Trailblazing Adrienne Walsh Was First Woman to serve as Lt on Manhattan’s Elite Rescue 1

Adrienne Walsh, who retired as a lieutenant at the elite Rescue 1 last year, has been involved in some of the most dramatic experiences involving the FDNY in the past two and half decades. It started with the 9/11 attacks right through her unit’s involvement with a rope roof rescue on a UES skyscraper in November 2022.

“We practice roof rescues all the time, but it can be very frightening to a civilian being taken out of a building 22 stories high,” she said. Two victims, trapped by an exploding lithium ion battery, were rescued by the rope rescue that day.

In between, she was with a unit that responded to the 2017 Halloween attack on the West Side Bike path in lower Manhattan that killed eight and left 18 injured. And she was on the job when Rescue 1 was called to the scene when a deranged man drove his car onto a sidewalk in Times Square in 2017, injuring 10 and killing one.

In May 2018, Walsh became the first woman of rank to be assigned to the elite Rescue 1 covering most of Manhattan. Previously she was the second woman in FDNY history to be assigned to Special Operations Command, Squad 18.

Of her nearly 27 years on the job, 22 were with Special Operations Command, including a two-year stint overseeing scuba training. Special Operations handles heavy rescue, scuba, hazmat, and the most complicated extracations. “You name it, they do it,” she said.

Despite breaking ground almost from the moment she first graduated from the Fire Academy in 1997, she’s not altogether comfortable being described as a crusader.

“Let’s put it this way,” she said. “All I wanted to do was go to work and learn as much as I could to be a better firefighter,” she said. “I was lucky enough to get the opportunities I did.”

Not that there weren’t some unpleasant hurdles to overcome, including a dispute with some in a rescue unit early in her career where she felt she was singled out by members because of her gender.

“I had some bumps along the way,” she conceded. “But I’d rather concentrate on the good things.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Walsh recalled how she was a high school student when a group of 40 women filed a lawsuit that ultimately opened the door to women in the FDNY. “I owe a lot to them,” she said.

She started in Engine 226 in Brooklyn. On 9/11 she was in Ladder 20 in SOHO after transferring there in Oct. 2000. Seven colleagues from Ladder 20 died, as did seven from Squad 18 that was temporarily sharing the same firehouse. “I knew a lot of people who died that day,” Walsh said. “It is something that will always be with you.”

She was promoted to lieutenant on Dec. 31, 2005. From there, she went to a scuba unit, where she was in charge of training, then she headed Squad 18 in Greenwich Village, which she knew well from 9/11. “It was a very busy house; it did 4,440 to 5,000 runs a year. It was a good thing I liked to be busy.”

She retired in March 2023 and Our Town spoke with her, by coincidence, on the one year anniversary. “The brainwork I miss a lot, that sense of focus, that level of proficiency where everyone there is working on the same goal to make things better.”

Today, there are about 160 women firefighters in a service that numbers about 10,000 people including firefighters and officers. Despite the disparity she says she would recommend FDNY as a career. In her farewell at Rescue 1 last March she was caputured by News 12 telling her collagues: “I thank everyone I worked with over the years. You taught me well, made me laugh, and I will miss you all terribly.”

“The job can be humbling,” she told Our Town. “But it’s also rewarding and challenging.”