancer in the fire service and how I got it or how I probably got it and sleep deprivation.
Obviously, I'd be off the truck in a heartbeat if I had another human inside of me growing just to not, you know, hurt the child.
But that's my personal opinion. You know, everybody else's is different and that should be up to the woman what she wants to do.
That's really on her. So I don't think a department or a union or anybody should tell her what to do with, you know, her career.
It's up to her. It's her body. It's her child. And she should ultimately make that decision.
Studies are out there, of course, but, you know, they can use those studies just like anything else.
You know, but that's really up to her what she wants to do.
That was an area that Sarah was really entrenched in now was the reproductive health and how many, you know, whether it's diseases in in the children, whether it's abnormalities, you know, whether it's,
you know, biological abortions, whatever it is that they're seeing a huge increase in issues, not just with us, but with our offspring.
So it's not about, you know, saying, oh, we think you should do this, you know, as far as taking away some of autonomy.
But by educating them on the dangers of shift work, the dangers of some of these exposures to the unborn child,
I think the mother and partner obviously can then make an educated decision on when they should actually step away from the line itself.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Sarah is doing a lot of good work on that.
And definitely the more information that we can give women in the fire service, they can make their decision on what they want to do.
But whenever somebody come and ask me, I said, just get off the truck now.
I don't even wait a minute because that's just what I've seen in the fire service from my experience. And that's just my opinion.
You know, because our job is dangerous for ourselves, more or less for another person.
So to me, it's just an obvious decision for me. But, you know, I don't speak for everybody and everybody can make their own choices if they decide.
You know, there's a lot of things that come with that decision. Right. So they need the money. They need a paycheck.
There's maybe no light duty that they can go to being pregnant on their department, which is a huge problem.
So there's a lot. There's not just I'm pregnant and I'm going to get off the truck.
So there's a lot of other factors that go with that to their decision. Can they afford it?
Is there a place they can go to still get their paycheck? You know, or do they have to go out completely from the job?
You know, because they don't have a light duty space for pregnancy, you know, for pregnant women on the job.
So there's a lot of different factors that go into that. It's not just making that simple decision whether you're pregnant or not.
And I think that's the issue that most women face is that, you know, they need the money to pay their bills.
They have a family of three already or whatever it is.
You know, the husband's not working or the boyfriend's not right, whatever it is.
I mean, there's a million reasons, million scenarios you can you can bring up.
But I think a lot of that is there has to be options for women in the fire service to go on night duty if they're pregnant, because guys don't have to deal with it.
You know, they don't have to worry about that. They can go to work every day and still get their paycheck because they're not having the baby.
But, you know, those things need to be addressed before the woman, you know, can really make a decision on whether she can just stop working now.
If there was those kind of options, I think a lot more women would get off the truck.
But nobody wants to go to light duty. Nobody wants to work every day. They want to stay on shift work.
So that's, you know, their option. That's their choice.
And I think more or less they know what the danger is going to work with a baby inside of them.
And that's their choice to work or not work.
You know, I always am not a pulled is the wrong word.
I think disappoint is wrong. I don't know the word I'm looking for, but it kills me, I guess.
It kills me when I hear of someone who in the fire service who's had cancer, who's made it out the other side and then is put back on shifts.
Like to me, that's like putting someone on blood thinners and then sending them to a barbed wire factory.
You know what I mean? It's just it makes no sense.
I agree. It's it is scary. And I know girls and guys have done it on my department. And I'm thinking, I don't know if I could do it.
I don't think after having cancer and everything I went through that I would go back on a truck to get cancer again.
You know what I mean? It's just I can't you can't really describe something you've been through unless you've been through it.
So I think a lot of firefighters think, well, if it doesn't affect me, you know, and I'm not I'm not going to get it.
They're always thinking it's not going to it's not going to happen to me.
You know, and I think that's just in general, that's how people think it's not going to happen to me and might have happened to my neighbor.
But it's not going to happen to me. And then when it hits, when it happens to you, you're like, I didn't think it would happen to me.
You know, how many times have you heard that? I didn't think that would happen to me.
I mean, that's just how human beings think. You know, they never think it's going to happen to them.
And, you know, unfortunately, that's things happen because they're called accidents or you get cancer in the fire service.
I mean, we're all prone to it. So anybody could get it, you know.
So you just got to be careful, take care of yourself and try to always do the right thing for yourself.
What was your mindset through all of your cancer treatments?
You know, the obviously you've got that mortality issue, you've got the suffering from, you know, the chemicals themselves.
You've got the surgeries now, you've got the neuropathy. What kept you going?
You know, where was the darkest place and how did you get yourself back to where you are now?
Honestly, my group page kept me going, having something else besides the fire service to try and educate other people, help other people.
I think having some other kind of passion, not just being on the job, but something else.
My group page got me through a lot of dark places because they're my sisters.
So I think having the support of your brothers and sisters when you're going through something like this is very important.
And I've tried to explain that to fire chiefs to make sure that if their people, you know, get cancer, God forbid,
to make sure there's a support network for that person, that firefighter, because that is a huge issue.
