Messrs

Dear Editor,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the fine gentlemen who came to my aid last week when I had my accident at home. Messrs Deputy Sheriff Jackson, and EMT's Garcia and Laird.

Sincerely,
James Wilson

"But... But... But... What about me?! Without me getting the 911 call from your wife who gave me the info to get somebody out there, you might be six feet under, pushing up daisies!"

There's no denying it, we all have our pity parties every once in a while. We listen to the 911 and dispatch the call where the officer that saved the girl's life later gets presented the key to the city and is revered as a hero for eternity and then some.  But what are we? Just a voice? Sometimes that really irks me. All we are to some people is a voice. The voice on the other end of the phone who is supposed to go through this horrific situation completely blind, guiding first responders and the caller, giving everybody the right information at the right time. The "annoying" voice checking on the 15 year veteran officer out in the field who hasn't gone clear from his last traffic stop yet. "Do you really have to check on us so often?" YES. Because, God forbid, if something happens to you out there, I will have to live with that sort of guilt for the rest of my life.

We hear the pleas of the mother holding her infant son who isn't breathing anymore. The cries for help of the gunshot victim who only knows they are in a dark alley somewhere in the city. The yelling and screaming of parents who are fighting over the last line of cocaine while their child hides in the closet scared for their life. These are real life events, and we have to live through them everyday. Do we get calls like this all the time? No, not necessarily. But when we do get them, they don't just disappear from your mind, never to be thought of again. They linger there, slowly eating away at your sanity, disconnecting you from the side of yourself that once held the emotions of your life.

When you pick up the 911 line, you never know what you're going to get. But what we always have to be prepared for is a person on the other end who is at the end of their rope. You are the light at the end of their tunnel and by God, you better be ready to help. 911 is supposed to have all the answers, aren't they? We're supposed to be the ones who get the "real heroes" out there. But imagine trying to live your life normally when a majority of the time you spend at work is spent hearing every possible horrific event you could imagine.

I feel like 911 dispatchers are seen in a negative light nowadays. There are too many news stories about how this or that botched 911 call ended up in a casualty or somebody being seriously injured. What about the good stories? The stories that should be told every single day. The stories where a call-taker saves somebody's life by telling the bystander how to perform CPR. Or how the dispatcher guided the frightened 12 year old to somewhere safe in their home until police got there and arrested the burglars. These types of calls happen everyday, all the time. But it's the expectation of "Well, that's what they're there for, isn't it?" that ruins this job. But stories about the everyday heroes don't always make for good TV, now do they?

The Hash Slinging Slasher

One of my more disturbing calls came in a few months ago. I was on the night shift, as would be anticipated with a call like this. Here's an edited journal entry I wrote after a few days after the event.

Sometimes, I wonder why I still subject myself to this kind of “torture”. Why am I still working this job? What is keeping me here? Maybe the pay. Not many places in town pay more than $8/hr., let alone finding a job that pays over $10/hr. But I don’t think that’s it, it’s gotta be more. Sitting in this dingy control room, with half of the florescent lights off because the other half of them would make it look like an operating room. With the hum of a million and one fans droning on at different speeds and pitches. The occasional stray radio click that doesn’t really mean anything except that maybe an officer has fallen asleep and is leaning his handheld against the inside of the patrol car door. Tonight was exciting, but not in a good way exciting. It was one of the first times I’ve actually had somebody on the other end of a 911 call actually just screaming for help. It's 3am, and that’s all I heard at first.

“Help! Help, Oh My God, Help, send help!”

Then, the line clicks and silence. I can’t put it in the notes fast enough before the same number calls back. This time the man is a bit more coherent, though still obviously shaken up and panicked. I can hear his wife in the background saying how she doesn’t want to hear “this”.

This? What is this? Him talking to me on 911? She wants to know if he is gone. He? Who he? "He” ended up being the next of kin to a couple living in a house many miles out of town. Their son, middle-aged, has some sort of mental illness.

