A firefighter has told how she had to convince sexist male colleagues that she was ‘up to the job’ after they deemed her ‘too weak’.
Paramedic turned firefighter, Presley Pritchard, 24, from Kalispell, Montana, says she was faced with criticism when she joined the emergency service and was even accused of only joining up to ‘date men’.
The mother-of-two says she was always been a keen runner at school but lost much of her natural muscle after giving birth to her first child at 18 – and says her petite physique sparked outright hostility from some of her peers.
Presley Pritchard, from Kalispell, Montana joined the emergency services at just 19 but faced sexism from colleagues who claimed she was ‘too weak’ to do the job
The criticism hit mother-of-two Presley hard and she decided she would increase her strength by hitting the gym – and can now deadlift 303lbs
Breaking down barriers: the firefighter, who has 66,000 followers on Instagram, says a gruelling training regime has transformed her physique and many of her social media fans are female firefighters who also want to build their strength
Fearing she wouldn’t be chosen in teams for being too weak, she then joined the gym and started weightlifting and can now deadlift 303lbs.
Now the mum-of-two proudly shows off pictures of her in uniform to her 66,900 Instagram followers to show other women that they can ‘be strong and keep up with guys’.
Presley, from Kalispell, Montana said: ‘When I first came into this job and I was a “pretty” girl, people thought I just wanted to date the men. They thought I had other motivations.
‘As a firefighter paramedic, especially being a small woman in a largely male-dominant career, I knew I had to make a change.
‘A lot of people don’t believe I’m actually a firefighter. I say ‘what do you think I do. Go to a random department and take pictures of myself?’
‘Now I’m proving them wrong by carrying the same men [who doubted me] out of buildings.
‘I was the girl in school who played soccer but was always picked last because I wasn’t a man.
The keen soccer fan says she would be ‘picked last’ at school if she played for the boys teams because of her petite physique
After giving birth to her first child at just 18, by which time Presley was already a trained paramedic, she says she lost her muscle and had to start again building her strength
Weight-lifting has been key to her training – and she says now she finds her job, including the arduous physical training that firefighters go through – much easier
‘Now I’m probably the first pick over most men, because my colleagues respect how strong I am.’
The influencer began to pursue her career in firefighting aged just 16 and on her 19th birthday – she officially became a paramedic.
Presley said: ‘At 18, I went into labour on my last clinical shift, showed up to school two nights after having Payton [now six] and graduated two weeks later.
‘After I had her, I lost all my muscle. I had to be on bed-rest for a long time with both of my kids because I had difficult pregnancies. ‘I got really skinny, gaining only 17 pounds and eight of that was the baby herself.
I always try to make posts positive and I really like showing other girls that being strong and thick, and not just being skinny and having abs, is important…
‘When I first started in the job I was very small and wasn’t very strong, even though I had good cardiovascular fitness from running.
‘The job was really hard for me, but I didn’t want people to doubt me and not want to be paired with me.
‘During my time on bed-rest with my second daughter, I first got my Instagram account.
‘I started on my own and had no idea what I was doing, but I ended up getting into weightlifting and once I noticed my body changing I was addicted. As I started training work got so much easier.
Her Instagram following grew after she posted more stories about her life while on bed rest with her second daughter
Now, she says she’s on a mission to ‘teach girls to be strong and that they can keep up with the guys’
‘Now when we do fire academy [training], we have a 210lb dummy and have to be blindfolded, find him in the dark and lift him out of the window. It’s very demanding.’ After establishing herself on Instagram as a fitness influencer ‘with a message’,
Presley saw her following rise rapidly. Although many of her pictures show off her impressive physique, she tries to show people how they can use exercises to get stronger and fitter – instead of showing off.
Presley said: ‘I have a lot of girls messaging me, especially pretty girls, saying everybody is saying they’ll never make it.’
The firefighter says she only posts bikini shots if there’s a point to them, to prove how much her body has changed
Stronger and fitter: The influencer says she’s only interested in helping people make their physiques healthier and stronger
‘I get 10,000 likes on my uniform transformation pictures. I have all these women messaging me asking ‘how can I be stronger’, ‘how can I be better at my job’, ‘how can I fit in?’.
She added: ‘There’s not many women in the fire service but I think women follow me because I show it’s possible. I definitely think that’s my target audience.
‘I don’t post a ton of selfies showing off my body unless it has a message or there’s something someone can gain from it. It’s not just ‘here’s a picture of me, enjoy!’
Her message, she says, is to teach girls that ‘being strong and thick, and not just being skinny and having abs, is important.’
Ultimately, she wants to prove to the next generation of emergency service workers that saving lives is never about ‘being pretty’.