Thanksgiving

Looking Up

I'm not going to lie, things had been looking pretty grim for a while. After I quit my job dispatching full time to return to school, I was afraid I wasn't going to make it in terms of my finances. I took up a job at the campus police department where I had previously worked. It was sort of my springboard into the dispatching field, and it was nice to be back. My hours were limited, 12 hours a week instead of 40, and the pay was a big cut, $10/hr. to $7.25/hr. I haven't dispatched since I left, as I've been working the front desk, issuing student ID's and parking stickers. I still miss dispatching every day.

Since I'm not working in dispatching anymore, I don't see any harm in telling you all a bit more about myself. My name is Daniel Hernandez. I'm 21 and in college. An old soul in a young body, born into the wrong generation I've been told all too often. I'm managing. I live in Marfa, TX and attend Sul Ross State University in Alpine, TX. Nice to meet you. Now that that's out of the way...

Very shortly after I left my job at the sheriff's office, the day after really, I submitted my resume to a job posting I had seen in the newspaper. The position was for a part time staff person for my State Senator, Jose Rodriguez, out of El Paso. I waited for a call, an email, yet nothing came. I came back to my position at campus police and also inquired about an internship with my US Congressional Representative, Pete P. Gallego. I was awarded an internship on the spot, and have been working at that office for the last month.

Just days after I started the internship, an officer in our congressional jurisdiction was shot and killed in the line of duty. I worked on getting details for my supervisor and Congressman Gallego in Washington. How could this have happened? It was such a small community, and it was never, ever expected. I suppose nobody is exempt.. We worked the kinks out and the Congressman was able to make it to the funeral and pay his respects to the fallen hero. It was a somber occasion. I stood with my supervisor on one side of the room, looking more like security detail than an intern in my black suit, silver shirt, black tie, black slacks and my cowboy boots. My supervisor and I joked about that later. One thing I could not help but notice was how terribly sad the dispatchers were. I set them apart from everybody else, wearing their black uniform polo's with black tape over the embroidered badges. I would have given anything to go sit between them, and tell them it was going to be okay, that Bubba was in a better place, and that his service would never be forgotten. I wondered which one of them was the one working the night of the LODD. I regret not asking. The funeral service was over shortly thereafter and we were on our way to the nearest airport to get the Congressman back to D.C. for the next day's session. I was glad I was able to attend the funeral of the fallen hero, I just wish there was more I could have done.

I sit here now a blessed man, haven been given opportunities others might only dream of. I was recently awarded the position to staff the State Senator's District office in my hometown. It's a part time position, just 20 hours a week, but the pay is great and I am still able to attend school and finish out what I have left to get my degree. I turned in my resignation at campus police and they weren't thrilled to see me go. However, my supervisors wished me luck, and said they would work me to the bone until my last day on Friday! I hope they were kidding.

Although I feel like I'm getting further from dispatching, I don't think it's all a bad thing. I feel like dispatching is almost in my blood, it's become a part of me, and it's something I get excited even thinking about. I think jobs like these, outside of dispatching, and getting my degree may contribute to more success in the long run. My dream for a long time was to get into emergency dispatching. Now that I've had that experience, my goal is to become a supervisor at a mid-size to large comm center. I would love nothing more than to feel that I am making an impact on lives every single day I wake up. You know when people say that if you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life? That's what a position like that would be to me. And I want nothing more than to get to that point in my life. I'm going to make it, someday. By the Grace of God, the love of my family, and hard work and dedication. Oh and don't forget the "soundtrack to my life as a movie" music.

School

Coming back to school, I've had a bit of a difficult time readjusting. It's not been easy taking things slower, concentrating on homework and research instead of work all the time. Nonetheless, it's been a good change. My graduation date has been nailed down, December 2014, a little over a year away. I'm close, and it's exciting! I'm considering going to grad school at the University of Texas at El Paso, not too far from home and somewhere I'm familiar with. Coming back to school and reuniting with friends and professors has brought back a memory of a 911 call I took sometime during the month of May. It was horrific, something I hope no operator or dispatcher ever has to go through.

