I was a dispatcher.
For six years I was part of a team responsible for making sure (approximately), 150 law enforcement agents and 100 fire fighters went home safely at the end of each shift. When we sat down in our chairs, we were responsible for the entire county: over 1,534 sq miles of land and water, about 47,000 residents and over 20,000 visitors a year. I worked with four computer monitors, two computers, a multi phone line and two or more radio channels. Dispatching is about multi tasking: not like walking and chewing gum multi tasking, but talk on the radio, listen to your officers, talk on the phone and type in all the notes at the same time. I have gone from knitting for hours to not being able to go to the bathroom for a whole shift.
I have lived through wild fire seasons, structure fires, river rafting and drowning accidents, snow storms, traffic accidents, car and foot pursuits, tasers being deployed and officers getting into accidents. I’ve sent deputies into harms way and helped find lost or missing people. I’ve heard the deputies call out for assistance and the screams of a victims family. I’ve helped coordinate multiple agency responses and prayed for the deputy I had to send in alone to a call. I’ve listened to people who just needed to talk and to people who having the worst day of their life.
I’ve trained people who thought it was going to be an easy job and watched people walk away when it was too much. I’ve been the one to send someone to a wrong location and I’ve been one who found the location when no one else could. I’ve worked 12 hour shifts, holidays, weekends, days, nights, birthdays, anniversaries and sometimes, even by myself. I’ve gotten the request for the coroner, given CPR instructions to a family member and listened to a suicidal mother asking me for help while she’s holding her five year old son. “You’re a good Mommy” plays over and over in my head.
I’ve laughed at calls that never made sense or deputies who thought we could beam the fire trucks to their location. I’ve felt defeat and accomplishment in the same day. I’ve had open mics where I said things I thought for sure would get me fired. I’ve taken the call from an alarm company where there was a hostage situation. I’ve sent out reverse 911’s for fires, missing persons, evacuations or suspicious people. I’ve argued with coworkers, my boss, and even the chief of police. I’ve stood my ground and lost some battles.
People ask me, what was your worst call. I had many. Sending officers into a wildfire with winds at 90 mph to find the residents who lived there to a domestic dispute with a weapon and the child who was calling, locked in the bathroom afraid to talk to me. I’ve checked statuses on my officers with no response, where your heart stops and you can’t breathe, then you hear their voice. But my worst still plays in my minds eye like it was yesterday.
I still hear the sounds of the phone ringing, the three different radio channels constant chatter, my partner working her radio and phone, the constant noise.
The constant noise.
We had a little boy missing from his parents. He had wandered off while mom and dad were packing the moving truck. Mom thought dad had him and vice versa. They lived near the river. I remember hearing one of the officers call out, he sees the boy, he’s in the river.
The noise stops. The noise stops.
Silence.
I hear his partner advise the officer has jumped into the river with full gear and has gotten caught with an under tow. The officer is up and OK. Another officer has gotten to the boy.
The radio is silent.
The phones are silent.
My partner is silent.
The boy has drowned.
I remember the tears I held back: There’s no crying in dispatch. I headed home (was the end of my shift) and I cried all the way. I asked to go to the funeral, which wasn’t ever done before, but my partner and I went, along with the Sargent on duty that day, and three of the other responding deputies, we stood in the back, out of the way.
My partner and I held it together until: a boy about 12-14 years old comes up to us after the funeral. Stops at the first deputy standing in the line we were in, sticks out his hand to shake the deputies hand and says.
I will never forget it.
“Thank you for finding my cousin”
My partner and I turned around and lost it.
I was a dispatcher for six years. I had to walk away due to medical issues. It was by far, my most favorite, rewarding, aggravating, tiring and important job I have ever had. Dispatchers are often over looked as first responders and most of the time, we never know what the out come is. It takes a special person to be a dispatcher and I give credit to all the dispatchers out there. The job is tough. But so are they.
DK
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