The 911 line was acting squirrely. I could hear “them” perfectly fine, but my talking seemed garbled, almost “alien-like” in nature. I know how this sounds from hearing numerous call replays and hearing how bad the call quality is sometimes. I tried to get anything I could out of the man while he was still with me on the line; He breathing heavily, probably trying to decide whether to listen to his wife or myself, trying to decipher whether this was real life, or just a very bad dream. I wished it were the latter.

According to the information I gathered from the gentleman, his stepson tried to attack he and his wife. While they were sleeping. With an axe. And a sledge hammer. Yes, an axe and a sledge hammer. While trying not to have to go home and throw away a good pair of jeans, I got the sheriff on the line. I was frantic enough as it was, without remembering that their home was at least 20 miles out of town. I talked on the 911 call for around 9 minutes before I finally got frustrated hearing "What? I can’t understand you." After I made sure they were at least safe and their home was secure with no perp in sight, I called back on the non-emergency line.

The answer this time came from the man’s wife. Her voice was faint and distant, though I knew the phone handset was right at her ear. She started to weep. I tried to stay with her as long as I could and get whatever information she could recall immediately after having her life threatened by her own kin. God bless her. She seemed disoriented, lost, distant. Her voice cracked as she cried and all I could tell her was “Ma’am, I need you to stay with me, I’m here to help and we’re going to get somebody out there, okay?” She responded by saying something along the lines of “I know that...” Then she started crying again. This call was heartbreaking. But I had to keep myself together. After gathering whatever info I could, and making sure they locked their doors and stayed inside the house, I hung up the line and gave all the info to the sheriff.We made plans and got a first responder to check out the couple and make sure they were okay.

A few minutes later, another 911 call. Out of area cell phone number. Great, what now? “911, your emergency?” “Um yes, I was wondering if you had gotten a call about an altercation around an hour ago at a house outside of town? If you did, I was probably the other party involved in that..” Holy crap. I took the guy’s info, and asked him to stay on the line while I advised the sheriff what was going on. He said he would be en-route to the subject's location. He claimed he was at a grocery store where he was using the pay phone because he had forgotten his cell phone. Weird, huh? I told him somebody would be out to meet him shortly and to stay put.

After all was said and done, the call was cleared for the time being. The husband and wife were okay. Quite shaken up, but didn’t require immediate medical attention. The sheriff took the suspect down to the sheriff’s office for further questioning, and probably to see if this guy was even sane.

After all was said and done, did I really help anybody? Maybe. But maybe I was just the garbled voice on the other end of the telephone who couldn’t be understood worth a damn. Still, I have to tell myself I did something. I made plans quickly with the sheriff and together, we got things sorted out. Nobody died. Nobody died... I can only imagine waking up to somebody smashing things in your house, then looking around and suddenly staring death in the face. The scariest part of all of this is probably that at this point, death looks a lot like your son. And you don’t know whether to reason or fight back.

That call took so much out of me, but it wasn't until after the fact that I realized the magnitude of this call. It was a traumatic experience. But I made it. I didn't quit, I didn't hate my job, I didn't think twice about what I was doing. I made it. We are on the front lines of the Everyday Heroes of America. We get paid to keep going when the going gets tough.

Holiday

For many, including myself, today is what most consider a "holiday". And most in the workforce; banks, city offices, state bureaucratic organizations, most of these people have the day off. But for those of us who work in the wonderful field of public service, particularly law enforcement, it's just another Friday shift. Something that bothers me about working in this field is the fact that people don't remember that when they call 911 on a day like today, there's a human being who has given up their government-given right to a day off to keep the peace and perform their civil duties.

Here's how things like this play out: After having more than a few alcoholic beverages, Uncle Tommy starts bringing up how his brother John was always the "mommas boy." John, after having his fair share of alcoholic indulgence, gets mad and decides to start a yelling match with said Tommy. After this goes on for a few minutes, they make an attempt to settle this "Fair and Square" in an all-out, drag-out, "Battle of the Borrachos." *cue bullfighting music* After making an attempt at trying to hit each other, they both manage to miss their targets, and instead end up sprawled out on the ground. Tommy has cut his hand on the now broken bottle he forgot he was holding, and John has managed to roll his ankle, which now looks the size of Kirstie Alley's left thigh.

