Oh, now you can imagine the flack I caught when I was discussing firefighting with some people a few years back, and how women have no place in that world. I was ridiculed, scorned, and even eschewed by a couple of family members - and this was about firefighting, not a security detail. My argument centered on physics: I am 6'3, 300#. Used to box and weightlift and have fought a few fires in my day. If I'm wearing all the necessary equipment, including oxygen tanks, and I go down for some reason and you have to drag me out of a compartment, a petite female who might be a badass back at the station is not going to be able to do it, period - and I would die. Simple physics - with equipment, I'm pushing 360#, plus there is the phenomenon of "dead weight." Rescue simply will not happen.
This is what you get, folks. This is what you get.
I was glad with we did not have that issue when I was in the Military as women were not in combat units. I did hear that would be coming down the road. They claim equality then we should have one standard PT test with everyone by age would all have to make the 2 mile runs based on one time for age. Not based on male or female and giving the females more time.
With the SD we had some that held their own and a few we had to rescue. But then we had a few males like that also. I am old school if you can not hack it then pack it and find something else. Military, LE and Fire are not games and real people can lose real lives.
Heh. I have had to call an ambulance only once in my life, I had heart arrhythmia (turned out to be a basically non-dangerous, if unpleasant, variety). The two paramedics were both women, one older, one pretty skinny younger one.
Now, I'm afraid that I have gotten pretty fat in my old age. Considering my weight, I highly doubt those two women would have been able to get me on the stretcher and into the ambulance by themselves if I had actually been having something like a serious heart attack and had collapsed on the yard before they got there. As it was I could climb inside the ambulance all by myself so no problem, but the thought certainly occurred to me, wondering what they would have done if I had been unconscious and lying on the ground. Well, maybe they would have been able to do it, but what is pretty certain it would have taken them way more time than the same job would have taken for two men, or even if just one of them had been a man. When I was younger I got some personal experiences trying to get mostly unconscious and almost totally limp drunks inside a car, out of a car, into the house, into a bed or at least a sofa, and yes, even when it's a skinny person when they go totally limp they can be surprisingly hard to lift or drag. When it's somebody with more weight, damn near impossible, and I even used to be pretty strong for a woman (I have always liked lifting weights).
Oh, now you can imagine the flack I caught when I was discussing firefighting with some people a few years back, and how women have no place in that world. I was ridiculed, scorned, and even eschewed by a couple of family members - and this was about firefighting, not a security detail. My argument centered on physics: I am 6'3, 300#. Used to box and weightlift and have fought a few fires in my day. If I'm wearing all the necessary equipment, including oxygen tanks, and I go down for some reason and you have to drag me out of a compartment, a petite female who might be a badass back at the station is not going to be able to do it, period - and I would die. Simple physics - with equipment, I'm pushing 360#, plus there is the phenomenon of "dead weight." Rescue simply will not happen. This is what you get, folks. This is what you get.
I was glad with we did not have that issue when I was in the Military as women were not in combat units. I did hear that would be coming down the road. They claim equality then we should have one standard PT test with everyone by age would all have to make the 2 mile runs based on one time for age. Not based on male or female and giving the females more time.
With the SD we had some that held their own and a few we had to rescue. But then we had a few males like that also. I am old school if you can not hack it then pack it and find something else. Military, LE and Fire are not games and real people can lose real lives.
Heh. I have had to call an ambulance only once in my life, I had heart arrhythmia (turned out to be a basically non-dangerous, if unpleasant, variety). The two paramedics were both women, one older, one pretty skinny younger one.
Now, I'm afraid that I have gotten pretty fat in my old age. Considering my weight, I highly doubt those two women would have been able to get me on the stretcher and into the ambulance by themselves if I had actually been having something like a serious heart attack and had collapsed on the yard before they got there. As it was I could climb inside the ambulance all by myself so no problem, but the thought certainly occurred to me, wondering what they would have done if I had been unconscious and lying on the ground. Well, maybe they would have been able to do it, but what is pretty certain it would have taken them way more time than the same job would have taken for two men, or even if just one of them had been a man. When I was younger I got some personal experiences trying to get mostly unconscious and almost totally limp drunks inside a car, out of a car, into the house, into a bed or at least a sofa, and yes, even when it's a skinny person when they go totally limp they can be surprisingly hard to lift or drag. When it's somebody with more weight, damn near impossible, and I even used to be pretty strong for a woman (I have always liked lifting weights).