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A few years ago, Joburg firefighter Nonhlanhla Gxamza and her colleague were busy loading a patient into an ambulance when a gunman wearing a balaclava suddenly materialised in the dark.
He robbed them of their cellphones and wallets at gunpoint as the patient lay on the stretcher inside the ambulance, watching.
Witnessing that was too much of a shock for the patient who then had a heart attack and died inside the ambulance.
This is just one of the many challenges that Gxamza, 38, has had to deal with in her 17-year career as a firefighter.
However, having been in this high-paced and “dangerous” job for so many years means that not a lot of things shock her anymore.
“I have seen it all; I have experienced it all,” she says of her job.
While the job brings Gxamza joy and fulfils her, she got into it by accident. As a pupil at Holy Family College Parktown, she wanted to be a civil engineer as soon as she finished matric.
However, she later lost interest in it and her father, who was a firefighter, advised her to join a fire fighting school.
While she was still young and very fit, she did not expect such intense training. At some point she wanted to quit.
As part of their assessment towards the end of training they had to get inside a 15km tunnel and crawl in the dark. Three women who were part of the training quit as they could not stomach that. Gxamza, however, persisted.
“It was hard. Fire fighting training is similar to military training. The only difference is that they carry guns, and we carry fire hoses.
“It is intense but is the best place to find discipline and mutual respect,” she said.
After completing her course, Gxamza volunteered for two years and when positions opened up in the City of Joburg, she wanted to work in the CBD.
“I love a challenge and chose the CBD because it has a lot of high-rise buildings and a high population of people from different countries.”
The most challenging and difficult part of her job is responding to calls where children are victims.
“Children are innocent, and their brains are not ready to make decisions to save themselves.”
A few years ago, she and her colleagues responded to a flat that was on fire in Westbury. The owner of the flat had twins aged about six. As the fire started, she managed to run out of the house with one twin.
As she couldn't see the other twin, she assumed he must have bolted out before them.
Later, Gxamza and her colleagues found the body of the young boy behind the TV stand. He had burnt to ashes.
“The child wanted a safe space to hide not knowing that he was throwing himself in the mouth of the fire because the stand is made out of wood which is a fire accelerant.”
That incident broke Gxamza's heart but she was not prepared for what happened next. A few months later, a fire broke out at the Lisbon building in the CBD. Three of her colleagues died in the inferno. One of them had burnt to death and he was the one who had found the Westbury child's charred remains.
Despite the most heartbreaking situations Gxamza has found herself in over the years, there have been many happy ones too.
One evening she and a colleague responded to a call about a woman who gave birth at her flat in the CBD. The caller said the child was not breathing.
They rushed to the flat and found everyone crying as they thought the child had died. Gxamza and her colleague realised that the child had been exposed to the cold and had hypothermia.
The child had already turned blue and was unresponsive. Gxamza listened to the baby boy's heartbeat and it was very faint.
While her colleague attended to the mother, Gxamza tried everything in her power to raise the child's body temperature.
Nothing worked and at that time the baby was completely blue.
“I decided that I was going to go the extreme way as long as I could save the child's life.”
She asked for a plastic bag and warm water in a bucket.
She put the child in the plastic bag and wrapped it at the neck, leaving only the head exposed.
Gxamza then put the child in the warm water feet first, until the whole body was submerged in the water.
Shortly afterwards the child started being responsive as his body got warm. He let out a cry and Gxamza removed him from the plastic and wrapped him in blankets.
The mother and her newborn were then taken to hospital.
Gxamza said no-one ever taught her that. She said it was something she just thought of at the time to save the baby's life because everything they had been trained to do was not working.
“Our job is to save lives. I did not want to declare dead a child that I had been called to save,” she said.
According to Gxamza, the advantage of being a woman in this job is that they are naturally sympathetic which means they always to to extreme lengths to save lives.
Gxamza, who is the acting shift leader at Randburg fire station, said while her job is dangerous, she loves it and always reminds herself why she does it.
“I tell myself that people need me out there and if I don't wake up to help them, who will?”
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