In the most recent reorganization of the staff of the unsettled organization, the FDNY is replacing its longtime director of training for emergency medical services, and the title is going to a record-breaker. Throughout the more than 150-year existence of the New York City Fire Department, Capt. Tonya Boyd was recently named deputy chief, making her the first Black woman to hold that position.
Who is Tonya Boyd?
Boyd was a nursing student at Long Island University in the 1990s when she made the decision to take a break from the course to take care of a family issue. Boyd claims that shortly after, she made the decision to enroll in the EMT course as a favor for a friend.
“She asked me to take it with her so I could help drill her for the test, but I ended up really enjoying it,” Boyd said.
Boyd was hired by a private ambulance service after the training. In 1996, she applied for a job with the New York Fire Department with the intention of utilizing it as a backup before returning to nursing school. However, the Brooklyn native Boyd rose through the ranks, and over the course of her two-decade career, she reached the position of captain. She is currently the only black woman in a position of authority in the department, which has roughly 4,000 workers.
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According to a departmental internal order, Tonya Boyd, a 26-year veteran of the FDNY and the division chief of the Public Safety Answering Center in downtown Brooklyn, would oversee EMS training beginning on April 9.
Joseph Pataky, who was posted as a deputy assistant chief in charge of managing the EMS response in Brooklyn and Staten Island, will be replaced by her.
“African-American women will see someone who looks like them as a deputy chief and they will know more is possible,” Boyd said. “Their careers won’t top out at paramedic or even lieutenant.”
Daniel Nigro, the fire commissioner, praised Boyd’s accomplishments up to this point. “Tonya is not only helping to raise the bar for our ability to provide pre-hospital care, but she’s also demonstrating to young women of all backgrounds the incredible rewarding career they can achieve in the FDNY,” he said.
