Houston’s first female firefighter says recent HFD scandal is not a surprise

The alleged harassment within the Houston Fire Department may have come to the media’s attention last week, but according to Houston’s first female firefighter, the problem has existed for decades.

In the hill country north of Austin, if you can’t find the time to visit Dr. Linda Honeycutt, she makes the time to bring her chiropractic services to you.

“We do things a little different up here,” said Dr. Honeycutt.

Honeycutt has always done things a little different, and if a person is the sum of his or her experiences, she’s the sum of a very complicated equation. In 1975, Honeycutt not only became Houston’s first paid female firefighter and paramedic, she was the first one in the state of Texas and the second one in the nation.

She is a real trail blazer, but she says she wasn’t surprised to hear about the recent scandal surfacing in the Houston Fire Department.

“It doesn’t have to be that way. They know who the perpetrators are, and it’s their choice to do something about it, when they choose to do so,” said Honeycutt.

Honeycutt is referring to the incidents last week at Houston Fire Station 54, when racist and sexist statements were scrawled on the belongings of two female firefighters. That was followed by a racist message allegedly transmitted over the fire department’s radio system.

Honeycutt says the problem is systematic and has been for years. Like the women firefighters currently in the department, she says she tried to bring it to someone’s attention.

“The responses were they had the information, but they didn’t act on it,” said Honeycutt.

Honeycutt says she endured her share of harassment and recalls one hazing incident in particular, called greasing. She says it was sexually inappropriate at best.

“When I came upstairs, lubed head to toe, the chief almost had a heart attack,” said Honeycutt.

But Honeycutt stuck it out and retired as a captain in 1997. After 22 years with the department, her challenges have been many, but her regrets are few.

“We helped a lot of people,” said Honeycutt.

Now a chiropractor for nine years, she says all she ever wanted was to make a difference. She did it while making fire department history and she continues to do it today…just in different ways.
Story and video by Brad Woodard, KHOU News, Houston