Shauna Garrick, a fearless female fighter
Clad in her her protective gear, which comprised of a pair of black steel toe boots, a hard yellow hat and a heavy thick yellow suit, the 5’ 4” tall Corporal Shauna Garrick stepped into a big red fire truck with no effort, ready to give a glimpse of what it took to be a female fighter.
When she was a little girl, Garrick said that she never thought she would be out fighting fires, even though her father was a fireman. But after
17 years on the job, she has no regrets.
After being at home unemployed for a time, she decided to follow in her father’s footsteps, making him very proud. While at the York Park Fire Station in Kingston, the Port Royal native told THE STAR that she was welcomed into the profession by her male peers with open arms.
“Trust me, they treated me fair, maybe because for me, I wanted to be up there with them. So if they ever have a fire and they have to climb up on the roof, I’m going up there with them. If they have to go down in a gully, I’m going there with them. I’m not going to stay in the truck and seh ‘unuh gwan cah unuh a di man’. No, I went with them, so they see that I was strong and have the
willpower, so everybody welcomed me,” Garrick said.
“I know I was going to work. I know I was never gonna let none a them seh ‘female this and female that’. I wanted them to call me firefighter and not female,” she added.
Still, for Garrick, who joined the brigade at age 22, the training was tedious and difficult, both physically and mentally.
“[It was] very, very ruff, very ruff. I’ve been called names by my instructors but I guess that was a part of the strategy. That is what most of the instructors were telling us, is a method to the madness. So when they talk to yuh certain way, it was preparing us to go out into world,” she said. “So when we have a house fire and persons are distraught, yuh
know they cussing us and ‘classing’ us. So it was a way of preparing us for persons like that.”
On a daily basis, Garrick, who is the mother of two boys, ages 12 and five, puts her life on the line to save others. On one occasion while working at the Half-Way Tree Fire Station as a lance corporal, she almost lost her life while putting out a fire at a fully engulfed building.
“I remember hearing some cylinder whistling. This is gasolene now, enuh, and the corporal look at me, we look at each other, and I’m like ‘Wow wi afi duh this, enuh’,” Garrick said. She admitted that although she was terrified, she went close to the burning building to help cool down three 100-pound cylinders to prevent an explosion.
“When wi done man, wi seh you know that I pray to God seh, ‘Father God help us to come a dis alive’. That was the most frightening day for me, that particular fire,” the corporal said. She advised women interested in joining the brigade to be passionate about the job and to recognise that it comes with sacrifice, dedication and maintaining a particular image.
“There is a lot of things you have to give up ... like the bag a false hair and the coloured hair, the nails and the type a dressing. I mean, we’re public [servants] so you can’t dress and look like the regular civilian. So if you willing to give up that, I welcome you to this job, open arms,” she said, adding that it takes strength and courage to excel as a woman in the profession.