MADELEINE BRAND, host:
This is DAY TO DAY. I'm Madeleine Brand.
Over the weekend, firefighters gathered in Las Vegas to compete in a sort of firefighter Olympics. It's called the Firefighter Combat Challenge. Colorado firefighter Juliette Draper is the world record-holder. She's the only woman to have ever completed the combat challenge in under two-minutes.
Producer Adam Burke caught up with Draper a few weeks ago, as she trained for the competition.
ADAM BURKE: Any way you slice it, according to Juliet Draper, there's no avoiding the world of hurt that comes with the Firefighter Combat Challenge.
Ms. JULIET DRAPER (Champion, Firefighter Combat Challenge): Whether you do it in three-minutes, or five-minutes, or two-minutes, everyone feels like hell after it's over with.
(Unidentified Woman): OK, go.
(Soundbite of someone clambering up metal staircase)
BURKE: Here's how it works. You dash up the stairs of a five-story tower carrying a bundle of hose, haul another bundle up to the top by rope, race back down, drive a 165-pound I-beam with a nine pound shot hammer, run between a bunch of cones, pull a hose full of water forward 75-feet, and discharge it at a target. Then it's time to drag a 175-pound dummy backward 100-feet. Yes, the dummy has a name, Rescue Randy.
(Soundbite of heavy breathing)
BURKE: Did I mention competitors wear 65-pounds of firefighting gear, including an oxygen tank and mask? Crossing the finish line is like running full speed into a wall. Well, that's one analogy.
Ms. DRAPER: It's kind of like being submerged in water gradually. Because like breath one is like up to your ankles, breath two is up to your knees, breath three is up to your hips, and probably about the fifth breath is over your head and you just cannot breath fast enough to catch your breath. You're noxious. You're dizzy. Your legs are wobbly. It's a mess.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. DRAPER: My lips are blue.
Mr. MANUEL NAVARRO (Chief, Colorado Springs Fire Department): If you don't lift any of the equipments, you'd be challenged to do it in two-minutes without lifting anything.
BURKE: Manuel Navarro, chief of the Colorado Springs Fire Department, says the Firefighter Combat Challenge is not just an arbitrary display of physical might.
Mr. NAVARRO: That's exactly what you would be doing in a fire. You'd be chopping a hole in a roof, you'd be running up the staircase with heavy equipment, you'd be hauling hose line to the top, you'd be grabbing a victim and dragging the victim to safety.
BURKE: And he says Draper's world champion status is just one of the reasons he's thrilled to have her working in Colorado Springs, in a profession that's mostly white and male.
Mr. NAVARRO: Juliet happens to be a woman, she happens to be African-American, she happens to be openly gay, and she's an outstanding athlete. It's like having that wrench at Sears wants to sell that will do everything.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. NAVARRO: I wish I had a dozen more like her.
BURKE: Still, being Juliet Draper hasn't always been easy for Juliet Draper. She's one of those extraordinary individuals who survived a challenging adolescence.
Ms. DRAPER: By the time I was 14 years old, I was, you know, 5'9, you know the height I am now, and like a 190 pounds and I wear a size 13 shoe.
BURKE: Never mind that she was better at football than most boys. It was a difficult period in her life.
Ms. DRAPER: You know, got in with the wrong crowd, kind of, and learned how to do all that sort of hell raising - gang-banging, dope-smoking, drinking - you know, and kind of fell off the path as it were during the high school years.
BURKE: Soon Draper's physical gifts were serving a crack cocaine addiction.
Ms. DRAPER: I was agile enough and physical enough to climb up the outside of an apartment complex that had a porch, bust a window and let my buddies in to come take the stereo and stuff.
BURKE: Draper doesn't glorify this period of her life and she's not proud of it, but neither does she attempt to conceal it.
Ms. DRAPER: You either get out of it, you know, you figure out a way. Or someone helps you get out of it, or you don't, you know. Some people die on the street, you know. I was fortunate enough to not have that happen.
BURKE: She found a lifeline through drug treatment; and years later, the U.S. Army, where she got into firefighting. Now she's setting world records.
Mr. NAVARRO: And she's actually competing against herself now. She's breaking her own records.
BURKE: Fire Chief Navarro says Draper is somewhat of a legend among her fellow firefighters.
Mr. NAVARRO: Most guys in, pardon the language, would not like to go against Juliet because, as they would say, she'd kick their ass.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. JOSH WINTER (Firefighter, Colorado Springs Fire Department): You look at her and you're like yeah, I don't want to fight her.
BURKE: Colorado Springs firefighter Josh Winter has never been on a fire with Draper. But one of his good friends operated a hose with her a few years ago, and they had to enter a house that had a fire burning on the second.
Mr. WINTER: And she was on the nozzle and he was backing her up. She flew up the stairs with it, and he said it was all he could do to just hang onto the hose and basically get drug up the stairs by her, you know, in just trying to keep up with her.
BURKE: At 39, Juliet Draper is retiring this year from the Firefighter Combat Challenge. But there's no doubt she'll continue to motivate and inspire her fellow firefighters in Colorado Springs.
Ms. DRAPER: There's nothing like walking into a station full of men and being able to out squat all of them. You better believe they're going to be asking me stuff about physical fitness.
BURKE: And when they ask, they'll definitely get an earful.
For NPR News, I'm Adam Burke. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.