They broke the FDNY gender barrier — but, for many, firefighting broke them.
A startling 70 percent of female Bravest have retired from the FDNY on three-quarters disability pensions claiming injuries on the job, The Post has found.
They include Brenda Berkman, who won a landmark lawsuit that forced the FDNY to hire its first 41 female firefighters in 1982. One historian called her “the Jackie Robinson” of the department’s women.
Berkman, now 63, retired in 2006 as a captain after 25 years. She gets a $159,673 tax-free annual pension, according to 2010 records, the latest publicly available.
Colleagues said Berkman claimed a 9/11-related disability. She joined in the rescue efforts at Ground Zero and worked at the site for months.
Berkman would not comment on her pension, saying, “I don’t think it’s anybody’s business, frankly.”
Of 30 female retirees tallied in the New York City Fire Pension Fund’s 2014 financial report, 22, or 73 percent, get a disability pension. Of those, 21, or 70 percent of all female retirees, get an “accidental disability” pension for a job-related injury, which is 75 percent of their final year’s pay.
One of the disabled firefighters is still in her 20s — barely out of the training academy. She gets $70,266 a year.
By comparison, 9,978 of 15,616 retired male firefighters — 63 percent — get disability pensions. They include 8,922 men, or 57 percent of all male retirees, with job-related injuries. One of them is under age 30.
Pension costs for the FDNY have exploded in recent years, reaching $1.1 billion annually. That’s just shy of the active-duty budget of $1.2 billion.
Terry Golway, a Kean University history professor and author of the 2003 book “So Others Might Live: A History of New York’s Bravest,” was surprised by the percentage of disabled women.
“That’s a striking number,” Golway said. “I would question what’s going on here. Are we training people properly? Are they properly equipped? Are tactics putting people in danger? What are we doing wrong?”
Golway said the figures could rekindle “old fears” that women are physically unqualified and more likely to get hurt on the job.
Retirements related to the 9/11 attacks have swelled the number of all firefighters collecting disability pensions.
Cecelia Cox, one of the first women hired in 1982, worked in the Ground Zero recovery. She suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and a host of medical problems.
“It really has taken a toll on me,” said Cox, who retired in 2005.
She gets a disability pension of $63,755. Her firefighter husband retired in 2006.
Teresa French, another pioneer, was at home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, on 9/11, saw the attacks on TV and raced to her firehouse, Engine Co. 207/Ladder Co. 110 in Downtown Brooklyn.
She toiled at Ground Zero until 3 a.m. and for many shifts after. She said she suffered a steep drop in lung function, developing asthma and chronic pneumonia.
“When they told me I had to retire, I started to cry,” said French, who left in 2004, after 22 years, with a $79,541 disability pension.
Flamed out after 12 years, Lt. Susan Blake retired on a disability pension in 2006. She was the first female firefighter hired by the FDNY in the 12 years after 1982. She told a reporter in 2004 she had failed a lung test.
Blake, who receives a $102,708 pension, declined to comment.
Other women got hurt in fires.
Patricia Fitzpatrick, who also started in 1982, reportedly fractured her spine in 1997 when a ceiling collapsed on her during a fire. She left in 1998 with a $42,764 pension.
Harriet Duren, also in the 1982 group, suffered third-degree burns in a house fire and jumped from the top floor. Her career ended in 1997 with a $46,441 pension.
Of the 280 grads of the FDNY Fire Academy last November, four were women, bringing their total on the 10,500-member force to 44 — only three more than in 1982, but the most ever.