By Doug Harlow
The Morning Sentinel
STARKS. Maine — Fire Chief Julie Costigan still has a hard time talking about the day she saved a child’s life right on her own kitchen floor.
Costigan, 49, was the interim fire chief at the time, but had been a trained firefighter for more than a decade when her neighbor came running to her door.
Today, Costigan is one of a few female fire chiefs in the state.
The neighbor, Costigan remembers, had a young son and a daughter who had been playing in the family’s swimming pool.
“The little boy was 14 months, maybe,” she said. “His little girl shouted ‘Daddy, Johnny’s not coming up out of the water.’
“The father turned around and he had picked (the boy) up and he had drowned in the pool.”
Costigan said the boy’s father came running into her yard, carrying the child and screaming for help. She said she grabbed the child, put him on the floor of her kitchen and started doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him.
“He was gray and cold,” Costigan said. “I worked on him and I worked on him and the air I was putting into him was just bubbling because he was full of water. I said ‘you are not going to die on my kitchen floor.’
“Pretty soon that little boy just blew water into my mouth and he started to cry. He’s alive. He’s a four-year-old, curly blonde little boy running around.”
That was three years ago, and now she’s the chief.
In a profession where positions are held largely by men, Costigan said she had been accepted by her male counterparts, but it wasn’t always so.
“When I was in high school I wanted to be a police officer,” she said. “Back then, I didn’t have a lot of guidance of where to go, to the academies and such, and when I did try to talk to law enforcement folks about it — I was a girl — they pretty much kind of steered me in a different direction.”
Years later, in her early 30s in 1996, Costigan decided she was going to pursue that dream where her daily work could make a difference. She enrolled in Firefighter 1 training and took classes at fire stations in the area.
“I was working down to Sappi as an industrial cleaner during the day, then I’d come home, do some studying, then head to my class,” she said. “I was a single parent at the time.”
Right now she works for Brownie’s Janitorial out of Madison and Norridgewock. The fire chief pay is $2,400 a year, plus a stipend for working fire, accidents and other emergency calls.
The Starks Fire Department has 10 volunteer members on the roster and responds to emergencies in a mutual aid agreement with Madison, Anson and North Anson.
“Locally, I was encouraged,” she said of entering the field of firefighting. “The fire chief from Madison, Roger Lightbody, and the assistant fire chief, Jody Lightbody, were great. Anson guys were great. Out here, these guys were great.”
Others, she said, from departments outside the immediate area, were a different story.
“They were pretty tough,” she said. “I think there were 32 of us in the class and three of us girls, and they were tough on us, boy. They really wanted us to see how tough it actually is — at the time I only weighed like 112 pounds, I was very tiny and thin.”
But her perseverance and support from many of the men in the training class, she learned to drag heavy hoses and go into buildings with 70 pounds of safety gear on.
Mary Hauprich, of Isleboro, who founded Maine Women Firefighters earlier this year, said she encourages young women to enter the profession. She added that there are only a couple of woman fire chiefs in Maine that she knows of.
“Yes, women fire chiefs are rare in Maine,” Hauprich said. “But Chief Costigan is not the only one. Paula Frost, of Perry, is a chief, as is Meghan Ellsworth, of Thorndike.
“You have hit upon our biggest challenge at Maine Women Firefighters — finding the women. As a sister firefighter, I’m always pleased to see women advance through the ranks. I also feel that way when I see a woman law enforcement officer, or an astronaut, or any woman engaged in dangerous demanding work.”
Hauprich is a firefighter and a member of a water rescue team. She also is a trustee with the International Association of Women In Fire & Emergency Services.
As for Costigan making her way to becoming a firefighter and now, fire chief, she said women have to believe in themselves to go where they want to go.
“You can do it if you’re determined to do it,” she said. “You can find that inner strength and you will do it. If you are determined to do it and dedicated, you will find the time and the strength to do it.”
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