Flash Point

When emotional toll of being a first responder caught up to her after twenty-five years of saving lives, Christy Warren—a gay, female firefighter who had always prided herself on her get-the-job-done, tough-as-nails approach to her work—found herself at risk of losing everything.

Christy Warren is a retired fire captain from the Berkeley Fire Department in California. She has twenty-five years of service as a professional paramedic and eighteen years as a professional firefighter/paramedic. After being diagnosed with PTSD in 2014, she retired from the fire service; since then, she has become a triathlete, completed the Escape from Alcatraz swim five times, and earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Washington State University. She is a volunteer Peer at the West Coast Post-trauma Retreat and hosts the podcast The Firefighter Deconstructed. She lives in Pleasant Hill with her wife, Lisa, and dog, Harriet.