By EMS1 Staff
JANESVILLE, Wis. — A woman who was helped by a dispatcher years ago is now becoming one herself after being inspired by the incident.
NBC15 reported that in 2010, Angieleek Lipski, who was 17 at the time, was at home when her mother and stepfather got into a heated argument and her stepfather grabbed a gun.
Lipski took her brother and escaped in a car before her stepfather opened gunfire. She called 911 as they sped away.
“While I was bent over pushing him (her brother) into the backseat, I heard gunfire,” she said. “I cry every time because it’s still like it was yesterday for me. I play it my head over and over again like it’s a movie.”
Krystynn Reinart answered Lipski’s call and talked her through the incident.
“It’s not every day that you get a call that your stepdad is shooting at you,” Reinart said. “We are their first call and that’s why we have to be calm and ask good questions to get what the officers and firefighters need to be safe, too. I could tell things were frantic on the other end, that things were real.”
Reinart reunited with Lipski eight years later.
“I had that sense of calmness, like a blanket over me, just by your voice,” Lipski told Reinart when they met. “That really stuck with me and I still remember your voice to this day. If it wasn’t for you guys first answering the phone, then I don’t know where I would be.”
Lipski is now two months into dispatcher training herself after being inspired by Reinart.
“I couldn’t think of a better way to give back and honor her than become a dispatcher myself and be able to do the same line of work and help the people that needed help just like I did,” she said.