I want to be a New York City firefighter!
From the New York Post:
A firefighter who was allowed to graduate the Fire Academy despite failing physical tests has already gone out on medical leave — just 10 days into the job, The Post has learned.
Probationary firefighter Choeurlyne Doirin-Holder injured herself Monday while conducting a routine check of equipment at Queens’ Engine 308 in South Richmond Hill. Getting off the truck, Doirin-Holder missed a step and landed on her left foot, suffering a fracture, sources said.
It was her second shift after a transfer from Engine 301. In training for a hazmat assignment, officers found her struggling to perform the required tasks.
Here's more:
On Nov. 6, Doirin-Holder celebrated her FDNY graduation as one of four new female Bravest, bringing the number of women to 49 — an all-time high in the FDNY’s 150-year history.
But Doirin-Holder’s competence was questioned by sources familiar with her training. They said academy instructors let her pass the Functional Skills Test, a rigorous obstacle course of job-related tasks, even though she had failed to complete it in the required 17 minutes and 50 seconds or under.
In addition, when she failed to finish a 1.5-mile run in 12 minutes or less — even after the course was shortened — she was allowed to demonstrate aerobic capacity on a StairMaster machine under watered-down requirements enacted by FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.
And more:
It was Doirin-Holder’s third attempt to pass the academy. She failed midway through an academy class in 2013 and returned to her former job as an EMT. Two other female priority hires in that class did well.
Doirin-Holder started another class in early 2014 but dropped out because of an injury. The FDNY then gave her a desk job and kept her on the payroll at top firefighter salary, $76,488. She made $81,376 with overtime in 2014 and entered her third class this summer.
Since she was injured on duty, she is eligible for a disability pension that would pay three-quarters of her annual salary, tax-free, if deemed unfit to return.
$57,666 for life–tax-free! Sign me up for the FDNY! I can't run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes either!
Doirin-Holder, who is nearly 40 years old (most rookie firefighters are in their 20s), is a special beneficiary of two people: Clinton-appointed federal judge Nicholas Garaufis, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Garaufis presided over a long-running (since 2007) lawsuit filed by the Justice Department alleging that the FDNY’s written exam for job applicants discriminated against members of minority groups. The suit was finally settled in 2014 with New York City agreeing to pay $98 million in back pay and benefits to FDNY hopefuls who had been passed over. Earlier, Garaufis had conferred “priority hire” status onto 282 applicants rejected in 1999 and 2000, one of whom was Doirin-Holder, who is black. Garaufis’s ruling is the reason that Doirin-Holder is receiving top pay instead of the usual rookie salary of $39,000 or so.
Then along came de Blasio:
The bill, which de Blasio signed on June 2, will require the FDNY to report data tracking the ethnic and gender makeup of its applicants at each stage of the application process every year, starting from 2012 — its most recent application year….
As it stands now, the department has 10,628 firefighters, only 46 of whom are women, according to FDNY numbers.
This led to the inevitable, according to the Post’s sources:
Choeurlyne Doirin-Holder, 39, never achieved a passing score of 17 minutes and 50 seconds on the Functional Skills Test, a course of job-related tasks in full gear such as stretching hoses and dragging dummies, according to an FDNY source familiar with the training. She did not come in under 24 minutes in practice tests.
Doirin-Holder also failed to run the required 1.5 miles in 12 minutes or less — even after the running course was slashed by an estimated quarter-mile, the source said, alleging that the start and finish lines were moved to shorten the run….
An FDNY spokesman had no comment on the tests beyond pointing out that Doirin-Holder “met all requirements for graduating from Probationary Firefighters School and was assigned to a firehouse.”
I’m sorry about Doirin-Holder’s broken foot. But the silver lining is that she won’t be trying to rescue any New Yorkers trapped in a real fire in the near future.
You know, there might be a reason why there are so few female firefighters. They actually have to fight fires.