By Steve Metsch
There were a few damp eyes and many big smiles at the most recent meeting of the Bridgeview Village Board.
Yep, even firefighters get a bit sentimental, especially when family history is involved.
The reason for the emotions was former Bridgeview Fire Chief Terry Lipinski pinned his old lieutenant’s badge on the uniform jacket worn by his son Nicholas Lipinski.
Moments earlier, the younger Lipinski had been sworn in by Mayor Steve Landek as the fire department’s newest lieutenant during the July 3 board meeting.
“I am proud, very proud,” the elder Lipinski said. “He worked hard for it. It didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“He’s always been around the firehouse. We use to play catch in the firehouse. All the guys knew him. He used to eat with us. This is a natural place for him,” Terry said.
Nicholas Lipinski, 39, grew up in Bridgeview. He often tagged along on fire calls with his father years ago.
“If there was something big going on, I’d sit in the car and watch,” he recalled.
Terry, 71, was with the department 30 years. He was fire chief from 1995 until his retirement in 2006.
Terry recalled how his fire chief’s car was parked outside the family’s home “and when a call came in, he’d come with me.”
“He knew what to do. I’d tell him to stay in the car or stay near the car. He always just watched and asked questions later,” Terry said.
Nicholas, who joined the department in 2007, evidently paid close attention to his father’s answers.
“I’m excited about this. I’m up for the challenge, the opportunity to lead these guys in the right direction and make sure they get home at the end of a shift,” he said.
Asked of which past fires stand out, he said, “nothing really crazy, but some memorable ones.”
One of those was a fire “on a 20-below kind of day” when “the white smoke and steam was so thick you couldn’t even see the house.”
Asked why firefighters willingly run into burning buildings most folks would flee, he said, “we’re just a different breed.”
“Some of us like the adrenaline rush, or just helping people. We’re protected going in there and they’re not. Give people a fighting chance to get out okay, make it back to their families,” he said.
Many of his family members attended the swearing-in ceremony and posed for pictures with the new fire lieutenant.
Lipinski is single and lives in Darien.