After four years of helping battered and rape victims, practicing martial arts and deepening my feminism, I move to the southernmost city in the U.S. on the opposite coast to heal from the PTSD of daily violence inflicted on other women. I worked as a gardener, in my off hours, I ran in Golden Hills and Balboa Parks, lifted weights at a small coop women’s gym I set up with donated equipment. Running daily put me in touch with firefighters at just the moment the SDFD was recruiting women to join.
FIREFIGHTING
I've been at the top of a ladder pipe nine stories high pouring water into a burning warehouse filled with exploding paint cans—the craziest fireworks display ever! I've done CPR on charred bodies that would never make it and rescued a few people who did.
I trained for a year as a probie, and then spend the next two years at a busy station in San Diego.
Coached by supportive African American men in the department (including exemplary allies Michael Brown and Jim Higgins), I made it from 600 female applicants to be one of 16 women to enter the SDFD Fire Academy.
These experiences inspired my first play of The Roof's on Fire! and a TV series Womanfire.
I've jumped off five story buildings and plowed my way into burning structures. I've seen up close too many ways that people can die.