We're removed from the fire service. We just got everything taken away from us.
And now you're like, what do I do now? You know, who's going to help me now?
So, you know, during my treatments, I had, you know, a lot of people coming by, a lot of help, you know.
But after the treatments, you know, after like, I would say my chemo treatments and surgery, you know,
there wasn't a lot of people coming by because let's face it, somebody's sick, somebody's fighting for their life,
somebody's, you know, battling cancer. You can only be around that for so long before you're like, all right,
because it wears and tears on your friends and your family, too.
So it's not like people can stick around 24-7 or come by all the time. So it becomes a very lonely place for the firefighter.
It can be a very lonely road. And I don't think it has to be like that.
You know, I think there needs to be somebody designated in the department that checks on that firefighter
and makes sure that they're OK all the way through their treatment, not just part of it, you know.
So I feel like tons of people were there for me in the beginning and through up until like maybe my surgery
and then that's it, it all started to fall away, you know. But I also had my mom. I had a lot of stuff going on.
I was taking care of my whole entire family while I was fighting cancer. My mom was dying of cancer.
So I was going to my chemo treatment or her chemo treatment. So it was like one in one, you know, once a week it was her.
Once, you know, the next week it was me. It was just constantly that. So that obviously contributed to my
not having people around because I was constantly busy taking care of them as well as trying to get through my own stuff.
So but in the beginning, it was good. I had a lot of people around. They came to my chemo treatments.
I had at least 10 firefighters around me or friends at all my chemo treatments, which was great.
You know, that helps you get through it. So I would just tell other departments, you know, stay by them.
You know, don't let anybody fight this alone because it's definitely changes your entire life.
Well, it mirrors the struggles that we see our retirees have. You know, you're a part of this group.
You have a purpose, you're part of a tribe. And then all of a sudden you're on the outside,
whether you got cancer, whether the door just closed after your last shift.
And this is where, you know, a lot of people really struggle. And you hear this over and over again about the injuries.
I mean, we talked about injuries earlier. I had what I thought was going to be a career ending back injury.
And, you know, one minute I'm on the truck, you know, arguably one of the fittest people in that department.
The next thing I'm laid in my bed, I can't even put my shoes on, you know, and no one.
That was the last place no one was calling me zero. My friends were still 2500 miles away in California, to be honest.
My family were all overseas and I was going through a divorce. Super fun time.
But, you know, that that mental part was worse than physical pain.
Yeah. You know, and I think this is such an important conversation.
And even the widows that I've had on the show, we surround them when whatever happens, happens.
Suicide, you know, cancer, death, whatever it is.
But then they're like, and then and then everyone's gone. And this is the problem.
I think this is the thing that will be solved with actually figuring out the shift work, too.
I think honestly, our people are just so busy and so exhausted that they just get sucked back into the grind of the shift.
And that person who needs them is forgotten about.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. Even in any kind of injuries, anything like that definitely need to have more firefighters check on on each other.
You know, and especially, you know, your your chief, your chief should be have, you know,
we all some of us have like CSM, you know, bureaus basically.
So we all have critical incident stress management teams.
Every department doesn't have it yet, but every department should.
And they should be kind of our CSM team is basically in charge of checking on, you know,
widows checking on injured firefighters and stuff like that.
But we have a huge team. So you can't just tell one person, take care of it.
You really need a team of people in your department to really take that on, especially if you're a big department.
You're going to need a huge team.
But if you're a smaller department, at least have a few people that will go and check on the people that are injured and out.
Because it's it's a lonely place.
I mean, like, maybe none of those people knew you were going through a divorce and none of your friends were there, but they don't ask either.
Right. So you didn't have anybody.
But as a firefighter, you don't reach out and say, hey, I need help.
You don't say that because we're firefighters. We don't do that.
You know, we're not used to asking for help. We give help all the time.
So we don't call and say, hey, I need help over here.
That's why you need because we're southern, too. Right.
So we're not going to ask for help. That's why the department needs to just do it, because we're never going to ask for help.
That's not who we are. We're firefighters. We don't ask for help.
You know, so but so nobody knows the struggles people are going through.
And I think that's something that we really need to pay attention to is because that's what causes, you know, depression and suicide in the fire services.
We don't check on our brothers and sisters enough.
You know, absolutely. Yeah. And this is that culture.
You know, I think in the interview I listened to, she used the word safe space and that immediately creates that kind of kind of response to that.
But that is what we should. We're trying to we're trying to create an environment where people do feel like they can say, you know, this divorce is killing me, you know, or whatever it is and actually open up.
But yeah, we've created this culture of, you know, this mask of masculinity or, you know, femininity, but that kind of impenetrable mask, not the reality.
And we haven't created an environment of vulnerability where people can share how they're actually feeling.
It's that same mask that you have to have on a horrendous extrication or a fatal fire that actually has validity on that scene, because God forbid you queen out in the middle of a tragic incident.
That's not going to look so good. Yeah. But you have to then be able to go back to the station and pull that mask off and go, Jesus Christ, that was horrendous.
And that's why we have CSM teams because we go and check on those guys or girls who just went on that, you know, child drowning or something.
