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The cinematic depiction of emergency workers always seems to be portrayed in a selfless, heroic light. Whilst I never want to undermine the incomparable sacrifice that so many have made and continue to make for this career, I personally, have always felt selfish for wanting to pursue this kind of life for myself.I’m going to try to avoid being too fatalistic and dramatic because personally, this career is what makes me feel alive and I couldn’t imagine doing anything different with my life. It is like an addiction.However, the longer I’m in the emergency response industry, and the more I look to my future, the more I’m realising how seemingly incompatible this life is with stability and sustained personal and professional growth.
I come from a very small family of 3rd generation New Zealanders and can count my extended family on one hand. This has resulted in me never quite feeling rooted in my ancestry and therefore cultural identity. My parents instilled in me from an early age that my sense of self should come from what I did, instead of building on the foundation of where I came from. Maybe this is why I’ve always been drawn to careers with a culture all of their own. I imagine many of you reading this will relate to the unique sense of camaraderie and community that working in both the fire and emergency medical service creates. The realities of working in high-pressure, high-intensity jobs create bonds that occur in very few other professions.
I’m so grateful to have experienced this and it's something that I don’t think I could live without.
I started my journey in fire at 16 years of age when I joined my local volunteer fire brigade in a small rural island community just north of Auckland New Zealand. Because there was no ambulance service in our area, our brigade also responded to both medical and fire calls.
This introduced me to the world of emergency medicine, and, after leaving school I completed my Diploma in Paramedic Science in 2018.
I was ready to continue pursuing my degree in Paramedicine, however, I became quite disillusioned with the New Zealand Ambulance Service due to the significant bureaucracy at the time. I decided to take some time to reassess and recentre myself. This led me to spend the first four months of 2019 solo through-hiking New Zealand’s Te Araroa trail. Returning to study for my degree in the second half of the year, I still felt like something was missing and I was losing passion for a career I’d only just started… and one that I thought I’d be in for life.
I started looking into studying paramedicine in South Africa. A year later with lots of planning and a fair amount of concerned resignation from my family, I excitedly embarked on this new journey. With the Covid pandemic closing international borders so quickly, I brought my flights forward by two weeks, packed up my life in New Zealand in 48 hours, and hopped on a plane to Cape Town, South Africa on New Year's Eve 2020.
I knew there was going to be some adjustment moving to another country and integrating into a new culture, but there were definitely some elements that I grossly underestimated. Growing up in New Zealand I was fortunate enough to be very independent–sometimes to my own detriment–but you know what they say about lessons learned. My happy place was, and still is, losing myself somewhere in the great outdoors. In South Africa, I suddenly found myself in a country where I could no longer do this due to significant risks to my safety.
I was surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains in the world but they were “out of reach.”
A place where I had always gone to centre myself and escape from the stress of life had become inaccessible to me as a solo female. Looking at it now, I realise the entitled lens I was viewing the world through. Being a single woman in South Africa forced a complete rewrite of the risk assessment I had used my whole life and an almost crippling decrease in my independence.
Working in both fire and emergency medical services in New Zealand I was used to turning my risk assessment on and off. Suddenly, I found myself in a country where there was no “off.” It felt like I was on high alert all of the time. I resented the fact that the sometimes volatile environment I was in was forcing me to fundamentally change my outlook on some elements of humanity. That being said, I never regretted my decision and was fiercely determined to embrace this new challenge and way of life.
This was majorly reinforced when I found the Volunteer Wildfire Service, one of the best volunteer services I have ever been a part of. It was like stepping into a ready-made family, comprised of amazing people from all walks of life. These people who like “gardening at high speed,” being covered in ash, dirt and sweat, being tired to the bone, but always smiling and loving every moment of life on the fireline.
It might be cliché, but I believe fire intensifies everything around it. If you try and explain to anyone not in the fire industry how that first sip of water or forgotten (probably expired) snack dug out of the bottom of a fire pack tastes, or how finding the perfect rock to rest on feels, they just don’t get it. The same can be said for the strength of relationships that are built.
