April 13, 1977

Avocation brings couple together

       When Pat McDaniel is evaluated in June as to her future standing with the White River volunteer fire department, she can most likely be confident of good words from at least one fellow firefighter – her husband Dave.  Mrs. McDaniel began a one-year probationary period as a member of the firefighting force nine months ago.  Her husband Dave has been with the department for the past four years.  Like all White River firemen, she will be reviewed after her first year with the department.  One of four women firefighters in Johnson County, Mrs. McDaniel grew up in a world filled with talk of pumpers, tankers, hoses and plectrons.  Her father was one of the founders and first chief of the Castleton fire department near Indianapolis and her brother is a member of the Washington Township, Indianapolis fire department.  “I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up, “the petite dark-haired Mrs. McDaniel remembers.  As a matter of fact, it was at her urging that her husband Dave began what has been a 12-year role as a part time firefighter.

         McDaniel joined the Castleton force in 1963, the year the couple were married.  Mrs. McDaniel carried out her own preoccupation with the world of shiny red fire engines by becoming an active member of the women’s auxiliary at Castleton.  They became so involved with the fire department, she laughs that “the kids once asked if they were born at the fire station.”  They are the parents of a daughter Renee, 13, and a son Randy, 12.  Though Mrs. McDaniel had not ventured into the role of a firefighter, she was often at the scene of fires delivering coffee and kind words.  When the couple moved to Wheel Estates in White River Township six years ago, Dave decided to take a rest from volunteer firefighting.  But Pat, still addicted to the world of firefighting, went ahead and joined the women’s auxiliary.  Two years later, she had lured Dave back into the business.  “I just couldn’t see him in here with fires going on out there,” she confesses.  In the meantime, Mrs. McDaniel began taking fire and first aid training classes with the idea that maybe she too could become a full-fledged firefighter.  Her first attempt to get on was unsuccessful.  “Women just weren’t accepted then,” she says.  But her persistence paid off as she continued fire school and became the first person ever to achieve a perfect score on the Wayne Township, Indianapolis fire training test.  Her husband proudly reveals the coveted plaque designating that honor, which hangs in the family’s living room.  He says he “is proud that she did it (joined the department,)” acknowledging “you only live once.  “She was always interested” in the activities of the department McDaniel notes, “now she’s in on it.”

         Since the McDaniels’ firefighting is not their vocations but their avocations, work schedules sometimes result in their having little time to spend together.  “If I wasn’t on the fire department I wouldn’t even see him some days,” Mrs. McDaniel reports.  She notes that her job as a part-time secretary keeps her away from home from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.  During the winter months she works for Mobil Heating Service in Indianapolis, while he works the 3 to 11:30 a.m. shift as a truck driver for Anderson Motor Service.  Considering those hours, the couple often responds to separate fire runs during the hours they are home.  Sometimes, however, they are both at home when the plectron sounds.  They immediately grab their scanners (she carries hers in her purse at all times) and their equipment and race for the car to head to the scene together.  During one such “grab-and-go” venture, Dave accidentally grabbed Pat’s coat liner.  It wasn’t until after considerable struggling with the garment partially on that he noticed it was the much smaller liner for Pat’s coat, hardly big enough for his six-foot build.  Pat is often teased by other members of the department who claim that her coat was made from the scraps left over from making the department’s other coats to fit her petite four-foot-eleven frame.  She wears specially ordered size 5 boots.  The McDaniels say other members of the fire department “don’t pay much attention” to the fact that they are the only husband and wife team on the squad.  At the scene of a fire or rescue run, they respond to one another as fellow firefighters, though she admits she is more apt to question him than she would be other members of the department.  “But he’s my husband.  I tell him what to do lots of times,” she laughs.  Since the couple “doesn’t really ever argue, even here at home,” they encounter few difficulties in working together on fire and rescue efforts.