And they're they're not going to talk about it. They're just it's just going to sit in your head and you're never going to forget that call the rest of your life.
You will always remember that call. And the worst thing is when people come up to you and they don't know, they don't know not to ask this.
But the worst thing to ask the firefighter is what's the worst thing you've ever seen? And those are the ones that we try to forget.
You know, we're trying not to remember those scenes and people don't know because they don't know not to ask that. They just think it's really cool.
But we think it's cool at the time. So like when I was younger, you know, of course, I wanted to see everything like, you know, see a guy's head split open like this.
Now I'd be like, you know, as an officer, as I got older, I realized, you know what?
Not all of us don't have to see this, you know, or a suicide or a dead person.
I'm just going to send one guy in, let him do the 12 lead to make sure that the person's, you know, deceased and then come back out.
I wouldn't send my whole crew in to go look. I'd say, you know what, guys, don't don't go in if you don't have to because you don't want to remember this the rest of your life.
And those things do you do remember them your whole entire life. Don't forget them.
And I think these younger guys, you know, being all gung ho, they think it's cool and they want to check it out.
And I get that because I was there. I was one of those people.
So now, looking back 25 years later, I'm like, man, I wish I really wouldn't have gone in and seen that because now it's imprinted in your head and you cannot get rid of it.
And those add up over time. You know, so if you've seen, you know, hundreds of those.
That's what happens to firefighters when we get older is that, you know, we got 25 years on now and now you're seeing all these things are haunting you now.
So I think it's really important as officers don't let all your guys go in and to a call, especially if they're young, you know, don't let them have that impression the rest of their life.
That's how I think that is.
Yeah, no, I agree completely. I actually my first book I wrote this is a true story part of my career.
And then the book wasn't a biography. It was just these short stories from my career.
And then there's always a takeaway. And this particular call, it was horrendous.
It was a little three year old girl decapitated in a vehicle accident.
The mother was fine and the boyfriend in the front had been killed as well.
And when we got there, the engine crew had thrown a blanket over the child in the backseat.
Yeah. And so, you know, we're trucking Anaheim. We were the extrication team.
So obviously it was kind of having to be processed by the the morgue first.
And then the medical examiner was going to call us out when they already removed the bodies.
And so we went back to the station and I was I wasn't young.
I was probably 30 then, but I only had four or five years in the fire service.
And me and my friend, my firefighter partner, the tones went off. We went to get back on the rig.
And my captain, an engineer, DFO'd us to go back to the station.
And they said, and I remember this, Terry, my captain goes,
you're going to see enough horrible stuff in your career.
You don't need to add this to your your catalog. And he he and the engineer were about to retire.
They were just a few short years from retiring. And I never forgot that.
And I realized that there is no medal for seeing the most stuff.
But as you said, there is a there's an album of it.
You know, there's there's a there's a movie that will play in your mind.
And then so conversely, years later, which I wrote as well, I had a horrendous last shift.
I'd handed my notice in my previous department and the gods was like, oh, really?
And everyone I interacted with died that day.
And one was a homeless woman that was missing for several days in the woods in Florida in the summer.
And it was the same thing. I actually this time got to tell everyone else, I'll go ahead and I'll go check this out.
You know, you guys don't need to come.
And it was horrific, the human body decaying after days in the heat.
But for that same reason, you know, so this is such an important lesson,
whether it's someone who's just in the fire service listening to temper their ego
or if an officer having the courage to tell their crew to stay, you do not need to see it.
If they need your help, you have to be there.
If they're already gone, they're already gone.
Don't expose an entire crew to that scene that a simple medic doing a three league can mitigate.
Yeah, I wish that, you know, my officers, when I first got on, would have done that.
But you just don't think about it because you're just go, go, go.
You know, and you just don't.
It doesn't dawn on you until you really sit down and you think about all these things in your career.
And when somebody asks you, what's the worst thing you've seen?
It all comes back immediately. It's just crazy how that works.
So I try to tell obviously the public to my friends or just anybody I meet, you know,
don't ask that question to a firefighter because that's the things that we don't.
They don't understand that PTSD and how these things compile on us,
our whole career actually affect us in real life.
And, you know, I just tell them it's not really a good question to ask.
And they're like, oh, my God, I'm sorry. And I'm like, no, no, it's OK.
They don't know. You know, and it's fine because they don't realize what they're asking
because they can't even imagine the things that we see.
You know, they couldn't even write it, a storyline on it.
Like, you know, it's just horrible, awful things that we've seen.
And if you can keep your crews away from them, do it.
That's what I implore all officers. Don't let them see it for their own good.
They don't even know it's going to help them in later, but it will.
I'm just finishing up editing my second book, which is a fiction this time.
And it's the modern day firefighter, you know, is the protagonist firefighter paramedic.
And then but it goes back in time because I want to tell the multi-generational trauma story as well,
woven in this one story. But the scenes are horrific.
My stomach was like, you know, turning when I was writing them.
And again, you know, it's kind of a historical fiction.
These are calls from my career under the guise of this character.
