Woman to become NY firefighter despite failing crucial fitness test

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• The same thing is going on in the military.

  • And Putin, ISIS, Iran, etc. are all laughing at us.

• She can't do the job, should have the job. She will be the death of someone. The more the PC fools try, the more they prove that there are some people just not cut out for certain jobs.

• Contrast that with the field medic. She was the only one to pass make or female. SMDH.

  • *male*

• Our tax $$ hard at work
  Totally wrong thing to do but Not the first time

  http://nypost.com/2013/11/10/female-fdny-recruit-fails-running-test-five-times-but-graduates-anyway/

• She looks lesbiany...

  • Lesbainy? She looks Irish to me... ;)

    • Instead of saying butch, now its bruce

  • She looks less lesby and more political to me KQ, I think we should be asking whether her mom or dad are: a) big De Blasio donors, or b) members of the city council. People with too much money and/or too much political power usually think their s**t doesn't stink and that goes doubly for their spoiled brat kids! Had problems with several soldiers during my career in the Army who thought and acted as if they were little gods, simply because their parents were wealthy, or connected, or both...US senators' kids are the worst!

    • Uhm... that is a fascinating theory. Isn't that sort of thing unethical/illegal?

      • Well, yeah.

• As the first husband of a firefighter in the state of Michigan, I should have something wise to say about this but I don't. The issue is a little more complicated than outsiders understand, but it's hard to argue with the fact that you want firefighters to be big and strong so they can drag people out of burning buildings and carry them down ladders.

  My daughters' mother was 5'4". Why they made that height the cutoff point I don't know. There were pieces of equipment that a 5'4" person could not reach, both on the trucks themselves and on the wall at the training facility. She could only reach them by doing a Jackie Chan move -- step on the wall or truck fender to gain a little height and grab -- but they said that was not allowed. I asked her, "Can you reach these items without stepping on something?" When she answered no, I said, "Well then keep stepping. If they fail you out then they fail you out, but you will certainly fail if you can't get a ladder off the truck so..." They eventually ruled that short people could step on something.

  The fitness test in our city was called an "agility test" for reasons known only to the bureaucracy. It was really a strength test very similar to what is described in the link. The part where the women had trouble came when they had reached the top of the training ladder where there was a platform with a railing. They had to reach over that railing and haul a hose up hand over hand, with arms outstretched, in a position where you have the very least amount of leverage and require the very most muscle effort. That's where everybody failed the "agility test," even the guys who failed. It was basically an upper body strength test, having nothing to do with agility. It was massively unfair to female candidates but I fully supported the department's desire to have upper body strength in its firefighters, even if the test seemed particularly designed to eliminate female candidates. Three women managed to pass, including my wife but she had to join a bodybuilding gym and massively increase her upper body strength to do it. So be it. If you want to be a firefighter, that's what you're gonna have to do. If you're unwilling, then I have no sympathy for you.

  Then once she was a firefighter, one of the regular jobs a firefighter has is methodically checking to make sure all hydrants are working and not rusted shut. She would often have insufficient weight and leverage at 5'4" to open a rusty hydrant. So I gave her a three-foot piece of pipe, just big enough to fit over the end of the wrench they use to open hydrants. More leverage, you see. With an extra two feet or so of leverage, she could open any hydrant in the city. In fact, when they ruled that her pipe was okay, the guys all wanted to use it too.

  Finally, when she got posted to her first station, all firefighters are paired and she ended up paired with a guy I knew who grew up with me in my neighborhood. His wife threw a fit. He was 6'5" tall, 250 pounds of solid muscle, and his wife couldn't understand how my 5'4" wife was ever going to get his unconscious body out of a burning building, let alone down a ladder if necessary. I could see her point. They teach them fireman's carries, but...

  • As I mentioned in another thread, I have a niece that just passed the test to become an LA County firefighter.
    She's 5'10" and very solidly built. I don't think I would want to have to fight her. She passed the physical requirements also.
    There are some women that can handle the job, but not enough to make up half the force.

• "Wax’s graduation comes as the city celebrates the FDNY’s 150th anniversary and as the department is under pressure by the de Blasio administration to hire more women."

  That quote sums up the whole story. If she was a lesbian, she would have become an engineer right out of the academy, instead of just a firefighter.

  Now the other firefighters are going to have to watch her as well as fight the fire.