"911, your emergency?"
"Sir, send help please! We need an ambulance!"

It was from the town down in south county, but coming from a cell phone so I couldn't get an address right away. It was a younger person, couldn't have been any older than 16. It sounded bad from the start. The teen was yelling, urgently and demandingly.

"Okay, stay with me. We're gonna send help, okay? Tell me the location of your emergency."
"I'm at the school, in the metal shop! Our teacher, hurry! I think he had a heart attack, hurry please sir.."

This was a nightmare. It had to be.

"Okay, please stay on the line with me, do not hang up. Has somebody started CPR yet?"
"Yes, they're doing CPR now. Please hurry!"
"About how old is your teacher?"
"I don't know, forty something.."
"And how long has he been unconscious?"
"Like 2 or 3 minutes, please hurry..."
"Okay, please don't hang up."

"Central 565, Central 565, respond to a male subject, approximately 40 years of age, unresponsive at the metal shop at the high school. Subject has been unconscious for approximately 3 minutes. Subject has no pulse and is not breathing, CPR in progress. Break, available 900 units in the area, advise with 565. 1422 Central Clear."
"565, Copy."
"907 Central, 10-4 Code 3 en route!"
"565, 907 10-4 1422."

565 is the ambulance for the town down south. The 900 units were ISD Police Officers.

"Okay, I've got EMS and campus police going over there right now, okay? You did really good.."
"Thank you so much.. Please tell them to hurry.."
"They are going over there right now. I want you to stay on the phone with me until they get there okay?"
"Okay, I will."
"What's your name?"
"My name is David.."
"Okay, David. Listen, you did good. I want you to try and get everybody outside unless they are helping with CPR, okay? Just help..."
"The police are here!"
"Okay, good. Follow his instructions, okay? You did good.."

"907 Central, On Scene!"
"907 10-4 1424."

"Okay David, you did a very good job.. I'm going to let you hang up the phone alright?"
"Okay, thank you so much.."
"You're welcome. We're going to do everything we can..."
"Thank you...."
*click*

I grab my water bottle and take a sip, pull out the banana from my lunch box and eat it in small pieces. I feel like shit, really. EMS checks out shortly after PD, and then I wait for the verdict. I know that very few people come back from having a heart attack, but I'm hopeful, as I always am. I have a pounding headache now, and I wish we had a quiet room.

The despair, the terror, the sheer and utter pain from that child's voice. It resonates with me, deep in my psyche. I take a few deep breaths, and sit back down. I didn't even realize I was standing, and I don't know at what point I stood up.

5 minutes pass, 10 minutes, 15.. I'm starting to get impatient. The phone rings, and startles me.

"Sheriff's Office."
"Hey Daniel, this is Medic 311. Can you send the JP over and start the funeral home?"
"Yeah, sure thing.."
"Alright, thanks. We'll standby until she gets here."
"Alright.. Thanks.."

The rest of the shift was fairly quiet. One by one, units started checking back into service. I felt band for the students, the EMT's, the officers, everybody involved. It was a tragic, tragic event. However, what can one do? Say a prayer, perform to the best of one's abilities, and just know that that's how it had to be. For whatever reason, that's how he died, and it's just how it is.

Even today, I look back at that one particular call. I had enough calls before that where people didn't make it, so it wasn't bad in that respect. I just hope that the students and all involved got the help and counseling they needed. It's not an easy thing to literally witness somebody die. Sometimes, though, I think it's even harder going through it completely blinded.

Disconnection

So, I've been away from dispatching for around 3 weeks. So far, it's been.. difficult. I hear sirens, see a patrol unit running code, drive by one of my old coworkers, and all I can do is hope, wonder, and feel a little more disconnected I miss running 27's, 29's, 28's, 43's. I miss saying "911, what is your emergency?," not knowing what could await me on the other end. I miss dispatching ambulances and deputies, being in on the action and having that feeling of accomplishment. I miss it all.