And my goal is to make it into a show on streaming television
because we don't have any television that shows what we really do.
It's either a bunch of models running around saving everyone or it's Tacoma FD,
which I had some of those lads on, which is brilliant.
But it makes us look like a bunch of buffoons that never work.
Doesn't exactly do us any justice.
And then I wear their mask, you know, and fires, they're breathing in smoke,
all these TV shows and whatnot. And they're like, is it real life?
I'm like, no, but but in this are some horrific stories.
So people are going to get to see some of the worst things that we've seen.
And it's not to shock anyone.
It's just to pull the curtain back and go, this is what these people do
to shield you from all these horrors.
So I hope that that will kind of make people see for the first time.
Oh, my God. I thought they just sat around and, you know, you know,
sit on every kind and saved everyone.
That's what everyone's even the documentaries they only they only show the saves.
They don't show the the crew torn apart because three kids died in a house fire
and they couldn't get to any of them. You know, so yeah, I mean, I hope that
we maybe maybe just maybe when this happens and putting out in the universe
that firefighters will start getting less and less questions because people
will actually get to see what we really do and some of the things we really see
and go, oh, God, I'm not asking that question now.
So, you know, who knows? We should see if we'll have to reconvene in a few years.
Moving on to another question, you just said question that reminds me of what
women in the fire service constantly get asked all the time.
They'll come up to us and say, are you really a firefighter? We'll be in gear.
We'll get asked, are you really a firefighter? I'm like, no, I stole the uniform.
You know, but it's just a constant question that we get asked all the time.
And we'll be on a fire. We all look the same, like you said, in gear
coming out of a fire. But we take off the helmet, take off the mask and then,
you know, in the hood, whatever. And then our hair comes out and they're like,
it's a girl. And you'll hear this, you know, screaming across the way.
It's a girl. Look, it's a girl firefighter. You know, so to us,
we're just firefighters. It's normal to us. But to the public,
they've maybe never have seen a female firefighter.
You know, so that's a question we get asked a lot,
which is why I want to talk to you about my dolls.
Yeah. Well, like I said, go ahead.
I was going to jump in before we get to the dolls.
When, you know, early in my career, we had a lot of people on that were
grumbling about affirmative action, you know, and a lot of white,
straight males struggled to get work at that time.
And then you kind of see what was done under that umbrella.
And it was kind of, oh, go get me. I need 50 women,
20 black people and 12 Hispanics go to it.
And, you know, people would drag net all these people come in.
All right, we've got them. And then what happened, obviously,
if you do it in such a ridiculous way,
you end up with some phenomenal firefighters, some average ones,
and some absolute liabilities in that group.
What I've seen now is the absolute answer to this.
And this kind of aligns with the dolls is friends like my people,
like my friend, Chris Hickman, started mentorship programs,
and they basically give free classes, you know, as training to be a firefighter.
They're an essentially located area, usually next to the underserved part of the town.
You know, people of all colors and creeds and genders can come.
They get free training, free gear, you know, they get to use the gear.
And the beautiful thing is they get to be exposed to what we do.
So some of them go, wow, this is what I want to do as a profession.
And then equally as importantly, some of them go,
this isn't what I want to do after all.
But, you know, when it comes to whether it's someone of color,
whether it's someone, you know, female or, you know, someone from the gay community,
whatever it is that never envisioned themselves because they didn't back in then,
back in the day, see themselves represented as much in their community.
Now they are immersed.
And now what's beautiful is now you're then getting to find the best candidates.
And there are like, you know, free sponsorship to the Academy.
Obviously, departments begging for them on the other end.
So now you've removed the barrier to entry financially
or whatever it is for some of these people.
And you've found the best, best candidates within these areas that you weren't pulling from.
So what has been your perception of that kind of dynamic, the mentorship,
to find, you know, candidates that weren't being represented
rather than just scooping them up because of the way they look or what hangs between their legs?
Yeah, I mean, I wish I had that when I was a kid.
I never even knew women could be firefighters growing up.
But, you know, my friends, obviously I got lucky and found a bunch of female firefighters already working.
So they got me into it.
But mentorship is a huge part to showing not only that they can be firefighters, you know, women,
or, you know, that they can do anything.
Some of the girls that go to the mentorship programs, they don't even want to be a firefighter.
They just want to, you know, believe in themselves and they want to think that they can do anything.
So some of them do go to the mentorships for that reason because they want to be firefighters
or they want to see what it's about.
And then some people, because firefighting is not for everybody, guy or girl, doesn't matter.
It's not for everybody.
And I think the majority of people who apply for the fire service, they know what it is, right?
But are they really cut out for it?
And that's what the testing is for.
So you go through the testing.
If they're cut out for it and they can get through all the testing, physical agility,
and all the interviews and all the written tests and all that stuff, then they can become a firefighter.
I haven't seen really too many, you know, people become firefighters and then quit
unless there was something bigger that they had in mind, like a business that they took over
or they wanted to become a cop, which that's very rare, but it has happened.
Back to the mental health issue.
Yeah.