The nosy neighbors, hearing all the commotion, call 911 saying there is a fight in progress next door with injuries and they want the cops on scene before the Home Owners Association President gets wind of the situation.We get the call, send out the troops, and happily wait on their arrival. They get there and determine that it is nothing more than a drunken mess. They do what they can within their powers (God knows they would like to do much they couldn't) and clear the call.

It seems like calls like this tend to happen on said "holidays" more often than not. There are holidays that we hate working, then there are holidays where we would rather quit than have to work for fear of all the terrible things that could happen. Take the 4th of July for instance. People like to play dispatch's favorite game that day: Firework or Gunshot. "Where did you hear the shots come from, ma'am?" "I don't know, but they sounded like they were kind of far away! Or maybe they were close... I don't know!"  Aye caramba... Long story short, holiday or not, when duty calls, we are here to perform our job, and are expected to do so without any lip. Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Passover, and beyond, somebody is there to answer the line 24/7 when help is needed.

I still swear there's a monkey somewhere in the Middle-Of-Nowhere, Texas standing in front of a fan with a bag of manure in one hand. Go ahead and throw it, my friend... Make my day..

Shall We Begin?

"Well, if you don't have anymore questions, do you want the job?"

I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time. Nine months into the job, I know I made the right choice. It's the idea of the adrenaline rush when you hear yelling and screaming through the headset, or the thought that a vehicle that came back stolen might take off and you could have a pursuit on your hands. That's what keeps me where I am, doing what I do. I'm a 911 dispatcher.

Needless to say, there are things that go wrong or things that drive me up the wall. The long hours sitting at the console running traffic, answering the phone, transferring calls, taking 911's. And then there's entering warrants into NCIC... All the little things that I dislike about working in such a stressful, fast paced environment. Don't think it's that hard?

The other morning, I walked into dispatch and took my usual place. Just 45 minutes into my shift, 911 goes off. The first thing I hear is groaning and gurgling.

"911, your emergency?"
"Yes, there's a woman who is a guest at our house and I believe she's having a seizure."
"Your address ma'am?"
"1204 Johnson Lane"
"How old is she?"
"46, please hurry."
The groaning gets louder and sounds painful. Time to rally the troops. I page out EMS and they go enroute to the call shortly after. Meanwhile, I give the woman on the phone instructions.

"I show your callback number as.... Is this a good number? Do not try and hold her still ma'am. I know she looks like she could hurt herself but she shouldn't, just stay with me. Any medical history? What is her name? Is she on any sort of medication? What was she doing before this happened? She's calming down? Okay, have her rest in a comfortable position and do not give her anything to eat or drink. Is she disoriented? Does she know her name, where she is, what her birthday is?"

Then the radio clicks. 
"Unit 41, Central, show us on scene." 
"Central, Unit 41, 10-4, on scene at 0805"

Back to the caller.
"Ma'am, EMS advises they are on scene, can you tell me if they are outside?"
"Yes, I see them!"
"Okay, they will take the call from here."
"Okay!"
*click* 

For those few moments in time, a dispatcher goes from being a regular person to being a lifeline. Being a dispatcher, you are responsible for so much more than what most people think. It's like asking somebody to memorize the local phone book, all the cross streets in the city, and a medical dictionary, and being able to recall this information at the drop of a hat. At least you're get paid for it...

What a lot of people don't remember is that there is another human being on the other end of the line, trying to make a living doing what many people wouldn't ever consider trying."You guys ask too many questions. Why do you need to know that? What does it matter what medication she is on? I don't remember what color the car was, just pull them over! I want to remain anonymous, I'm just reporting that I saw the vehicle being stolen. How should I know where I am, you're the dispatcher! I'm just driving through, how should I know how far I am from Middle-Of-Nowhere, Texas?" It's a never-ending slew of questions being used as answers for my questions. Do you want help or not?!

This is my rant page, the page where I plan to talk about all the good and terrible things that happen in this line of work. Check back often, I promise there is much to talk about. Mind you, I work at a very small agency. Small enough that there is often just one dispatcher on duty, dispatching for two counties. I am the call taker, 911 operator, and dispatcher. And for now, I wouldn't have it any other way.