A few days ago, I went to lunch with a coworker from Campus PD. His name is Aaron. He's a freshman, and has been a great person to get to know. We walked into Pizza Hut and, low and behold, there are two of my ex-deputies sitting there. "Daniel!" they both exclaimed, happy to see me. I went over, shook hands, and caught up with them a little bit. We asked one another how things were going, mulling through the usual stuff. Then I said "How are things in dispatch?" One of them plainly said "It's different. It's not the same without you." Enter guilty jerkwad feeling.. Just what I needed, another reason for me to miss my job.

I'm not trying to gloat, nor am I saying I am the best dispatcher in the world, by far!, but I was good at what I did in that comm center. And nothing pains me more than to hear that things are simply "different." I'm slowly moving on, still reading license plates in my head on my commute, and longing for my spot back under the headset.

Dispatchers, I've come to find that the profession I was in was the worst job I would ever love. It was what I had always wanted. Sometimes, I feel like I sold myself short by quitting my job and going back to school. Yet, on the other hand, I feel like I screwed myself by getting into the business too soon. I probably never should have taken the job in the first place. I'm tempted, but cautious, to say that this job is quite like a drug.. It's addictive, will cause withdraws, yet is oh so satisfying once you get the fix..

Oatmeal

I wrote this post on Wednesday and haven't had the heart or guts to post it until today.

This morning, I got to work and made my instant oatmeal. It was sort of weird today, because instead of the single serve cups I normally have, I had to make it myself, measuring out the oatmeal and water, and heating it up for as long as it took to take the crunch out. 45 seconds.. 20 seconds.. 20 more seconds.. Shit, it's overflowing. I turned off the microwave, started cleaning my mess, and thought to myself, "Now this is something.."

This has probably been a long time coming, and I think I was in denial that it would ever happen. It crossed my mind, but I never imagined it would come down to this. Sure, there's always the other option, just to take things as they come. But sometimes, by thinking we are leaving things up to fate, we are missing the opportunity that fate has already given us. It's normally staring right at us looking us in the face. And many times, we completely miss it. We miss the opportunity to better ourselves, the opportunity to do something new, or finish something we had already started. My friends, I have found myself at this point in my career. Just a year into dispatching, I'm at a fork in the road. And what do you do if you come to a fork in the road? Well, you pick it up and take it home of course! Joking.. For me, it's been a whole lot of thinking, a lot of restless nights trying to decide what it is I'm really going to do.

Last night was especially strange. I tossed and turned, waking up almost every hour. I'd look at the clock, try and get comfortable, fall asleep, over and over.. I remember dreaming something quite strange, but I can't fully recall what it was. All I know is that there was a gentleman, Justin, who had something to do with a suicide, either his own or that of someone else. Whoever Justin is, I hope he finds his peace.

This post has been sort of like today was, up until about an hour ago; Long, awkward, beating around the bush. Today, I had to resign from my position as a dispatcher at the Sheriff's Office. My last day will be Thursday, September 5th. I know many of you may be looking at your computer screens, some with mouths agape, others just confused about what happened. I want to cry, but I'll go into some details and save whatever manhood I have left.

Back when I started on August 3rd, 2012, I had anticipated being on the night for, well, ever. I took some online classes, maintained them, and was enjoying life. Second semester of school came around, and I ran into an issue: I needed to take a science class, with a lab. The solution was scheduling the earliest science class I could get, 9am, driving there after work, then coming home to sleep. Sometimes, I'd get lucky and catch 8 hours of sleep. Other times, not so much. However, it worked out pretty well! That is, until March came around. In March, we ended up losing 2 people, back to back. This meant I had to be bumped up to the day shift, pronto. This sort of ruined my original plan of sticking it out through the end of the semester, and I ended up flunking my science class.

Enter Financial Aid. For anybody who has attended college before, you may know that Financial Aid is not the easiest department to deal with. I got a letter that basically told me if I had another bad semester, they were going to take away my free money for school. Really?! I decided I was going to attempt a full semester's course load online. Enter Life. Work was busy, I had run into some medical problems, and school seemed to get put on the back burner. The semester ended dismally, I didn't pass any of the classes I was in. Was it my commitment to the coursework? Maybe my time availability? Probably a mixture of both, along with other things. Nonetheless, I was sinking fast.