So, I mean, you know, I think the majority, I mean, I don't know, I'm just thinking where I grew up
and where I'm a firefighter at is the majority of people that apply either, you know, think they can do it
and they really can't.
And that's all the tests weed them out, right?
So all the testing is going to weed those people out that aren't ready to become a firefighter.
But mentorship, you know, for women and maybe other minorities, I mean, I think it's a huge, huge deal
to have these women camps, women fire camps.
It's an empowerment camp.
So it just not only makes them feel like they can be a firefighter, but it empowers them to be anything they want to be.
So some of them will obviously grow up and get hired by the fire service, but some of them don't
because they realize, OK, maybe that's not for me, you know, because it's a dangerous job.
Not everybody wants to run into a burning building.
You know, that to me is fun, you know, but other people, maybe not so much.
So like I'd rather not go skiing.
I'd rather run into a burning building.
So it just really depends on what that person wants.
But mentorship is huge in those areas.
I know tons of women that are doing these women camps at different departments around the country.
And you're seeing a lot of women just being empowered.
These kids just come in and love to do all this firefighting stuff.
I think it's the coolest thing.
And let's face it, what kid doesn't look at firefighting and go, oh, that's so cool?
You know, every kid loves firefighter.
So and loves to go to the fire trucks, loves to go to the fire stations.
So these camps are great for for women to come and see if that's something they are really made for or if they'd want to do it.
So, yeah, I think those are super important.
And I wish I had that when I was a kid, because I would have went just for fun if I didn't want to be a firefighter because I loved adventurous stuff.
The term toxic masculinity gets thrown around a lot.
And what I realize is it just seems to be completely misinterpreted as well.
So one area where I think it should be actually applied is the facade of masculinity that a lot of men are held to rub some dirt in it.
You know, boys don't cry.
That leads to a lot of overdoses and suicides where I think it was meant initially.
And I think toxic maybe is the word that that is kind of distorted the understanding is projecting onto a girl. You need to be a teacher, a nurse, a flight attendant and projecting onto a boy.
You need to be a soldier, you know, and putting these kids in these categories.
Now, obviously, the pensioner has swung so far the other way that now some people think they're sheep or beavers or whatever.
But in the middle is removing that masculine projection or feminine projection on a child that is pigeon holding them and keeping them out of the the the realization that they could actually do a multitude of professions.
So talk to me about the absence of, you know, female firefighter toys and why you decided to change that yourself.
So as a woman in the fire service, like I said, I constantly get asked, are you really a firefighter by adults, kids, everything.
But a lot of times kids will come up to me and say, I didn't know girls could be firefighters.
And I'm like, yeah, buddy, they can, you know, got little boys and little girls.
So when little girls see women in the fire service, you just see them light up like, wow, it's there's a you can be a firefighter and a girl like.
So that just got me thinking, how am I going to change that?
How would I change the perception of the fire service in the public eye and into little kids?
So I came up with a female firefighter plush doll and I said, well, if I put these out into the market, little girls are going to be able to see themselves as a firefighter.
And if not a firefighter, if they know they can be a firefighter, they're going to know they can do anything because pretty much even kids know that firefighting is a really dangerous job and not everybody does it.
So they know what firefighters do. That's one profession.
They already know it because they see the fire trucks. They know we put out fire. So and it's a scary thing.
So if little girls can see themselves as doing this, they're going to say, wow, if I can be a firefighter, I can do anything.
So it really empowers the girl, not the girls, not just tells them they can be a firefighter.
So it's really an empowerment tool that I made to show little girls that they can do anything, even be a firefighter.
So I designed three different dolls. This is Ember, little Ember doll.
So Ember and Ash, there's a blonde girl that's named Ash and Molly is our black girl doll.
Ash and Ember like fire reference names. And then Molly was named after Molly Williams, who was an actual female firefighter back in 1818.
Her name was Molly Williams. And she actually worked in New York and was called Ushienes back then, which I think now is FDNY.
But yeah, she was the first known female firefighter in the United States back in 1818.
So I decided to name my doll after Molly to dedicate it to her for her service.
And they have removable gear. The jacket comes off just like a real firefighter.
She's got an axe, two gloves and a hood just like a real firefighter. Suspenders come down. The pockets actually work.
So it's all full bunker gear from head to toe. And the kids can play with the hair and style it any way they want.
And FFF obviously means fierce female firefighters. So they have logos that match the girl doll, what it looks like.
So each doll has its own little girl logo. And it just shows little girls that can be anything.
And so far the feedback has been just so cute. I get all these pictures of little girls holding the dolls.
And they're just, I mean, it's just been amazing to see how this affects little girls.
I had a mom come up to me. I was selling them at some kids show.
And I had a booth there and I was in half bunker gear basically and holding the dolls.
And a mom comes running up to me with her child in a stroller. She was probably like four, maybe five.
And she goes, oh my God, I can't believe you made these dolls. And she goes, I have to tell you the story.
And I'm like, okay. And her kid was playing with like a toy or something on her.
It was either like computer or something she was playing with in the stroller. So she wasn't really looking up.
So she kind of left her to the side. And she comes, she goes, I have to tell you the story.
