CHESTER, S.C. (AP) - Last Thursday, Ka’Nya Givens worked a 24-hour shift at the Chester Fire Department. It was her second week on the job. She wished she’d seen more action. Fires don’t scare her, she said — none of it does.
It makes sense that Givens would be fearless. She’s the first to walk her path, as the first Black female firefighter to work at the Chester Fire Department.
Givens, 18, didn’t want to be a firefighter. She had planned to be a nurse, she said. She only took the fire department’s class at Chester High School to fill her schedule.
But Chester Fire Chief James Jackson saw something in Givens. He asked her to come down to the station and hang around, just to see what it was like.
“They let me ride on the truck,” she remembers. “I said, ‘that’s kind of fun.’” Givens started to think being a firefighter might be a different way to fulfill her dream — “I always wanted to help people,” she said.
After she graduated high school, she decided to enroll in the Fire Department Academy. Michael Watts, who taught her class, remembers Givens shining from the start.
“She was a good student,” Watts said. “Super smart.”
Givens said there were times she wanted to give up.
At the academy, Watts said, students practice throwing hoses, how to save people from a car wreck (things like cutting a car in half) and other physically demanding drills. Once they pass the Firefighter One course, they see live fire for the first time.
Givens says she remembers watching the men and feeling like she might not be able to succeed.
“They’re faster than me,” she said.
The men at the fire academy encouraged her. And Jackson continued to push her.
She said she remembers trying to swing the fire hose onto the truck by herself. At first, it was too heavy — but she kept practicing by herself until she got it.
“I know people are looking up to me,” she said. “I know if I give up, other little girls will give up — and that’s not an option.”
She said she hopes when other girls see her, they’ll want to come and work with her.
“I get tired being by myself,” she said.
Givens has big dreams. She wants to move up the ladder, all the way to fire chief. None of that scares her either.
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