THE number of female paramedics has risen across NSW Ambulance in the last five years, with the men to women ratio sitting just short of fifty-fifty.
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Wagga Ambulance Station officer and special operations paramedic Amy Barclay is welcoming the change from what was once a male-dominated field.
"I was for the longest time the only female special operations paramedic in Wagga and I am the first female station officer in Wagga in a very, very long time, I could even be the first, I'm not sure," Ms Barclay said.
"It was very much so seen as the boys club."
The 35-year-old mother has been a paramedic for almost 14-years and said the team had always been predominately male.
That has never been an issue for her as the Wagga team is like a second family, but Ms Barclay said it is still good to see more women jumping on board and rising to the challenges.
"We're very much so a very, very close team and I have never been made to feel like an outsider for being female," she said.
"The only time I have ever felt like I was different was when we were out at a job in the bush and I needed to pee and the boys could go wherever but I had to go really far into the bush to find a place."
Ms Barclay said the times are changing, having gone from being the only special operations paramedic in Wagga to now being one of three females after welcoming two recent graduates.
A special operations paramedic has to undergo rigorous, initial, and ongoing training to prepare them to safely access, treat and extricate patients in environments that would be deemed hazardous for normal paramedical operations.
"As a special operations paramedic we do need to have the physical strength and that's not to discriminate, it can even be difficult for males," Ms Barclay said.
"We have to be able to lift equipment which weighs up to 30, 40 kilograms and we need to be able to drag a body by ourselves, so part of our fitness test every year is that you have to be able to move a 75-kilogram body yourself for I think 20 metres.
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"Even jobs we do at The Rock we would have to harness up to climb the rock so that's 50 kilos strapped to ourselves. Many people struggle to climb it by themselves."
Ms Barclay first started out as a paramedic at 21 and while there is no grand reason as to why she chose that line of work, she said she hasn't ever looked back.
"I literally just needed a job and didn't know what to do with myself, but I'm glad I did it," she said.
"I had to grow up pretty quickly as a 21-year-old because it was full-on, but It's become a part of me now."
Ms Barclay said when she first started in her course at school the female ratio was significantly lower.
"There are definitely a lot more younger females coming through now than to when I first started," she said.
"When I first started in my course there was a group of say 20 of us and there were only maybe three females."
Ms Barclay said when she first moved to Wagga there had been a couple of female paramedics who she had looked up to as role models.
With International Women's Day on Tuesday, Ms Barclay said it is women like them who she would like to see celebrated.
"International Women's Day is very empowering, I also come from a domestic violence background, so my other role as a paramedic is a domestic violence referral officer, so we're big on bringing women up and it really means a lot to me," she said.
Ms Barclay said the message she would like to put out there is that women are unstoppable.
"There is nothing we can't do," she said.
"I keep up with the boys without a doubt, as long as you set your mind to it there aren't roles anymore, you can do anything."
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