And she goes, my daughter comes up to me one day and she goes, mommy, I want to be a boy.
And the mom was taken back and she goes, why do you want to be a boy, honey?
And she goes, because I want to be a firefighter and you have to be a boy to be a firefighter.
And I just, I was like at 20, 24 and this little girl didn't know that she could be a girl and a firefighter.
So the mom, of course, told her, you know, yeah, you can be anything you want to be.
But the little girl just didn't, wouldn't believe it. So I came up to her.
I was in my gear and I showed her the doll and I go, look, I'm a firefighter.
And this, I made these little girl firefighter dolls and her face, just like she was just like in awe.
Like you can just see her brain working.
And she was saying, you mean I can be a girl and a firefighter?
And that just, I mean, I literally, when she left with that doll, I just turned around and just had tears on my face
because I just changed this little girl's life.
And so now she knows she can do what we do.
And that's the beauty of these dolls.
You know, I just, I'm so happy to make little kids happy like that.
It's touched me a lot, you know, being a firefighter.
I'm sure that's true.
I talk about it. Yeah.
Now I heard you even in the other interview where you told the same story and I could hear it in your voice then.
I bet you that's probably behind some of the gender confusion that we're seeing in some,
I'm not generalizing of our youth at the moment.
It's that, well, if you want to be like this, then you're obviously this gender,
depending on the upbringing and the environment they were around.
Now some obviously from day one feel like they are the opposite gender and they're trapped in this body.
And I totally get that.
But I feel like there's so much confusion.
And I saw it even with my son.
He had a short period where the girl from Descendants, Mel, he adored her character.
And one Halloween, he wanted to dress as her.
And I was like, well, if he goes ahead with this, I'm buying an adult version of Mel's dress and we're fucking wearing it together.
I don't care.
And be awesome to show him, you know, OK, you just.
Exactly.
But it didn't happen.
Thank goodness.
But, you know, I would have.
But it was now he's, you know, little manly man with abs and he's on a cruise right now with his mother and probably chasing girls as we speak.
So just because he wanted a more feminine, you know, kind of relationship with that character at that moment doesn't mean that he's gay.
It doesn't mean that he wants to be a girl.
He was just undulating, trying to find his own identity.
And so I think as even just something as simple as the dolls that you're putting out there, as we bring everyone into the middle and say, oh, you guys can do all this stuff.
You don't have to be on one side or the other.
I think that even on that conversation, you're going to steer some of these young kids back to just being like, oh, I don't need to decide what I am right now.
I'm just going to go through my childhood, sit back and just, you know, see, see where, you know, where I end up.
But I'm not going to feel like I have to be a boy to be a firefighter.
Right. Yeah.
I mean, the most part, I think with this little girl, she's never seen a woman firefighter before.
And that's the most issue, I think, around the world is that most people don't see women that are firefighters because there aren't any.
So, I mean, women only make up 6% of all firefighters just in the United States.
I don't know where it is everywhere else, but, you know, I think that's the reason is, you know, I live in, I mean, I have the most women in the fire service in the whole country in my department.
And people still come up to me and say, I didn't know girls could be firefighters.
So I don't know why that is, but it's just I think people never see them.
So if you don't see a woman firefighter and all these shows are showing, you know, we've always grown up with men firefighters and cartoons and TV shows and movies.
Now they're starting to put women in there so that people know that women can be firefighters too, but it's still not enough.
I mean, I still get asked, I just got asked by a 40 year old woman, I don't know, a few months ago.
I didn't know girls could be firefighters. I'm like, you're 40.
She just didn't know. She's never seen a female firefighter.
So it's really not just the age, but it's really that there just aren't enough female firefighters.
So people don't relate to that. They've never seen it.
So that's why I decided to make the doll. So if you start them young and they see this doll in a store, they're going to know, OK, I can be a firefighter.
And then, you know, maybe one day they'll start stop asking all the female firefighters that are working already.
Are you really a firefighter? Because guys know that never happens to our brothers.
Guys never get asked that if you're in gear, they know you're a firefighter.
And in fact, I just went to I just went to Shark Tank auditions with my dolls.
And there was a lady director, she was a casting director who was in charge of everybody.
She's the lead casting director. And she put us all in a room and she said, hey, you guys, it doesn't matter if it's a guy or a girl casting director.
They're going to understand your product. You know, because some women had like makeup there and they're like, well, we want a woman casting director.
So it doesn't matter. We've been doing this for years because you know how Shark Tank's been out.
And we've been doing this for years and they're going to understand your product.
Trust me. Mike. OK, wait till I get up there. So because it happens on my career.
It's not going to stop now. So we get up there and I'm there with four girls in bunker gear and we're all carrying a doll.
And we get up to the table and it's just one guy sitting casting director sitting at the table.
And the first thing I walk up, start setting the stuff on the table and he goes.
Hey, you guys went for the best costumes for the day.
And I looked at him and I said, actually, that's why I'm here, because these aren't costumes.
We're actually firefighters and this is the gear that we kind of save lives and this is our job.
And, you know, this is why I made the dolls. And he just was like, OK.
And he just started writing something down and kind of looked down like I'm an idiot.
No, I don't know what he said. But, you know, this is just what we get all the time.
And guys never have to deal with that. I mean, it's Shark Tank.
And they've seen how many millions of different items.
And he still because if it was four guys and walked in in bunker gear, I guarantee you he wouldn't have said,
Oh, you guys went for the best costumes. He would have said, Oh, where are you guys firefighters at?
So it's a constant stereotype of who can be a firefighter or not, because we had our hair down.
We had makeup on, you know, light makeup. But, you know, we looked feminine and they just could not.
People cannot relate a woman that looks like a woman as a firefighter.
So it's just it's just something that we get all our career. Almost every firefighter.
What is what is a female firefighter look like? People just don't go get it.
And they look at you like you can do what the guys do. And I'm like, no, that's kind of how I got my badge.
I passed all the same tests that the guys took. I did all the same physical agility.
I got to the fire college the same way. We all did the same things.
We didn't do anything different. So if I can pass it and do everything the guys do,
then why am I getting questioned all the time? So this is something that we deal with our whole career.
So that's why I made the dolls. And I'm hoping to change that a little part of that in the fire service
so that more little girls can know, you know, they can be firefighters, too.
And back to the cancer thing, because I had cancer in 2020,
I started a foundation called the Triple F Foundation to help other firefighters battling cancer and on the job injuries.
So I started doing that. We've helped already 25 firefighters now, various different, you know, cancers, illnesses or injuries on the job.
And a portion of these dolls I actually donate back to the Triple F Foundation to help firefighters.
So it's kind of a roundabout thing where I get to educate kids, but also help firefighters.
Going back to what you're talking about with the message, this is another conversation I had a lot with people.
Our profession as a whole has done a horrendous job of branding.
And I'm sure that that's a word that you're more immersed with now as an entrepreneur.
But think about the other ignorant questions. You know, what are we buying you for dinner tonight?
Public member in a supermarket. Why is there a fire engine on a medical call?
You know, you guys just sit around and watch TV, don't you? You know, I mean, you think about the ignorance that's out there.
Shame on us for not really educating the public on what we do because we've done a terrible job, especially back to the shift work.
We walk around saying we have the best shift schedule and then that's like we work three days crammed together, 56 hours a week, eight hours a week.
And yet we're still telling that fairy tale. So this is the problem, not just with the female firefighter, with the fire service in general.
It's 2024 and people are still asking why is there a fire engine at medical school when we've done EMS for 50, 60 years now?
And they also another question they ask us, too, is if we're grocery shopping, oh, is the county fire department, the taxes are paying for your food?
They have no idea that we go shopping and use our own money.
You know, they think that the city or county or whatever is paying for the food and we're like, no, no, no, we pay for it.
So they don't they don't realize that we're at the firehouse for 24 hours. We need to have food at the station.
You can't just eat out every single day. So they don't know that either.
Yeah. I mean, you imagine if you work for Publix and you had to take vacation days and your own money to go and take classes that made you better at working for Publix.
That's what we do. You know, almost all the classes I took at the state college and all the special operations classes and doing multiple VMR so I could get serious tool time.
That was all on my own dime on days off. You know, no other professions.
Our department pays like 50 percent of classes, but they don't give you time off to go. You have to use your own time.
You know, but they do. They will put 50 percent of your you know, whatever you pay for the classes.
If it's fire, EMS, they'll pay for half of it. But not every department does that.
No. So there's so there's so much misinformation out there.
But I want to kind of wrap up, you know, the journey of the doll you mentioned Shark Tank.
Talk to me about how that's kind of the origin story of the development and then walk me through from the business point of view, because I think this is such an important thing for all first responders to do.
Find a passion outside of the job, because not only, you know, God forbid you get fired, you get hurt, whatever happens or there's some financial collapse and your entire retirement is gone.
But even if everything's still intact, transitioning to a passion project, I think makes a much mental, much healthier mental health transition for a person leaving this profession as well.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, when I had cancer, like I said, triple F is what helped get me through the hard times, not just my family, but through the hard times of being out of the fire service.
That helped me. But yeah, basically, I when I got this idea,
I had, I mean, I barely even played with dolls when I was a kid, more or less, I didn't know how to make them.
So I'm a kind of person that works smarter, not harder.
And I literally called a guy that won a Shark Tank deal. And he did plush dolls.
It was called Mention the Bench. And it was a Jewish doll.
So I basically just cold contacted him and said, Hey, I need a mentor. I'm trying to make these female firefighter dolls.
I have no idea how to where to go, what to do. And he basically just walked me through it and basically gave me his contacts and said, Here's the factory guy.
Here's the prototype person. And here's the packaged doll, you know, maker designer.
So I basically just took it from there and then learned as I went.
So it took me about a year and a half to make the dolls from inception to get the prototype to the factory delivered them to my hands.
So it was a long time and it was, you know, after covid. So there was a delay in the factory time because of covid.
But yeah, after that, I mean, I basically had to use money from my house.