         On the first rescue run they handled together, the couple was first on the scene to a residence where the victim had suffered a cardiac arrest.  While he administered treatment to get the victim’s heart beating, she administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  “I always wondered if I’d be able to do it,” she says, but Dave quickly asserts: “She did real well.”  The only problem the McDaniels can see in their combined husband and wife and firefighters’ role is Pat’s determination to make her own way in the department and Dave’s natural inklings to step in and help his wife.  She recounts one incident recently when she was mopping the floor at the station.  When it was necessary to pick the heavy bucket up over a hose, Dave stepped in.  But Pat stood her ground.  “He wouldn’t have done it if it had been one of the other guys,” she asserts.  Sympathetic to her desire to make it as a member of the department, by herself, Dave notes, “She doesn’t want me to help her do her part.  She thinks I’m playing favorites.”  But, she insists, “I’m just another one of the guys down there.”  Sometimes handicapped by her shortness, though, Pat is not hesitant to inform other members of the department when she can’t reach or carry an item when immediacy is an issue.  She does carry a spanner wrench to enable her to maneuver out-of-reach controls on the fire engine and doesn’t hesitate to lift or carry anything she is able to.  “I try to do as much as I can without asking for help, but I don’t play games,” she asserts, adding that if Dave is standing nearby, she asks him for help though she isn’t afraid to seek help from any of the other members.  If a new member, unfamiliar with her desire to be a full-fledged firefighter attempts to help her, she explains her attitude about help and does the job herself, if possible.  Dave notes that there is some desire on his and other members’ parts to “protect her,” though he intends to do as much as he can to get her fully involved in firefighting and first aid treatment.  She relies on “the guys” to know her limitations and training abilities.  “They’re not going to put me anywhere where I’d get hurt,” she says.  Meanwhile, she is “getting more and more confident” as she assumes more responsibilities, and Dave hopes to get her into the front lines more and more.

         One aspect of the job she is most confident about is driving the truck.  The couple admits to some competition when it comes to that.  “Whoever gets there first gets to drive,”   she reports.  Dave kiddingly contends “When she drives, I hang on to the roof.  “I’ve been doing this too long to ride with some maniac,” he laughs.  “Sometimes he doesn’t quite go fast enough for me,” she counters.  Like other couples who work together at the same job, the McDaniels feel there is a definite advantage in the understanding such a situation lends.  Acknowledging that, in some cases, the fire department comes between husbands and wives who don’t understand what the job entails; Pat knows all about spending time on station and the time it takes after a fire to clean the engines and hoses.  While other wives might get upset about all the time husbands spend on a fire or rescue run, Pat understands.  Likewise, she notes, “If I’m down there, he understands.”  A husband not aware of the workings of a fire department might also have some problems comprehending just where his wife was spending so much time.  In her first six months on the department, Pat made 170 fire and rescue runs, while Dave logged more than 200 runs last year.  Though Pat has always been interested in discussing details of fire and rescue runs with her husband when he returns home, the couple find it nice to be able to go home and talk about amusing incidents and mutual concerns.  Though she admits to being a bit unnerved by the whole thing, Pat has found her responses to be quick and effective when duty calls.  Contrary to initial fears, she found she does not faint at the first sight of blood.  She has also been able to stay calm and take proper action when fatalities are involved.  Noting that she prefers fighting fires right now, she feels she is getting more confidence on rescue runs as she completes Emergency Medical Technician training.  Last month she was thrilled to be one of the first on the scene at the birth of a baby at Wheel Estates.  “The look on the mother’s face made it worth a lot of the other things you have to put up with,” Mrs. McDaniel notes.  “First aid isn’t always pleasant,” she points out, though she feels being able to help people is a reward in itself.  Once last summer when she was unable to make emergency runs because of an injury to her back, she found out how frustrating it is to be unable to respond to people needing help.  “It like to killed me,” she recalls, adding, “When the plectron goes off, I’m a firefighter and I want to go”  Pat feels it is her size, rather than her sex that makes most people do a “double-take” when they see her in a fire truck.  At a recent fire, as she found herself being sprayed while she held a hose for the front line, an onlooker was heard to remark: “Look, they’re hitting that little man in the face with water.”  Later, when she took off her hat, the observer exclaimed: “Hey, that’s not a little man, that’s a little woman.”

         While she is totally unconcerned about the grime she accumulates on fire runs, Pat takes pride in the trucks, and is often volunteering for truck washing and waxing details, according to her husband, who adds that after 15 years he tries to get away from washing the trucks as much as possible.  Both Pat and Dave are confident that Mrs. McDaniel has been well-received by other members of the department.  Dave proudly notes that she has been made public relations officer, even though she is still on probation.  Mrs. McDaniel is also chairwoman for the women’s auxiliary, and Dave is arson investigator for the department.  Hoping for favorable results from her evaluation this June, Pat looks forward to this summer when she will not be working so she can be on call 24 hours a day for White River emergency calls.  And while the McDaniels unusually end up on separate details during emergency runs, who knows, they just might end up side-by-side sometime.  Pat amusedly recounts the details of one such incidence when they both responded to a grass fire and found themselves sitting side-by-side on the back of the grass rig as it headed over bumpy terrain to the scene.  Glancing in her husband’s direction, as she struggled to hang on, she playfully remarked, “Isn’t this romantic?”
 
 

  
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