Throughout her career in emergency services in Buxton and Scarborough, Cynthia Gorham has overcome many challenges. Drew Johnson / The Forecaster
From being one of the first women in the then male-dominated world of firefighting 30 years ago to suffering four strokes in the past eight years, Cynthia Gorham’s career as a first responder was full of challenges that she successfully overcame.
Gorham began her emergency services career in her hometown of Buxton, where she still lives, before moving on to the Scarborough Fire Department in 2004, where she served at the Oak Hill Station. She retired last month.
Her mother worked as a dispatcher in Buxton, and Gorham would visit her at the firehouse. It was on one of those visits, in 1985, that she began to consider a profession as a first responder.
“There was a woman there, her name was Tootsie Johnson,” Gorham said in an interview. “She said, ‘I think you should do this, you would really like it.'”
She took a class to become a licensed ambulance attendant. Then she became an EMT, then a paramedic and finally a firefighter.
“Tootsie Johnson, she was very influential in my career,” Gorham said. “She was really big in Buxton back then, and she really inspired me to do this job.”
But it was not an easy road, especially for a woman.
“There was a lot of resistance to females being on the fire truck,” Gorham said. “It was OK for me to be on the ambulance because I was taking care of people, (but) not the fire department. As a female back then, you really had to work twice as hard. It’s just the way it was.
“It didn’t matter, I just worked hard,” relying on a work ethic that she said stemmed from growing up on a farm in Buxton, riding horses and wrangling animals.
Women are now more accepted as firefighters, she said, and there’s now firefighter gear designed for women, something that didn’t exist when she was starting out.
“There’s been a couple of shifts where there would only be like three people, and the three of us were females,” Gorham said. “That was really fun to be able to say, ‘Hey, look at the three of us; two on an ambulance, one on an engine.”
Firefighting also changed during her career, from mostly volunteers to full-time departments. And there are fewer fires, something she believes fire departments are partially responsible for.
“Obviously, we do a lot of training and a lot of education for ourselves but we also now educate the public,” she said.
Scarborough Fire Chief Rich Kindelan said Gorham made many positive impacts on the department.
“She is the epitome of selflessness by always putting family, patients or coworkers’ needs before herself,” Kindelan said in an email to The Forecaster. “Cindy’s bedside manner associated with her clinical practice is unmatched and brought comfort and empathy to likely thousands of patients over her career. While I am happy for her to achieve retirement status, she will be greatly missed around the stations.”
Lt. Adam Madura also praised her “bedside manner” in caring for patients and said it’s “what all providers should strive for.”
“Cindy’s care went far beyond the call itself. Often, she would be found providing a hug or gentle touch to past patients or a grieving family member out in the community,” Madura said in an email. “Cindy’s ability to remember her patients and their family members months and years later is what made her the loving and caring person we all want with us during traumatic times. She will truly be missed in our department and community.”
In 2015, Gorham suffered a stroke on the job. Fortunately, that meant she was surrounded by first responders.
“My crew saved my life and got me to the hospital in time,” she said. “I hired a personal trainer, got fit, came back to work. Since then I’ve had a couple of other strokes, three more. The last one really just took me out of the equation.”
While physically able, quick thinking on the job, such as doing drug calculations, became a challenge, so she retired in November.
She and her husband recently bought a farm in Buxton.
“We tried to think of a name and then I said, ‘I’m going to name it Stroke of Luck,'” she said.
The name fits, she said, because not only does she feel lucky to be alive, she’s lucky to live on a farm again and be able to take in and take care of her mother. She wouldn’t be able to do any of that if she was still fighting fires and she’d still be fighting fires if she hadn’t had that last stroke.
“We have five children and nine grandchildren,” she said, “and they all come out on the farm,” where she has chickens and a garden and sells eggs.
As for firefighting, it’s the people she’ll miss the most.
“I’ve met a lot of good people and it’s really nice when people are happy to see you or you’re in the grocery store and somebody remembers you,” she said. “I think the biggest part of my job that I love is just the people.”
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