Three members of the Parkland Ambulance's first all-women shift on Friday. (Twitter/Parkland Ambulance)

By Alison Sandstrom

Female paramedics

Parkland Ambulance’s first all-women paramedic shift in action on Friday

Feb 24, 2020 | 3:50 PM

For the first time in Parkland Ambulance’s history, both its paramedic crews were staffed entirely by women on Friday.

“To me I don’t find it should be shocking,” Erica Hnidek, one the seven women who were part of the historic first, told paNOW. “I don’t find that we’re in a sexist work environment or, you know, that day and age anymore.”

Four members of Parkland Ambulance’s first all women shift on Friday. (Twitter/Parkland Ambulance)

On Hnidek’s regular shift, she works with all men and said there’s no noticeable difference working with either gender.

“I feel just as safe with a female partner as I would with a male partner,” she said. “Our girls can lift so I never worry about that. It was seamless.”

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Hnidek has been a paramedic for 10 years and doesn’t think being a woman has ever been a barrier in her career, although she does still get the occasional comment from patients.

“We get the old man who’s like ‘Well who’s going to drive?’ And I just always joke like ‘I’m driving. They let us drive now,'” she said.

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandtrom