Four new women become FDNY firefighters this week and they all have one special thing in common—they are all mothers. Krysteena Corbett-Terryl, Jacqueline Reno, Melisa Ritchie and Lisa Snyder walked across the FDNY graduation stage Wednesday to earn a huge accomplishment. The United Women Firefighters said the women did it all while juggling taking care of their children, studying their course materials and staying on top of a training regimen to become New York City firefighters.
This class is the first in which all the women graduates are moms. The four graduating will bring the total number of women firefighters up to 67, which would be a new historic high of women firefighters in the FDNY, yet still a shockingly low 0.6 percent of the force.
The FDNY has successfully recruited approximately 8,700 women to take the firefighter exam, whose filing closed on June of this year. Although the department has never seen this many women applying for the firefighter test, less than half so far have shown up for their testing, which started Sept. 5 and will terminate at the end of this month.
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