I received a notification that I was placed on Financial Aid Suspension this past week, and it stated that unless they saw improvement after I had paid for classes out of my own pocket, I was not able to get any sort of Financial Aid. Talk about the light at the end of the tunnel being blown out. However, there was still one glimmer of hope: the Appeal Process. To this point, I've submitted all my paperwork for the appeal process and am waiting to see what the committee decides after their meeting tomorrow morning. I'm hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, which would be having to spend my last paycheck on a tuition payment. We'll see..

During these last two weeks at the sheriff's office and during the back to school transition, I'd appreciate lots of prayers and support. It wasn't an easy decision to make, and I'd be lying if I said I was happy to quit my job. But for now, it just isn't in the stars. Do I hope I can come back someday to the profession? Absolutely. In fact, I'm going to be working back at Campus Police, dispatching and being the campus operator. It's not near as exciting as working at a PSAP dispatching EMS, Fire, Police and Deputies, but it's something to keep me in the field.

Over these next few weeks, I'm going to try and post much more often. I want to talk about how I'm feeling, what's going on with the college stuff, and all that jazz. It's going to be an interesting two weeks, that's for sure. Nonetheless, I'm not going anywhere, just changing scenes for a bit. Thanks to everybody so far who has encouraged me to do what's best for me. In the end, one should not hate a man for wanting to better himself. That's what I'm trying to do, and I appreciate the support.

Anniversary

Today, I woke up at 6:00am, got dressed, got my things together, and drove to work. I walked into the comm center, took my pass down report, logged in to CAD, took my seat, and smiled. Today, August 3rd, 2013, I have officially been on the job for 1 full year. It got here so quick, and I couldn't be more excited! Unless these allergies disappeared then it'd be a real party...

It's exciting!! Never did I think I would end up where I have, but I find myself growing more and more appreciative of the opportunity to do what I've always wanted to do; I'm in a position where I can make a difference in my community, helping friends, neighbors, and complete strangers. This position is one where, few, if any, get to see from the outside. But I've managed to make the best of it. I've managed to learn a lot, make a lot of mistakes, and learn a lot of lessons the hard way. I've learned about deductive reasoning, filtering through the bullshit, and keeping my emotions out of making important decisions. This job has taught me more in one year than college did in three years. It's taught me skills that can all be taught in separate fields, but are rarely found altogether. I've learned to handle situations few are ever in. If there was one word I could use to describe this, it'd be AWESOME.

Are there things I still need to learn? Of course, there's always something new to learn. No two situations are ever the same, nor do they ever have the same outcome. Sure, there are the common, sometimes BS, calls we receive. A lost dog, car lockout, even the occasional MVA in the grocery store parking lot. Most of these calls seem pretty routine. Take info, send a unit, wait for them to clear, it's a simple process, really. Yet, I've learned that there are also difficult moments in this job. Moments where, I wish I wasn't on this end of the headset. I don't know how many times I asked myself, "Why did I have to take this call? I don't get it." It's difficult to understand sometimes, but that's just how it goes.

I will say, I'm quite glad I'm not on the other day shift, as that seems to be the shit-hits-the-fan-hardest shift. However, I'm also a strong believer in fate and divine intervention. I do believe that I get calls that should only happen on my shift. Like the woman from church who was my grandmother's best friend in high school. She heard my voice and immediately recognized it, calling me by my first name, and telling me what she needed. A few weeks later, I ran into her, and she told me something I will never forget: "I'm glad you were the one working, because when I heard your voice, it helped me calm down and I knew that everything was going to be alright." Never could I have asked for better validation than that; I believe that for now, I am in the right place.

