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FDNY fire recruit fails fitness test twice, still earns top salary

The EMT has worked a high-paying desk job for a year instead of returning to the ambulance as an EMT

NEW YORK — An EMT and FDNY recruit who failed the fire training academy twice may get a third chance after working at a high-paying desk job for a year.

Choeurlyne Doirin-Holder, 39, made an annual salary of $81,376, including overtime, in 2014, the New York Post reports.

Doirin-Holder earned an annual salary of $55,144 as an EMT in 2013, records show.

“She was qualified as an EMT. She should have been serving the public while waiting for the next probie class, but was paid as a full-time firefighter to do office work and train on the payroll,” a high-ranking source said.

Doirin-Holder was one of four women among 320 probies in training in 2013. She failed the academy class halfway through and returned to her job as an EMT. She entered another class in 2014 and dropped out because of an injury, but was kept on the FDNY payroll.

In 2014, Doirin-Holder failed to run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes, and a classmate described her as “the most pathetic specimen of physical fitness I’ve ever seen.”

She worked desk jobs at the FDNY headquarters, then on Randalls Island.

Doirin-Holder receives top firefighter pay, which is a base annual salary of $76,488 after five years, because she is one of the 282 “priority hires” that Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered must get preference, the New York Post reports.

A new FDNY policy no longer requires that probies pass the Functional Skills Test (FST), a tough obstacle course that includes tasks like climbing six flights of stairs in full gear and dragging dummies, as long as they do well on academics and practical skills. Last year, the FDNY graduated Rebecca Wax, 33, who failed the FST.

Doirin-Holder declined to comment about her future plans with FDNY.

“We don’t discuss individuals or individual cases while in the academy,” FDNY Spokesman Jim Long said.

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