A Cincinnati firefighter is the first woman in the history of the Cincinnati Fire Department to be certified as a bomb technician.
Firefighter Nykeba Banks joins a select few as a prestigious United States Public Safety Bomb Technician, the fire department said in a news release Monday.
She received her certification from the Hazardous Devices School at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala.
Banks was one of only two women in her six-week training class.
She graduated on Sept. 22.
It’s estimated that nationally only about 9% of 3,000 certified bomb techs are female, according to the city’s release.
“They told us [at the school] that only 400 people would graduate from the program this year. They said that more people would climb Mt. Everest this year,” Banks said in the release.