I had to use money from my pension, you know, my my deferred comp, basically money to get the dolls made.
So it's very expensive to make dolls. You know, so all that stuff I just learned as I went and I would try to ask anybody that was already doing it questions.
All right. What do I do then? What do I do now? And this is all while, you know, my mom passed away from cancer.
I was taking care of my grandparents. My grandfather passed away for that. So I had all of them living with me.
So I had my grandmother living with me. So she got to see the doll come to come to life and she would help me package them.
And she was ninety nine still helping me pack the boxes, putting labels on shipping and stuff like that was really cute.
But yeah, so I mean, it's just something that just has kept me super busy. But entrepreneurship is really no joke.
It's it's very expensive. You have to be passionate in what you're doing, because once you're passionate about something just like the fire service, you're going to be good at it.
So, I mean, since I did this, I've been on the Kelly Clarkson show. So Kelly's daughter has my doll.
I've been all over Fox News nationally. I was on Good Morning America.
But, you know, I paid for a publicist to help me get on all these things as well, because that is something that I just didn't have time to do myself and a publicist.
They do this for a living. So that helps getting, you know, good exposure for the dolls.
I'm hoping they're going to be in Walmart next year as well, because I'm working with Walmart right now to make get a deal done.
So that would be really cool. But yeah, it's not you just have to not give up for one, just like we do.
We go into a fire and you're trying to save somebody. You don't just say, well, I can't make it half.
You know, I can only make it half the way. I can't go further to rescue that person. I'm just going to leave.
Just same thing with entrepreneurship. You can't you can't give up because times are tough.
You can't give up because somebody said no. No just means it's another option.
You know, I don't take no for an answer for anything when I want to do something.
So I just made it happen. It's something that, you know, you have to be passionate about.
You have to work really hard at it and just never go up, just like we don't do in a fire or trying to save somebody.
You know, did I see that the dolls were $40? Yeah, they're 45, 45.
I just I want to say this because obviously, my people listening or in audio version probably you held one up and it's a beautiful doll.
It's not small. It's quite a big doll. That's amazing.
Yeah, 45 bucks. They're like 15 and a half inches tall.
They're really big dolls and they're all plush. So they're all soft.
So when, you know, dads or moms are, you know, on shift and we're gone 24, 48 hours or sometimes even more.
These dolls are great for firefighter kids because when they miss mommy or daddy, the dad or mom can hand the doll to them and say, Hey, when you miss mommy or daddy, just hug the doll.
Here's the doll. You hug it when you miss us. And when I come home, you can hug me.
So it's great for firefighter kids. They've all led them.
And I've just gotten so many thank yous from dads and moms saying thanks for making this doll because it's really given a comfort to their child when they're gone on shift.
And that just makes me so so happy to hear I get pictures all the time, you know, from girls and guys in the fire service.
And it's just it's just been so amazing and mind blowing to see how people love these dolls and the kids.
They love their kids having these dolls. So it's just it's been it's been amazing.
It's made me so happy just to be able to make somebody else happy.
Well, two things about the names. Firstly, Amber, we talked before I hit record. That's the name of my German Shepherd.
So it's funny that you chose that one. And then secondly, you mentioned Molly earlier.
Was she a black firefighter, too?
Yes, she was African American woman. She was a slave back then because it was 1818, unfortunately.
But they forced her to be a firefighter. And then she just took off. She loved it.
She put out fires by herself. And I believe they pulled the carriages basically with water in it.
And that's how she put out fires. But yeah, she was a badass.
So I'm like, I'm naming my dog to the first known female firefighter in the United States.
And that was Molly Williams. You can actually Google her and pull up a picture of her. It's pretty cool.
I'm going to. That's why I asked. I mean, that's amazing.
You know, two kind of groups of people that struggled to be in the fire service, you know, put together, especially if you say she was a slave.
And I mean, that's another layer in itself. So that sounds like a story I need to learn more about.
I'm hoping one day that her family members find this doll somewhere like her descendants.
I don't even know how many, you know, she even has family. I'm sure she does.
But I would love to find her family and give her give them the Molly doll. That would be super cool.
So if anybody knows her descendants, let them know about the doll.
You never know. I mean, you know, especially now these days, you know, with the Internet and 23andMe and all that other stuff.
You know, if anyone listening, then send me a message and I'll pass it on.
All right. Well, then for people listening, where are the best places to find the Facebook page and the dolls themselves?
So on Facebook for any female firefighter that wants to have other female firefighters support, it's under groups on Facebook.
It's under Triple F Fierce Female Firefighters under groups on Facebook. So you just have to search for it.
There's no really the private groups. So you just have to search for it.
And the dolls can be bought on FirefighterDolls.com. Pretty easy to remember.
FirefighterDolls.com. And if anybody wants to donate to the foundation, they can simply donate to Triple F Foundation.org.
Beautiful. Well, Tina, I want to say thank you so much. It's been such an interesting conversation.
We've gone all over the place from mental health to cancer to toxic masculinity and plush dolls and everything in between.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you so much, James. I really appreciate it. It was great meeting you, brother, and I hope we meet in person on Monday.