One of those trailblazers, Cathy Stephenson, still works for the service, and her incredible career has included more than her share of heavy lifting, including carrying a 140-kilogram stroke victim down some stairs.

And delivering nine babies. And dealing with the tragedy of attending nine cot deaths in the first three years of her service. And attending innumerable car accidents, heart attacks and other emergencies. And five years working on the Snowy Hydro SouthCare rescue helicopter.

Ms Stephenson, 60, is now a clinician working in ACT Ambulance communications, prioritising triple zero calls.

"It is very rewarding," she said. Being a paramedic was not "just the big jobs", she added, but also "holding a little old man's hand on his way to hospital and hearing all about his life".

All previously nurses, Ms Stephenson, Kim Shoard (nee Yarra), Ingrid Mears and Cathy Csucsy were the first female paramedics in the ACT, starting on September 17, 1984. Ms Csucsy is also still with the service, as an on-the-road paramedic.

Mrs Shoard, 57, remembers she and Ms Stephenson (aka "Cath and Kim") were nurses at the old Royal Canberra Hospital when they applied to be paramedics after a tiny ad ran in the paper.

They started with three men, Jon Quiggin (who rose to become the chief officer), Larry Geraghty and Jerry Heraid. They were also the first intensive-trained paramedics in the ACT.

Mrs Shoard said that meant they gained the experience of working alongside old-school ambulance officers who did not have the benefit of extensive technology but relied on their wits and skill, as well as being trained in more sophisticated medicine. She said Canberrans were lucky to have their ambulance service.

"When you call an ambulance, you're calling casualty to your front door. They are highly skilled people," she said.

The women also had rigorous rescue training, from rappelling down Telstra Tower to going through kilometres of underground drainage tunnels with oxygen masks. They drove Ford F-100 ambulances.

"I was the only one who could stand up in them," Mrs Shoard said. After six weeks, the women were allowed to go out as female-only teams.

Ms Stephenson said some men were not happy to have women in their ranks. Some wives were also worried they would be working with women on night shift.

"Which was ridiculous," she said.

And some male patients would object.

"They'd go, 'Oh my God, are you going to drive?'," she said.

"But other men were very supportive and who knows where we be if that hadn't been the case?" Mrs Shoard said.

Ms Stephenson's career path changed after her ankle shattered when attending a car accident in 2009.

"It was like a mourning process because I couldn't work on the road anymore," she said.

Mrs Shoard left the service in 1991 to have a family but continues to work in first aid education.

She works with Take Heart Australia which aims to increase the survival rate of Australians who suffer a heart attack. She had helped to position 25 defibrillators in her home town of Young, including four in the main street.

But looking back 35 years ago, none of the women really understood at the time how groundbreaking they were.

"We didn't really realise. It wasn't until after," Mrs Shoard said. "We just went in our stride. I was proud."