By By Lydia Grimes- features reporter
Selina Gibson is one of a kind. She is the first woman firefighter at the Brewton Fire Department. She volunteers there and also with the Dixonville Volunteer Fire Department.
Her life changed one night after she moved to Brewton and was living in a mobile home on the Jay Road near Riverview. There was a fire that got started near her home and the Dixonville Fire Department was called. Only two people showed up to fight the fire so some of the neighbors, including her, joined in the effort to put the fire out.
She began to take her needed 160 hours of training at night while she was holding down a full-time job as a dental assistant with Dr. Michael Dasinger.
With this in mind, she went nights and week-ends and completed Emergency Medical Technician at the Alabama Medical College and became a member of the Emergency Medical Services.
Gibson was born in Atmore and raised there with her two brothers. She dropped out of school and got married in 1987 to a military man. The family moved around a lot and their first child, Krystie Rolin, was born in 1989.
By this time she had another daughter, Brianna Rolin, who was born in 1996. She had divorced and was working as a registered nurse. After the birth of her third daughter, Ashley Gibson, in 2000, she got a job at Wal-Mart as an unloader where she worked for a couple of years. She was living at her mother's house during this time.
In 2003, she got a job as Dr. Dasinger's dental assistant. She puts in her hours there during the day and is on call when she is needed at the fire department. She is also assistance fire chief for Dixonville.