Roberts broke barriers as first female paramedic
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More and more women are not only working, but are dipping their toes into job pools traditionally dominated by men. Women have made inroads into careers such as law enforcement, corporate management, medicine and even labor-intensive jobs like construction.
But as expected, it hasn’t been easy. Women who have tackled these non-traditional career paths are considered pioneers, and rightly so. We have one of those pioneers right here in Warren County. She is Linda Roberts, the first female paramedic in both DeKalb and Warren counties. Roberts says seeing first hand the work of ambulance service personnel is what inspired her on her career path.
‘I came down here in 1977 from Michigan,’ Roberts said. ‘I worked at River Park as a CNA and I would watch the guys come in from the ambulance service, EMTs and paramedics, and I thought ‘That’s something I’d like to do.’ So I became an EMT. Mike Gribble was my instructor. I went to work for Cannon County and then I went into DeKalb County and I worked there for a few years.’
But once again, Roberts was inspired to advance in her career, this time by a co-worker.
‘We had this one paramedic,’ Roberts recalled. ‘He was just so brilliant, and so good with people, and I just decided I wanted to become a paramedic. So DeKalb County sent me to paramedic school and I graduated in 1982 from the University of Tennessee paramedic class in Nashville.’
Roberts, who has three children, Sean Roberts, Kelly Baker and Tammy Frazier, had worked in both Cannon and DeKalb counties, but she eventually decided she would like to work at home.
‘We’d always lived here in Warren County, so I decided I wanted to come back up here,’ Roberts said. ‘So came back to Warren County to see if I could get a job, and Leonard Madewell hired me, and I became the first woman paramedic. I wasn’t the very first woman to work for the ambulance service. Her name was Mary Bell, she was an EMT, but I was the very first women paramedic.
‘That was in 1983,’ Roberts said, ‘and I loved it. I was there when we first opened our building. Our bedrooms were separated at that time, it was not like it is nowadays. I had my own bedroom.’
There were other differences as well, particularly with technology.
‘We didn’t have the luxury of the one man stretchers,’ Roberts said. ‘Both people had to lift the stretchers. We didn’t have the luxury of having a GPS system. We didn’t have computers, we didn’t have 911, we had dispatchers. People would call and say, ‘Come by the dead oak tree and turn left, and that’s how you get to my house.’ We didn’t have a GPS to tell us where the house was.’
The service also didn’t include many women, something of which Roberts was well aware.
‘So it really was like I was a pioneer around here in this field,’ Roberts said, ‘amongst all these men, but they treated me well. Leonard Madewell was my partner for years, as well as my boss,’ Roberts added.
Still, Roberts says there was some resistance to a female in the job.
‘At times it was very hard, because I had to pull my own weight,’ Roberts said. ‘Some would say, ‘You know, this isn’t a place for women.’ And I would say, ‘Yes it is. Women have just as much a right to do this as men have. I’ve got the same training you have.’ But they eventually came around, every one of them.’
Roberts’ influence also affected the next generation, as daughter Kelly became a dispatcher with the service for a time.
Eventually Roberts’ job took her literally all over the country, and beyond, as her career took an amazing turn ‘ straight up.
‘I became a flight paramedic out Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.,’ Roberts said. ‘I worked on a Lear Jet. It was an air ambulance and I was the flight paramedic. I went all over the United States, several South American countries, and the Caribbean Islands. I did that for about three years.’
In the midst of all this, Roberts raised her three children pretty much on her own, and was very much involved with their activities, particularly Sean and Kelly, who were in the WCHS band.
‘I sent two of my kids, Kelly and Sean, to New York to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade,’ Roberts said. ‘I worked double overtime for that one. They also went to the Orange Bowl and the Tangerine Bowl.’
After many years of faithful service to her job, a bout with cancer, which is now in remission, signaled the end of Roberts’ career, leading to her retirement five years ago.
‘I really loved it,’ Roberts said. ‘I liked taking care of the people. I liked being the first on the scene to help the person that really, really needed it the most. One of the most critical times when a person’s life is in danger is when that ambulance rolls up and that paramedic gets out and takes care of them. That’s the most rewarding part of the job. That’s the part I loved most.’
Roberts says she still misses the excitement of the job.
‘Today when I hear the sirens I think about how much I loved it and how much I miss it,’ Roberts says. ‘I don’t miss it at 2 o’clock in the morning though,’ she added with a grin.