The Timmy Stanley Story - Vol 2 No 4
The professor in the Sociology of Gender Theory class had directly asserted that there were no distinctions between women and men.
"Women can run up and down ladders just as easily as men,” she confidently insisted.
Mike sighed and his stomach wrenched as his mind was flooded with memories from forty years ago, and he told them all of a personal experience. He told them...
the Timmy Stanley Story.
About forty years ago Mike worked for a fire department as a firefighter and member of the rescue team. He was partnered with Timmy Stanley. He and Timmy were close. The hours they spent together waiting in the barracks for the next siren to sound had forged a deep bond between them. They had promised to put their very lives in each other's hands. At any moment they anticipated the deafening blast that would shatter their normalcy and send them running shoulder to shoulder toward the mouth of the Devourer, into buildings enveloped in flames and smoke to search for victims. Mike and Timmy knew the imminent dangers and prepared for them. Often Mike would hoist Timmy's 200+ pound frame on his shoulders and practice carrying him up and down ladders. At the time it is said that Mike could bench press 300 pounds.
Each time Mike would report for duty, they had a schitck they played out.
"Chastini!" Timmy would bellow when he saw him. (He always called him "Chastini.") "Will you give your life to me?"
Mike would smile broadly and say, "No, Timmy, I won't give my life to you, but I'll give my life for you! I've already given my life to Jesus!" and they would slap shoulders and laugh.
They labored together as partners for over a year. They shared some harrowing experiences since they were the first in. Their job was to crawl into burning buildings as a pair without hoses and ahead of the hose teams. Loaded down with a Scott Airpack and in a Nomex suit which can withstand 700 degrees Fahrenheit, their job was to quickly search for survivors to get them out fast while the hose teams were setting up. The nature of their job was to be a self-sufficient two person team, each of which was completely reliant on his partner.
Then Mike made a hard life decision to leave firefighting to go to seminary. He said his goodbyes and moved away. He soon learned that Timmy's new partner was a woman, and his heart sank. He didn't question her ability to fight fires, but to be Timmy's partner in a rescue was a different matter. He wondered to himself, "How can a woman physically do what it takes to care of Timmy when they have to count on each other in the furnace?"
Two weeks later, Mike received a call. Timmy was dead. He had entered a fire with his new partner and fallen through a ceiling up to his chest and couldn't get out. He had died, trapped in the inferno.
Mike looked up and saw that the professor was obviously moved.
"Do you think you could have saved him? Do you think you could have pulled him out?" She was near tears.
"I have wondered that for the past forty years. I think so. It is what we trained for. I was young and strong, and I loved him. I think I probably could."
"And she couldn't?”
"I don't think a woman would have the strength to pull Timmy out of a situation like that, no. I don't question that she could be a fine firefighter, but I don't think she should have been in that specific role."
"I wish you hadn't told me that story," she quietly sighed.
"Generally speaking, women are built differently and are not as strong as most men." Mike made his point. “That was a mismatch. The job should not have been filled with a woman, but with a person who was physically equal to the task. There is a physical difference between men and women, and it matters, sometimes to the point of life and death."
At least for a time, the professor was not as vehement in her insistence that we should hold to no distinction of any kind in terms of gender. Perhaps this has given her pause to think.
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