For those of you who don't know what I do, I am a 911 calltaker, police and fire disptacher. I love my job. I love being able to help people.
This week is National Emergency Telecommunicators Week. This was sent around my work a while ago and was written by Sherrif Winder of the SLCO Sherrifs Dept. This describes what I do every night.
For my fellow dispatchers, thank you for all you do. You truly are heros.
What do you take for granted?There are some things we all take for granted. We all walk into a room and turn on the light and expect that the lights will come on. We get into our car turn the key and expect that the engine will start. And many of us get into our police cars every day, check on and expect dispatch will be there.
Dispatch is always there and all too often we do take them for granted. We assume that no matter what happens we will always be able to push the button and someone will not only answer, but have the answers to some of the most bizarre questions. Who is responsible for the running water at 8850 West 2800 South? Will animal control respond on a missing python? Call the airport and tell them to stop the planes from coming over us. These and many, many more requests are received and addressed by our Dispatch Center every single day.
We all believe we have the hardest job, it is human nature, weather we are Patrol Deputies, Housing Officers or Intake Clerks we often convince ourselves that what we do is by far the most stressful and on any given day it may be. But take a moment and think about the role of the Dispatcher.
These men and women come to work every day and every night and immediately begin to field calls from angry, upset and frightened individuals. People who are in crisis are often not the nicest to deal with especially over the phone. They scream they threaten, and they demand. When the Deputies arrive on scene the people even if they were completely out of line on the phone with the dispatcher tend to calm down, after all they are now speaking face to face to another human and they are speaking with someone who may just take them to jail. But to the dispatcher no such restraint exists.
And unfortunately it is not just the public who speaks in less than kind tones to our dispatchers. Occasionally Deputies find themselves in stressful situations and may unintentionally take it out on the person on other end of the line. I have, on more than a few occasions heard Deputies bark at the dispatcher when they couldn't find an address, or when a tow truck failed to appear in a reasonable amount of time.
All of the stress of the rude and discourteous people pales in comparison to one aspect of the Dispatchers job.
Imagine sitting in a room with head phones on at 2:30 in the morning. You haven't heard the radio crackle for 30 minutes, then suddenly, you hear a Deputies' panicked voice. "Salt Lake Charlie 31, priority". Your heart begins to race as the adrenaline races into your blood, and yet you have to hold it together. "Go ahead 30". "Salt Lake I am 10-80 East bound 5400 South 4800 West, 100 Miles per hour blue Ford truck 3 suspects". Now your adrenaline really begins to pump and yet you still must hold it together. You hit the tones on your console alerting every on duty member of the Sheriffs Office that a pursuit has begun and at the same time you have just ensured that every Deputy, regardless of location is now switching to listen to YOUR pursuit.
"All units Charlie 30 is in pursuit East bound 5400 South from 4800 West with a blue ford truck occupied three times." The Deputy keys his microphone and nearly screams into the radio, "Salt Lake suspect has just gone dark, still east bound approaching 4000 West". Now the terror really sets in as you realize that a 5000 pound bullet, traveling 100 plus miles an hour is heading for a main intersection without its lights on. After repeating the Deputies traffic, you wait for the next location... and it doesn't come.
Dispatchers have many skills, skills that are honed over years of working under these stressful conditions and one of these skills is the ability to know how long is too long when it comes to a Deputies response. As the mental clock ticks, you become more and more concerned. "What's taking so long", you key your head set and you call, "Charlie 30",...no response, you wait a few more seconds, seconds that seem like hours, "Charlie 30" you say, your voice raising. Now not only are you afraid but so is every other person listening to the radio traffic. Has the chase ended? Are they out on foot? Does the Deputy have them at gun point? Or worst of all, has something happened to the Deputy.
After several attempts at trying to raise the pursuing deputy, and your heart sinking, you hear it. The traffic you have dreaded. "Charlie 35, I have arrived 4000 West 5400 South 10-50." Immediately you know what has happened. Two vehicles, one occupied by a person you have been working with for years, that were previously traveling at over 100 miles per hour are now in a twisted heap in an intersection miles away from where you are and there is now little if anything you can do.
As you hear the other Units Arrive it becomes clearer and clearer that something is terribly wrong. "Where is Charlie 30" you think and then you hear it, the sound of a Deputy screaming " send medical."
As the minutes click by you are only able to function because you must. After all, you still have much to do. You must still account for all of the other Units that are arriving, now from all over the valley. You must call for medical and provide as much detail as possible, and you must still hold it together!
Finally the words you wanted, and yet didn't want to hear. "Salt Lake we have 4 victims, 2 are 10-85 delta and 2 charlie minus." Now the reality of the dreadful situation sets in. "This is not good, not good at all", all of the victims are in critical condition and two are possibly fatal. And still no one has bothered to inform you how the Deputy is doing.
There is a phenomenon that occurs in these types of situations. The Deputies and emergency responders on the scene shift into a kind of automation. They know what to do and they are doing it, but for some reason they believe that the dispatchers, perhaps because they are not physically on scene don't need to know exactly what is going on. Because the men and women on the scene can see with there own eyes what is happening they become transfixed and loose sight of the fact that somewhere in a dimly lit room there is a person who is as much a part of the incident as any of them.
This, my friends, is stress. So remember next time you key that microphone, it isn't a light bulb turning on, or a car starting up, it's a human being, a friend, a partner and most importantly a vital part of our family.
