Standing tall in answering the call

When it comes to firefighting, a woman’s place is holding a hose pumping out 150 gallons of water per minute or crawling through the window of an overturned vehicle to render aid to an injured occupant.

It wasn’t always that way. Fire departments have traditionally been seen as men’s clubs, with fire stations usually lacking separate locker rooms for women, and women relegated to auxiliary support roles.

But of the Saukville Fire Department’s 29 currently active members, nine are women, serving both as firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

Natalia Kutny wanted to be a nurse after she saw her brother, Evan, hit by a truck while he was riding his bicycle near their house, and first responders arrived at the scene to save his life.

“Just seeing the impact it had on our family, it gave me a motive,” she said. “I wanted to do the same thing for other people.”

But she changed her mind once she experienced her first emergency call.

“Once I rode in an ambulance, I was hooked,” she said. “Being a first responder you have to ride with the challenges. You just have to get it done. I love the problem solving.”

Vanessa Marratt grew up in California, attended college in Hawaii, majoring in political science, and then served 10 years in the Air Force, achieving the rank of captain.

In the Air Force, she completed a Self Aid Buddy Care training course, which encompasses basic life support and limb-saving techniques to help wounded or injured personnel survive until medical help is available.

After Marratt moved to Saukville several years ago, she wanted to put that training to use and serve her adopted community. She joined the Saukville department in November 2018 and completed four months of EMT training at Milwaukee Area Technical College, paid for by the department.

“I absolutely love it. I loved serving my country (in the Air Force) and now I’m serving the people in my village,” she said.

More and more women are joining fire departments.

According to a press release from the Saukville Fire Department, citing national statistics from Women in Fire, the number of women volunteer or paid-on-call firefighters today is estimated to be 40,000 and growing.

For Amanda Fischer, a native of Door County, the Saukville department was a great way to connect with her local community.

“I have some really close friendships,” she said. “It feels like family. Like a brotherhood. A sisterhood.”

Fischer was a firefighter with the Ephraim Fire Department, having earned a bachelor’s degree in counseling and an EMT certification at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay.

“I didn’t want my background and experience go to waste” after she moved to Saukville, she said.

Like other fire department members, Fischer also has a full-time job, as an emergency department technician at a local hospital.

Like other Ozaukee County departments, the Saukville firefighters are paid-on-call, meaning they are paid a wage to attend training sessions and respond to fire and medical emergencies when the calls come in.

To maintain membership, they are required to be on-call 24 hours per month  but are welcome to be on-call for as many hours as possible. 

Shelly Paape works full-time as an accounting assistant and is working toward a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Lakeland College, where she expects to graduate in December.

But with what free time Paape has left, she is on call with the department, clocking 400 hours or more per month.

“When I’m sitting at home doing nothing, I might as well be on call,” she said. “The need is great.”

Paape recently got back from vacation, she said, getting home at about 4 p.m.

“I went on call and was on the job by 7 p.m.,” she said.

Not everyone can be so dedicated, however.

Marratt calls her department job her “little side hustle,” her main job being the mother of her two children, ages 9 and 6.

But she also works as a teaching assistant for an online university and is an administrative assistant for Lawrence Manufacturing near Newburg.

Besides the time commitment, another deterrent to women can be the physical aspect of the job.

That includes wearing 45 pounds of protective gear, handling hoses, hoisting 50-pound boxes up flights of stairs and lifting gurneys and medical equipment into ambulances.

Training can be “kind of intense,” Marratt said, and is a constant priority for her.

“I personally go out of my way to make sure I am physically fit,” she said.

Kutny, who works full time as an EMS with Lifestar Medical Transport in Waupun and recently completed a one-year paramedic program, said women bring other qualities to the job.

“I’ve had to work really hard to do my part in lifting and moving, but I bring a different element to the table,” she said.

“The gender comes across more caring or sensitive. I think there is a place for that in this kind of work, that sometimes a male just can’t communicate.”

Paape, who is a firefighter as well as an EMT, grew up in a family of firefighters, including her grandparents, father and sisters.

She made it her goal to become a Saukville firefighter when she was “10 or 12,” Paape said, who joined the Explorer program when she was 14 and the department as a firefighter when she turned 18.

Paape said that when she started out she wanted to be a firefighter “more than anything. I wanted to be like my dad and go on fire calls.”

Now she more often goes out as an EMT.

Her ambulance driver is her dad, Tom Paape.

“It’s a dream come true,” she said.

For more information on becoming a firefighter or EMT, call Saukville Fire Chief Thad Trinko at 284-5800.