We throw around the terms camaraderie, shared experiences, understanding, support, encouragement and self-worth so easily. Perhaps because to us it feels like a necessity. It’s easy to lose sight of the luxury and privilege that it is to be part of a team all working towards the same goal, all striving to make a difference in whatever little part of the world we find ourselves in. On second thought, maybe it's trauma bonding… but we love it all the same.
In addition to wildfire, whilst jumping through all the hoops to get into university, I was also volunteering with a couple of different ambulance services. This was an eye-opening experience and it was the first time I’d encountered a lot of gang violence and trauma. Working in ambulances in New Zealand most of our jobs were medical in nature. In South Africa, the scales drastically tipped with a heavy emphasis on trauma, vehicle accidents with multiple fatalities, shootings and community violence. This was particularly evident working in the informal settlements and being exposed to the harsh realities and way of life for so many.
It was a fairly significant time of growth and self-discovery. Finding ways of processing the high volume of trauma and death proved challenging. My family were incredibly supportive, however, I never wanted to burden them with a world they weren’t familiar with and add to their concern for my safety.
I experienced empathy fatigue knowing that I should be more affected by what I was seeing but feeling nothing except guilt for not feeling more. That aside, it still felt like I was in the right place and doing what I was meant to do.
I faced some extensive visa issues resulting from a combination of border closures due to Covid and the almost complete breakdown of the South African government and immigration services. Due to the pandemic I physically wasn’t allowed to re-enter New Zealand and I was told if I left South Africa whilst my visa was being processed I would receive an automatic five-year ban from the country and an undesirable passport status.
There was a point where I kept hitting roadblock after roadblock connected to university entry requirements and my visa status. I was incredibly stressed and became quite unwell. My physical health deteriorated very quickly and I started getting panic attacks. I felt so out of control.
Despite doing everything right, and putting all my trust in government processes, I became acutely aware of just how insignificant I was.
Wildfire was one of the only constants in my life and it felt like an escape. Sitting on the side of a mountain watching the orange glow at two o'clock in the morning during observation, or losing myself in the sheer physicality of cutting line or direct fire attack always centred me and is something for which I’ll be forever grateful.
In January 2023, I was finally accepted into the highly recognised paramedic program at Cape Town University of Technology. I had spent the last three years working towards this. It finally felt like things were lining up and I had some certainty moving forward. I started studying and just needed my student visa to be finalised. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be that simple. Due to the immense backlog of visa applications, my visa was delayed yet again. This was the last straw and for financial reasons I had to return home to New Zealand. I received the prescribed 5 year ban at the airport and sadly had to leave the country, team, course of study, friends who I called family, and the career that I had fallen in love with.
Moving back to New Zealand in June of this year (2023) has been a real challenge. I had been fighting with everything that I had–for the last three years–to pursue my dream in South Africa. But I’d finally come to the point there was an obstacle that I couldn’t fight against. Everything had almost fallen into place just to be taken away at the last minute for reasons outside my control.
I have always confronted problems in a no-nonsense straightforward way, but looking to the future there are a couple of questions that my subconscious seems to be conveniently ignoring.
Here’s where the feelings of selfishness come in. In order to pursue this career path either in wildfire or emergency medicine, I can't have the safety and security of New Zealand and be geographically close to my family. Whilst the world is shrinking and becoming more accessible by the day it still doesn’t negate the distance between countries.
My parents are getting older, my twin sister is settling into her life, milestones continue to pass that I haven't been present for. Time is a funny thing that only moves in one direction, and you’ve got to do what is right for you at the time. However, my journey so far has always seemed to contain polar opposites, with me striving for that ever-elusive balance. Sacrificing stability and moments with family seems like a steep price to pay for pursuing a risky, physically and emotionally demanding, underpaid, and potentially short-lived career.