South Africa’s toughest woman firefighter alive, Baigum Abrahams, chose her profession after her home caught fire in her youth.
“I was 20 or 21 years old, and I was with my son in the house, and the kitchen caught alight. I woke up to the crackling sound of the fire,” the Strandfontein resident said.
Abrahams said she fled the house with her son and watched as the firefighters arrived and took control of the blaze.
“I just felt like the weight of the world wasn’t on my shoulders. I felt a massive sense of gratitude and relief because there were people to help, and I wanted to give that feeling to as many people as I could.”
Rescue background
Abrahams comes from a rescue background, she said, and her whole family are involved in Sea Rescue. After the fire though, she bucked the trend and trained to be a firefighter, which she has been doing for “eight years, three months and 16 days”.
“Yes, I count the days,” she said laughing. “I know it’s funny.”
Abrahams (30) and her Westridge fire station mate, Andiswa Stafa (45) of Khayelitsha, won first and second place in the individual categories of the Toughest Firefighter Alive competition in George last month. They brought home gold and silver medals respectively but both women also took home gold medals for the relay challenge. This is the third consecutive year that Abrahams won gold in the individual challenge, but this year she shares the honour with a colleague, Thobeka Senatse from the Kraaifontein fire station, whom she beat “just by a few microseconds”.
Busiest station
It’s no surprise that Westridge fire station boasts two gold medallists because it is probably one of the busiest in the country, Abrahams said.
“In December, we had more than 300 calls, and that’s just fire calls, for one month, but we don’t only respond to fires. We get called out to emergencies, motor vehicle accidents, animal rescues, high angle rope rescues, hazmat calls, but those calls were just fire calls.”
The competition, Abrahams said, simulates rescues and the obstacle course is based on movements that are needed in the field, like carrying around an 80kg dummy, jumping three-metre high walls, running up scaffolding, pulling heavy hoses and banging a mallet on a keiser machine to simulate a forced entry. The labour-intensive obstacles are done in full protective gear, which includes heavy boots, a fire tunic, an air tank, a helmet and thick gloves. More than 250 firefighters and 44 relay teams from across South Africa participated, joined by international teams from Botswana and Namibia.
To stay in shape, the women work out at the firestation’s gym, but Abrahams admits that this year she wasn’t able to work out as much as she would’ve liked.
“It can be very dangerous if you don’t keep fit,” Abrahams said. “It’s your responsibility as a firefighter to keep fit, to keep moving because when you’re at the call, it’s your life, it’s your crew’s life, and the community’s life that you have to look after.”
Sense of responsibility
Stafa has the same strong sense of responsibility. She became a firefighter because she wanted to save lives but she admits that the job can be tough, especially when there are children involved.
“In my second year on the job,” Stafa, who has been working in rescue work since she was 35 but has been a firefighter for three years, said: “We were dispatched to Gugulethu to a house that was alight.”
During the rescue they were unable to get to a nine-year-old child who died in the blaze.
“Each and every call, when I find out there is a child, then I just move. Children can’t help themselves. At least adults, they find their way out, but kids, they just become confused and hide.”
Stafa said the competition was gruelling.
“The TFA, it shows your mentality, your focus and then it shows your strength, your endurance. But on the other side, it will expose who you are because dragging that dummy is a killer.”
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