Fast On The Track. Steadfast On The Job.

Krista Francis-Raymah, a retired firefighter, carries a sunny disposition with her, except when she lines up to race. At the Start Line, she says, "I have no friends." Photo courtesy Krista Francis-Raymah.

 

By Ray Glier

This story is about duty and priorities.

Krista Francis-Raymah, 59, is a Masters track sprinter (100 meters, 200, 400). She was also a firefighter in Trinidad Tobago, the tiny island nation in the Caribbean.

It seems to me this is the stuff of Hollywood. 

A fast firefighter running ahead of other firefighters and bravely bursting into a burning house to save the day.

“No, no, no, Ray, no,” Krista scolded me. “You do not run into a burning house by yourself as a firefighter. You are part of a team. The team goes in."

It’s not the movies.

She would refuse the leading part in my show, but where Francis-Raymah has sole discretion to run fast and ahead of others is on the track. In the 2023 World Police & Fire Games in Winnipeg she won gold medals in the 100 and 200 and silver medals in the 400 and as part of a relay team in the women’s 55-59 age group.

Krista will be in Birmingham, Ala., June 28-July 6 for the 2025 WPFG, aka The Games of Heroes. She is at the oldest point of her age bracket, but still has expectations to come away with a medal in W55-59. Her best event is the 200 where she says she has a personal best of 29.0 seconds. That would put Francis-Raymah No. 9 in the world.

What is inspirational is not training for three sprints at 59 in the tropical heat. It's her virtue of not ceding her role as a member of a team to her athletic ability as trying to be a hero. Krista had to rummage through her mind a few moments to find anything resembling a heroic moment when I asked her for an example of using her athleticism on the job. 

Francis-Raymah told me of one adventure that had more to do with the brawn of a hammer thrower, than the speed of a sprinter.

Krista and her team responded to a call of smoke at a two-story house with two first floor apartment doors. The door into the one apartment showing smoke was jammed shut. A 73-year old bedridden man was inside.

Francis-Raymah was part of an all-female crew that day. Once the women assessed there was no danger of a backdraft hitting them in the face when they got through the door, Krista threw her shoulder into the door and it gave.

The man was hustled out. The smoke was dealt with.

“We wouldn’t have gotten in without you,” one woman on the crew told Krista.

Francis-Raymah was a firefighter for 28 years. She has some notable heroes. She was 34 years old and in New York in September, 2001. She left NYC September 8. Three days later the World Trade Centers were brought down in a terrorist attack. The attack caused the deaths of 441 first responders, the largest loss of emergency responders on a single day in U.S. history— 343 firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers, eight paramedics and 55 military personnel.

Her mother, Lima, would shake her head and say to Krista, “Lord, child, why do you such dangerous work?”

“I tell her we are there to save lives,” Francis-Raymah said. “That's our motto. You save lives first. So what we used to do on my particular shift—I was on Black Watch—right when we get to work in the morning, we huddle and we pray, and ask the Lord to help us if anybody is in distress.

“When you hear the bell drop and you have to go out there, you just have to do what you have to do because somebody’s life is in danger. My mother would call it ‘doing battle’.”

Krista is hesitant to equate track & field with anything to do with the life-and-death work of a firefighter.

Except this: intense focus. The woman known for her always sunny disposition is a stern competitor. In the moments before a race she says, “I have no friends.”

What she has are "the butterflies” in her stomach, the queasiness many competitors get when they line up to do their thing. And then she becomes silent staring down the track.

“The ladies get accustomed to me now because I am a friendly person. I talk and laugh with everybody, right? And I always smiling, and they will tell you the sunny side of Krista,” she said. “Ah, but before an event, I go into a zone, and I just do what I have to do. When the gun goes off, I have no friends.

“The race is finished and we are all friends once more.”

Because of the stifling heat in the tropics, Krista trains twice a week on the track at 5:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. In these weeks leading up to the Games of Heroes in Alabama she will train in the heat of the day at 1 p.m. to acclimate to when the races will be run in the southern heat.

Then, twice a week, Krista is up at a more sensible hour to lift weights in the gym.

“That’s enough when you get to be this age,” she said with a laugh. “I want to do this a long time.”

The Caribbean is to sprinters what Africa is to distance runners. The Jamaican women are among the fastest in the world and Francis-Raymah wants to be in every race with them on the Caribbean stage.

Injuries ruined her chance to be on the biggest stage in track: the Olympics. Krista was on the Trinidad Tobago junior national team as a 17-year old, but a hamstring injury and then a knee injury ruined that dream.

Still, she has plenty of gleaming trophies and bright ribbons. On the video call with Geezer Jock from Trinidad Tobago, the trophies are lined on shelves behind her. Another wall is covered with mementoes from all the World Police & Fire Games she has attended since 1997. Francis-Raymah has missed just one Games of Heroes in 28 years, which is exactly how long she was a firefighter before retiring.

The trophy Krista should receive for her courage, her sunshine, and being a master of priorities is too big for those shelves. 

The trademark Krista smile on the podium in Winnipeg after winning a gold medal. Photo courtesy Krista Francis-Raymah.