Meet Lieutenant Patrick Howe

Where are you stationed?
I’m a roving lieutenant on the ‘B’ shift.

What previous roles have you served at MFD?
Firefighter/EMT, firefighter/paramedic, apparatus engineer, training officer, and academy training officer at two recruit academies. I was also on the Heavy Urban Rescue Team, and I’m a Peer Support Team member.

How long have you been with MFD?
Since October 2006

Take us behind the scenes. What’s it like to be a lieutenant?
You start to worry about two major things on every call: the people you’re going to serve and the people that are assigned to your care and your responsibility, as in your coworkers, the driver and the two firefighters behind you. You’re making sure that they get through their shift. If they need to offload any trauma and if they need to go home and help their family because there’s an emergency—just helping them in any way. It’s more than just getting in the front seat and talking on the radio; really, it’s about being aware of the scope of your responsibility.

Do you think about calls differently now that you’re a lieutenant?
Absolutely. It’s much more of a big-picture perspective now. If you’re going to a call, you’re thinking about the next five minutes and then the next ten minutes and then the next hour, and about what all the responsibilities could entail.

Even if it’s just a wire down: Okay, do we need to block off the streets? Do we need to call MGE to take a high voltage wire off a telephone pole? Do we need to alert the public to stay in their homes and that their electricity is being turned off? All those things are going through my mind as we respond to a call, and it could go even further than that.

Then you’re also thinking about what needs to be done after the call—writing a report, debriefing co-workers, alerting chiefs to any problems that need to be resolved higher up in administration that might arise from a call.

What's the most interesting call you've been involved with?
I remember being on Ladder 8 with [retired] AE Bob Recob, and both of us wound up as Acting Lieutenants on Engine 8 and Ladder 8 that day. We went to a fairly traumatic car accident where a car had flipped on its roof at 3 AM on Highway 30. I remember both of us being on either side of the car, looking underneath it, and looking at each other wondering how we’re going to get [the driver] out of this. We both came up with suggestions that were the same as each other’s, and it worked.

Also, cardiac arrests, where the right skill was done at the right time and that person is now out and walking around—those calls give us a good sense of purpose and pride.

What are two movies that you consider guilty pleasures, and what are two movies that you "should" like but do not?
I hate Citizen Kane; I don’t know how that ever made it into the Top 100 or the #1 greatest movie ever made. My guilty pleasures: Definitely Step Brothers and Happy Gilmore. They still make me laugh.

Anything else you'd like to share about yourself?
I really like being a part of the MFD Peer Support Team. After being on the job for coming up on 20 years, knowing what my co-workers and I go through on a daily basis, more and more I consider being on Peer Support the biggest honor of my career. It's more important than any of the promotions or certifications I've ever gotten, because it has to do with talking to my co-workers, helping them come through their darker moments and get to the end of their career healthy, both mentally and physically. That is very, very special. Even to have someone open up to you about something that’s bothering them, there’s a level of trust that’s involved in it that, the more I do it, the more I’m just incredibly honored to even be able to answer their phone calls.