I've had a lot of "Oh shit," moments as well. Moments where I have to wonder if there's anything else that could go wrong. I can tell you about things I love in this job, and I can probably tell you about even more things I hate about this job. I won't, because we'd be here all day. But there is definitely a fine line between "THIS IS AWESOME!!" and "I hate my life..." For instance, you get a wanted person. Hooray!! Then, the wanted person decides they are going to do the smartest thing ever and try to outrun the cops. NOT HOORAY. Your 10-99 has just turned into a 10-33, 10-80 on the countywide repeater system. And suddenly, you find yourself at the front line of the battlefield, with every bit of information all the other officers need. Can you say echo transmissions?!

All in all though, it's been a great ride this first year in emergency communications. Do I have doubts that I can do this much longer, even for the rest of my career? Of course. At some point or another, every dispatcher feels like they don't belong, like they are making a mistake, like it's only a matter of time before somebody dies on their watch. Yet, sticking it out is what separates the those who can and those who cannot. Those who cannot will take their fears and run with them. Those who can will know that anything can happen, and are 100% willing to take on that challenge. That's the kind of dispatcher I want to be. The kind that is ready for anything and everything you may encounter, no matter what. Am I there yet? No. Will I be someday? Probably not. But fret not, this doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing, it only means that I will never become so complacent that I decide I know everything about my job. Few people, if any, really know everything about their job..

On a closing note, I want to say to all of you, thank you. Thanks for being dispatchers, thanks for doing what you do, and thanks for putting up with all my shenanigans (is that a colloquialism?). To all dispatchers, I'm proud to be amongst a group of the best first responders a nation could ask for. Dispatch on, brothers and sisters!!!

Mexico and Insanity

So maybe this is giving too much away. Or maybe it's telling you just enough to leave up to imagination. There's a growing gripe I have about my job. It's been a problem since day one, but since then I've just tried to grin and bear it. It's a constant nuisance, but there's nothing I can do to stop it. I'm not talking about any person here, but somewhere many miles away from where I am. I'm talking about somebody in Mexico. Well, somebodies, is probably a more accurate word to describe this great dislike, near hate, I have. Following? Allow me to explain.

I work in one of the counties where the United States and Mexico are separated by nothing more than some knee-deep flowing water, El Rio Grande. Yet, in this comm center, there seems to be an overflow of something few, if any, people know about. I'm talking about an overflow, literal overflow of 911 calls from deactivated cell phones in Mexico bouncing off of US towers and getting routed to our PSAP. It's quite an annoying, actually causes trouble sometimes when we're working real incidents, yet, we have no control over it. No 911 call can be denied, therefore we receive calls from every activated and deactivated cell phone that will pick up signal. It's a nuisance.

Most of the time, the person on the other end is a kid, yelling profanities at me in Spanish. I happen to be bilingual, which helps in a county where the population is that of around 80% Hispanics. Here's a taste of what I get most of the time but, please, pardon my Frenc.. er, Spanish.

*PSAP ringing, 911 area code. No location, just the tower.*
(Insert desired mental profanities here)
"911, your emergency?"
"Bueno?"
"Si, linea de emergencia, que es tu emergencia?"
"Chinga tu madre wey, pinchi mamon."
"Perdon, tienes emergencia?"
"No, no tengo emergencia pinchi wey jodido. Vales verga."
"Esta es la linea de emergencia de los estados unidos. Solamente debes de llamar esta linea si tienes emergencia en los Estados Unidos."
*Line Disconnects*
*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*
(More mental profanities)

This happens anywhere between 5 and 30, sometimes 50+, times a day. Sometimes the line is already abandoned, so there's just the matter of logging the call. But after about 10 times in a row, it starts to grow really old, really fast. Once, one of my coworkers received 58 "Mexico" calls. In a row. Within an hour. She was mentally drained after that. After all, we're still on paper logs so we have to write each one down including time and phone number.

Is there a real point to this blog? Maybe. Maybe it's educate the public about some of the problems and dilemmas we face in the comm center. Maybe it's to let other dispatchers know about this ever growing problem. Or maybe it's just an attempt to gain some sort of validation; validation that I'm doing the right thing by sticking out these issues. Or maybe I'm trying to make a point that the kids with cell phones on the other side of the Rio Grande are just insane. After all, insanity has been defined as performing the same action repeatedly, expecting a different outcome.