Deberra Schroeder, 62

Deberra Schroeder was named battalion chief in October 2016 — the first woman to hold that position in the department. With 32 years of service, Schroeder has shown she’s dedicated to the job and has an impressive resume to prove it. She started training to be a firefighter just four months after having her first child, before completing paramedic school and going on to receive her nursing degree. She’s also part of the department’s fire investigation unit and returned to Cleveland State University, where she received degrees in public safety management and geographic information services.

The fact that we haven’t hired a woman since 1989 is really incredibly awful. As a male with a daughter, I would be upset. And other females out there, they should be upset.

There’s some kind of impression of what a firefighter looks like. He normally is tall, dark, handsome and belongs on a calendar.

There’s guys that retired just because they didn’t want to work with, for lack of another term, “the broads.”

For whatever reason, my 13-year-old brother ended up hanging himself at my boyfriend’s waterbed store. We were playing hide-and-seek.

There was a small bathroom in there. We took the hinges off the door to surprise him, like, “Yeah, see? You couldn’t hide from us. We found you!”

And when I opened up the door, he had hung himself. I got him down. That’s the first time I tried to do CPR on anybody.

That was a pivotal point where you want to try and make a difference.

Back in 1979, I took a scuba diving class. A Cleveland firefighter was one of the instructors. My breathing rate on the tank of air was really good.

He knew I was a marathon runner. So he said, “You should try out for the test.”

You have to run stairs all the time if you’re training for the fire test. I had a backpack. I would put 70 pounds of sand in that backpack. And I would go to the parking lot at Edgewater Park and then climb up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, down the hill.

I had to get a note from my doctor saying that I could participate in physical agility after having a baby.

At that point, I was doing pushups and situps and running right along with the men — if not beating them.

My children just always knew that I was a firefighter. There’s no reaction. Of course mommies can be firefighters. That’s just what they grew up with.

One of the worst days ever was Dec. 31, 1985. Dan Pescatrice died. He was a firefighter. He got lost in a warehouse.

The fire, it was too bad. We couldn’t have people in there. They were sounding the mayday alarms and stuff like that.

There were so many guys that lost their best friend that day.

You never leave your loved ones without giving them a kiss and hug. I don’t care if you’re going to the bank or the grocery store — you have to say goodbye.

They haven’t hired a woman since 1989. I’m trying not to be in a walker before they do that again.