This month’s issue of Milwaukee Magazine features a profile of Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski and the challenges the fire department is grappling with.
Lipski, a fourth-generation Milwaukee firefighter, took the top spot in 2021 when the department was at a tipping point.
He says staffing shortages have left firefighters overworked and exhausted as stations respond to an unprecedented volume of emergency calls.
Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Lipski about what the fire department is doing to help address those issues — including the recent rollout of a new mental health initiative.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The danger brought by rushing into a fire is well known. But what else does the job of a firefighter consist of?
Many people aren't as aware — they’re becoming more aware — but they’re not as aware of what we do. In our city, we do all the emergency medical services work. Paramedic work for injuries, illnesses and anything bad that happens to somebody, we get called for.
And I think most people would be unaware of what it means to do firefighting on one call, and then, you barely got your wits about you from wrapping up from that, and boom! All of a sudden, you're on an emergency medical call — you just bounce around all day and it is extremely busy nowadays. Compared to any point in our history, it's the busiest.
That emergency medical work, certainly, you have to have the stomach for it. Because you just see and experience things that your brain can't imagine prior to actually seeing these things for the first time. And you move past that pretty quick, because you fall back on your training.
You realize that standing there, kind of in shock at what you're looking at, is not helping. So you get very clinical about it and you can get a little bit robotic and sterile about it, whichthat can be off-putting to people who don't understand what's going on. But it is actually the fastest way to get the care to the patient — to remove the emotion in the spectacle of it.
The flip side of that, of course, after repeated exposure, especially to the violent crime, the car wrecks, and overdoses, and the nasty things people do to each other. The repeated exposure to that can harden you and make you cynical. You can start to feel as if this is just how humanity is.
We do our best to remind [firefighters] that you're not witnessing humanity in general, you're witnessing inhumanity in its most specific, horrible moments. And the two can't necessarily be compared directly to one another.
Not every call is this huge, traumatic event. But enough of them are that you really don't know what you're walking into. So the net result of that is you have to keep your readiness pinged to 10 all day, all night because you just never know what's about to happen.
It is beyond exhausting.
You really are witnessing the worst day of someone’s life when you're going out to help them. How does fire academy training prepare anyone for that?
So we have psychological evaluations pre-hire. The screen can be too tight on those sometimes. And in other times, the absence of one, folks can come through that maybe they're not suited for this.
The wording on that, as we're coming to learn right now is resiliency. Both physical and psychological, emotional resiliency. How do you intersect with something that can take you off your center? And how do you get back to that and move on and not carry that around forever? And we are just starting in the fire service, perhaps in society in general, but definitely in the fire service — we're just starting to grapple with how do we do that? Because we've spent our whole time just go, go, go.
It's a badge of honor to go and just take it, and just be ready for the next one. And then come back the next shift and do it all over again. It's a badge of honor, historically. So there's a cultural shift that needs to occur as well, that, it's OK for you as the caregiver, as the first responder, it's OK for you to be healthy, as well. And we've missed that, I think, for a very, very long time.
I think it'll be a good thing for everybody. I really, really believe if we take care of our own, and not in the shady sense of that. But really take care of the people that we’re charged with taking care of, when they go out the door, they'll take better care of everybody else who's calling 911 for help. Because I think it does feed forward.
Since this feature came out, you recently announced that the Milwaukee Fire Department is working with Ignite the Spirit Milwaukee to help provide mental health services to all firefighters. Can you tell me more about this program?
So we have a little bit of distrust in the fire service. A little bit of distrust that if [a firefighter goes] in, and [says], “I have an issue,” that somehow it works its way back through insurance to your employer or that somehow that is a mark on your record.
So, it's a paradox, right? Because we are really encouraging people to reach out for help. At the same time, people are afraid to reach out for help, because if that ends up on their record, there's a belief that could impact future employment and workplace comfort.
And we try very hard and we succeed [in trying to address that issue]. When you're dealing with our peer support team, or the employee assistance program, it is all confidential. I don't even know. I'm the chief of the fire department and I literally don't know who's engaging with any of the above. That's by design.
But to get around that sense of distrust, Ignite the Spirit Milwaukee is a nonprofit organization that was started by Joe Flick, he's a lieutenant on the Milwaukee Fire Department. The whole goal of [the program] was that when our members hit crisis, we need an immediate backstop to help.
For instance, [someone] suffers a horrific loss in their family. Typically unexpected or maybe after an illness involving a child, or something where it’s going to take someone and put them on their heels for a while. How do we support that person right now? And not with a formal application and a review process, submit it and we'll get back to you in six months. Right now, what can we do [to help]?
This can include covering funeral expenses, which I've seen them do. This could include food preparation delivery, lawn service, covering someone's transportation to get to inpatient care, and a whole bunch of other things that I'm failing to mention just based on my memory here.
But it really, really has been a very, very good thing. There are no bills, because Ignite the Spirit Milwaukee is covering the cost. So they can go and they don't have to have anything ever appear on the record.
We just started this and people are already engaging. We'll never know who and we’ll never know what. But if it gets that last remaining few who have that concern, to that assistance, this is going to be worth its weight in gold.
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