Monday, March 15, 2004

Firefighter triumphs over troubles

By PATRICIO G. BALONA
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

PORT ORANGE — Cancer and depression almost shattered Norma Ovenshire’s dream of becoming a firefighter.

But it’s hard to guess today the cheery 30-year-old suffered such afflictions watching her drive a 15-ton red truck.

With synchronized movements, the 140-pound Ovenshire, an Emergency Medical Technician and firefighter for the Port Orange Fire Department, smoothly throws the massive vehicle into gear and rolls out to respond to an attic fall, simultaneously flicking on switches, setting off wailing sirens and flashing emergency lights.

“Once you do it so much, it just comes as second nature,” said Ovenshire, wrapping hand over hand to turn the imposing steering wheel.

The small-framed woman obviously enjoys her job.

But firefighting almost eluded Ovenshire seven years ago.

After high school she worked as a cashier in several small grocery stores in Flagler and Volusia counties. When she decided to be an Emergency Medical Technician, her mother’s friend suggested she volunteer with the local fire department in Bunnell. But something else got her attention.

“There was this thing about fires, the actual fire aspect interested me,” said Ovenshire, just before sliding down a rope at a recent confined space training session in Port Orange. She joked that it wasn’t setting them, but putting them out that she loved.

“It was a challenge and I had to prove to myself that I could make it as a female coming into a male-dominated field.”

She started firefighting classes at Daytona Beach Community College while volunteering with the Bunnell department. Halfway through her education, she got pregnant and had to quit school. To make matters worse, she lost her premature twins and sank into an emotional crisis that threatened to end her dream.

She got married to the babies’ father, climbed out of her depression and got pregnant a second time. Just as her life seemed to brighten, the dark clouds of cancer overshadowed her, catapulting her back into a world of fear. To get treatment meant putting the baby at risk. She prayed for a miracle, underwent treatment and beat the cancer.

Her son is now 6 years old.

Ovenshire’s desire to be a firefighter sparked again after her son’s birth, and after months of night school she graduated from DBCC. She finally made it, or so she thought, until her marriage began to crumble and ended in divorce.

“For a while I thought I was not meant to be a firefighter,” Ovenshire smiled. “The harder I tried, the harder the circumstances against me seemed to be.”

Today, Ovenshire is one of two women on Port Orange’s staff of 62 fulltime firefighters.

Lt. Mike Nighand other firefighters say they know they can depend on her if they found themselves “in a tight spot.” At a recent fire on Chardonnay Lane, Nigh and other firefighters had to enter a burning house to search for three people believed to be inside.

“Norma was operating the pump panel (controlling water flow) and I knew we were in good hands. She’d look out for us,” Nigh said.

Ken Burgman, a fire commander, said Ovenshire is a great team player.

“There is no difference between Norma and the other firefighters,” Burgman said. “She is physically strong and does the job as well as any of us.”

But no one is prouder than Gloria Weiland, Ovenshire’s mother, who uprooted her from her hometown in Hidalgo, Mexico, 27 years ago. Ovenshire was three years old when her mother boarded a bus for America in search of her husband who had abandoned them.

After a long, exhausting 24-hour ride to Tijuana, Weiland took a plane to Grand Park, Illinois, where her husband was living. He did not want anything to do with them. But that’s all now in the past.

“She now drives the fire truck, and I am very proud of her,” Weiland said from her Palm Coast home recently.

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