The city’s female first responders keep us safe and work through stressful situations — and all the while, love what they do.
By Nikki Kallio and Shayna Mace | Photography by Hillary Schave
In the Line of Fire
It takes a special person to run toward a life-threatening situation rather than away from it. But you’d be hard- pressed to find women more enthusiastic about their work than the Madison Fire Department’s (MFD) Debi Dahl, Jillian Kjeldahl and Lisa Becher. For each of them, firefighting and emergency services drew them in for different reasons.
Sky Savior
During her college years at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Cynthia Griffin answered an ad seeking people who were interested in training to be emergency medical technicians (EMTs). From there, it kicked off her journey of assisting people in precarious medical situations.
Griffin is a doctor of osteopathy (DO) and for the last ten years, has been a doctor with UW Health Med Flight. (She’s also a clinical assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.) While completing her emergency medicine residency at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, a few of her supervisors suggested she look into becoming a helicopter physician after observing her during patient transports.
Breaking Down Barriers
Being a police officer can be one of the most challenging jobs — but with it comes fulfillment and a shared purpose, say the Madison Police Department (MPD) officers and detective we spoke with.
Pictured: Detective Gracia Rodriguez, Community outreach and resource education officer Candace Enis, Investigator Joanna Hollenback, K9 officer Stephanie Nelson and K9 Charlie, officer Adria Ehly.
The Voice of Calm During an Emergency
Walking into a huge auditorium full of applicants for the Dane County Public Safety Communications Center, Jennifer Foth didn’t have a lot of hope for becoming a 911 dispatcher.
“I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m going to get this job — there’s no way, there’s all these people,’” says Foth, who ended up ranking third out of about 300 applicants.
