For just over the last week, first responders with the Milwaukee Fire Department and the city’s two private ambulance companies have been expected to conduct foot searches any time a patient is not immediately located, Fire Chief Aaron Lipski told a city committee Thursday.
The chief called that a “stop-gap” measure while he and other emergency medical service officials scrambled to update standard operating guidelines after the death of Jolene Waldref at a busy intersection in subzero temperatures in January.
“We are reeling in the wake of this,” Lipski said in front of Milwaukee’s Public Safety and Health Committee. “We are feeling a tremendous amount of pressure to make this right.”
That pressure was turned up last week when the Milwaukee Common Council passed a resolution urging Lipski to make or examine a series of protocol changes meant to prevent the situation from happening again.
To emphasize the urgency, the council also delayed approval of an amendment to contracts with the city’s two private ambulance companies, which as a result has created a “cashflow issue” for those companies, one official said.