This week saw the 40th anniversary of the first intake of women into the ACT Ambulance Service.
All previously nurses, Cathy Stephenson, Kim Shoard (nee Yarra), Ingrid Mears and Cathy Csucsy were the first female paramedics in the ACT, starting on September 17, 1984.
Ms Csucsy was the last woman standing, so to speak, from that first intake.
She retired only in May, working right up to the end as an on-the-road paramedic and also as a clinician in the communication centre, helping to triage emergency calls.
A CAREER THAT STARTED IN THE KITCHEN OF THE OLD CANBERRA HOSPITAL
Now 65, Cathy Csucsy remininces about her career that started straight out of school, at the Catholic Girls High School in Braddon, in the kitchen of the Royal Canberra Hospital in Acton
She went on to do her nurse's training, become a registered nurse and worked in Canberra and the Shoalhaven.
She said working at the smaller South Coast hospitals and in accident and emergency at the Woden Valley Hospital meant she got to know the paramedics well and started to consider a career change.
"I'd always been interested in it," she said.
Then the push was on, to employ the first woman paramedics in the ACT.
'YOU FELT LIKE YOU WERE MAKING A DIFFERENCE'
Mrs Csucsy said she loved the job from the start and always wanted to stay on the road, not interested in taking on a managerial role.
"It was fabulous," she said.
"You felt like you were making a difference. Back then, people would only call if they were really in need of help and you were helping them on possibly the darkest day of their life.
"You knew you were helping people."
(In more recent times, ACT emergency services including ACT Policing have had to educate the public on calling triple 0 only in a genuine emergency - not to find out the time or to complain their food app isn't working properly.)
A LONG COMMUTE
As if she didn't spend enough time in a vehicle, working in an ambulance, Mrs Csucsy spent almost all her career with the ACT Ambulance Service commuting from the South Coast. Her husband John's career with the navy saw them move to the Shoalhaven 35 years ago, living at St Georges Basin.
"So I drove back and forth for the next 30-odd years," she said.
'IT WAS A CHALLENGE'
Mrs Csucsy said she found being a paramedic more of a challenge than being a nurse because, being on the road, she and her colleague would be making decisions and treating patients alone, without the infrastructure of other staff and a hospital around them.
It's sometimes hard to think she's finished her career.
"I've still got my roster on my phone," she said. And when she watches ambulance shows on television, she can't help but think how she would have handled the emergency.
"The passion is still there," she said.
