A New Tradition: ‘Just go for it and be 100 percent in. Don’t give up.’
EDITOR’S NOTE: The News and Press will be running several stories in a series on women who work in male-dominated industries. Sometimes called non-traditional workers, these women found jobs and careers that they love and didn’t let gender stereotypes keep them from pursuing their passions.
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
To say that Meghan Davis lives a full life is an understatement. The 23-year-old is a full-time Emergency Department nurse at McLeod Hospital. In her spare time, she is a volunteer firefighter with the City of Darlington and Darlington County Station 3, where she is a lieutenant. If that weren’t enough, she is also a member of the Darlington Rescue Squad and a part-time EMT for Darlington County. She is also currently going through paramedic school.
Davis said that a friend introduced her to firefighting but it was initially the medical care side that interested her.
“I remember when I first joined I said that I didn’t want to do anything fire related, I just wanted to do medical,” Davis said. “Some people said I should just take the first class and if I didn’t like it, I could quit. Well, I fell in love with it and within the first two years I took pretty much every class that you could think of; I am up to Fire Officer now. I got my basics and then I went on to my Fire Instructor and my Fire Officer. I fell in love with it and it spread like wildfire, literally; you couldn’t stop me from running into a house now.”
Caring for people in high intensity situations comes natural for Davis, on and off the clock.
“When I started as a nurse, I was on the oncology floor and that was great because you got to know your patients and you got to care for them and their families in, probably, the worst times of their lives,” Davis said. “Going to the ER, its kind of the same thing but it is more fast paced. You have to care for the patient right then, right there and then later you have to care for the family if it doesn’t go as planned.”
While still in nursing school, Davis said she had to make a decision about what career path she wanted to follow.
“I battled between professions because I realized that I love the fire side of firefighting so much,” Davis said. “I was already in school for nursing so I finished school. I told myself that I’d do nursing and maybe eventually I could find a part-time firefighting job or I can do it volunteer and still get the same feeling out of it. Ultimately, it is all the same thing: helping others and doing what we can for the community.”
Davis started with the county in 2013, before joining the city’s volunteer roster in 2014. According to Davis, she is the first female to last that long with the city and also the first to win the Drake Beckham Award, recognizing a volunteer who goes above and beyond.
“There are some guys in the department that say ‘Oh, yeah, she’s one of us’ and there are some who say they’d take me over other guys,” Davis said. “Most of them are there with you and they’ll push you and help you. It is known that females aren’t as strong as males; that’s just common sense. There are things they do that we can’t do. But we are smaller so sometimes there are things we can do that they can’t. We benefit each other. If we have to go into an attic, there are times that I’m smaller and I can fit in there easier than someone else.”
Being the only female in the department, or one of two as is the case in the city’s department now, there are some people who think she has to prove that she’s capable of doing the job.
“I have more support than I have flack, for sure,” Davis said. “But there are some who think that I need to prove myself but I just take that as a challenge and it ends up working out.”
As the youngest of three –she has two older brothers– there has been a lot of worry over the years.
“My parents will support me in anything but they were real surprised when I said I wanted to do it,” Davis said. “They worry about me a lot. I have multiple pagers and radios so when I’d go to a call there was always one at the house. When I was living with them, there were times when mom or dad would stay up to make sure that I was on the way home or stay up until I got home. It was a surprise to them but now they are okay with it. It has gotten to where now I can take mom on calls.”
Davis said that her advice for any women wanting to go into firefighting is just to do it, no matter what other people may say or think.
“If there was a young girl interested in it, I would just tell her to just go for it and be all in,” Davis said. “Of course, there are going to be speed bumps, there are going to be run-ins with people that don’t support females in it, but just keep going. I had that and I took it as a challenge and I am here today a lieutenant. Don’t give up and don’t be discouraged.”
