Answering the Call: Emergency Communicators are the First Line of Defense in Emergency Situations

Story by Gail Parsons
Photography by Ari Lawrence

“911, what’s your emergency?”

The words that come across the phone line next can be anything from a report of a child missing or not breathing, a house on fire, a traffic accident, or a loud party.

The emergency communicators who answer the phones at Effingham 911 must be ready for anything, all the time—they are the first line of defense in emergency situations.

It’s a job that comes with a roller coaster of rewards, challenges, and emotions, all packed into 12-hour shifts. It takes a type-A or type-AB personality to be an effective dispatcher, said My Nguyen, records and training coordinator.

“Our job is to gather information in a short amount of time,” she said.  “Our standard is within 60 seconds we have to dispatch a call and get responders out whether the person calling is hysterical or calm.”

The response of the communications officers in the moments after a call is initiated can make a difference in a life-and-death situation.

“We have to facilitate appropriate communication expeditiously,” Nguyen said. “Assertive personnel is what we need, also someone who is able to multitask in a high-stress environment … somebody that’s able to effectively communicate in a fast-paced environment.”

Dispatchers are not just talking to a person on the phone. They are answering calls on the radio, monitoring six screens simultaneously, entering information, assessing the situation, and connecting all the moving parts. Sometimes they are walking a caller through lifesaving measures as they wait for Emergency Medical Services to arrive on scene.

Many of the skills needed are taught through training. However, effective communication is difficult to teach, if the person has not already cultivated that skill, she said.

Riding the Roller coaster

“Every time that 911-line rings, somebody’s having the worst day of their life,” said 911 Director Jay Spinks. “As a communications officer … you become part of that tragedy. The dispatcher sitting for 12 hours may take eight 911 calls, so they’re living eight tragedies in one 12-hour shift. That dispatcher experiences and goes through that tragedy with that caller each and every time.”

Adding to the emotional stress is the up and down of the calls and the spikes of adrenaline. One moment they may be calming a caller angry about a neighbor parking in their spot, or sending police to a store for a shoplifter. They might have a couple of routine calls. But the next call could be a two-year-old who’s drowned in a swimming pool, Spinks said.

“It’s a constant up and down, up and down,” he said. “After a 12-hour shift, they get up out of their seat and they’re dizzy. They are dizzy, they’re emotionally drained. They have just been through 12 hours of constant—emergency, not really emergency, emergency. They don’t know where to focus. It’s very taxing mentally and physically.

Nguyen, who will leave to start a new career in the Air Force, said her most memorable, if not the most heartbreaking calls she took in her nine years as an Effingham dispatcher happened when she was fresh out of training.

“I just got CPR certified,” she said. “It was a two-month-old infant and she was not breathing.”

Falling back on training she got responders to the baby quickly and began facilitating CPR with the mother. However, during the call, they were disconnected. Although responders arrived in less than five minutes, it was too late.

“This call will always stick with me,” she said. “Because, while I was calm in the moment, once responders got on scene, I had to take a break and debrief because that was the first emergent call I’d ever taken in training. It was a weekend — very early … and I remember calling Ms. Chearaè and I was crying. I was hysterical. I said, ‘I could not save that child. I could not save her.’”

Chearaè Warner, deputy director, calmed her down and walked her through the call. Step-by-step they concluded she had followed her every procedure and protocol.

Nguyen learned important lessons that day. First, she learned there are some situations that will simply be out of her control. She also learned the talk about the open-door policy and family-like setting in the Effingham 911 office was more than just words.

A couple of months later she walked a teenager through CPR on her grandmother.

“The responders advised that they did not believe she was going to make it but because CPR instructions were given very clearly, the teen was able to calm down and listen to exactly what I was telling her to do,” Nguyen said. “By the time they got to the hospital, she was up, breathing, talking and we got her back. There are very distressing calls, but also rewarding at the end of the day.”

Justin Wilson, internal records and training coordinator, also knows the emotional challenge of being on the receiving side of a 911 call.

“The biggest challenge for me is being stuck in a room,” he said. “You hear someone on the line, frantic, begging for help. You’re helping but at the same time you kind of feel stuck.”

Through time and training he said he has learned how to balance empathy and understanding while not letting his own emotions interfere with his work.

On the flip side; however, being “stuck” in the office opens an avenue to the rewards he finds. Wilson was in paramedic school when he first took a part-time job dispatching, thinking it would be a great way to get his foot in the door to a public safety job.

“I fell in love with the trainer — the passion she had for the job really rubbed off on me,” he said.  “So, I quit school and I’ve been doing this ever since. In the field I could touch one person at a time, in this room within an hour I could help 15 people depending on the type of day and what’s going on, it’s the reward of knowing that I was able to do something for somebody”

Finding Ways to Cope

Warner and Spinks said they take a “working staff” approach with a focus on communication and they maintain an open-door policy because having been dispatchers, they know what it’s like. This approach has aided the Effingham 911 Center in retention, which many agencies across the country struggle with.

“We get in there and we help with what’s going on in dispatch and Jay encourages it,” Warner said. “If they see you working from the top as a team, and on the floor with them, side by side, it makes people want to cultivate that behavior and stay longer. They adjust to what’s going on because they see that we’re all united.”

When she is in the control room she will watch and listen. Times when a dispatcher finishes with a tough call, she’ll take them aside. If they want to talk, she’ll listen; if they need to take a break and listen to some music or call a family member, they can do that.

While there are courses people can take to help develop coping skills, Spinks said it is different for each individual.

“It’s something you have to develop on your own,” he said. “You have to, for lack of a better word, become a little jaded, a little callous, because you have to build those walls to protect yourself. That’s not to say you lose any compassion for that caller but you have to protect yourself. That’s the number one priority. You can’t become too emotionally involved in this call because you’ve got to get ready for the next call. And it’s tricky. So, in this line of work, burnout is extremely high.”

Nguyen found one way to help keep her grounded is to not live in the county. This way she would never have to take a call about a neighbor and she could keep her work at arms length.

“I tend to dissociate,” she said. “When I am not in Effingham County working, I do not ponder Effingham County news. And like Jay said, it can seem callous or insensitive but you have to put up a boundary.”

At the end of the day, the dispatchers go home knowing they made a difference.

“Every day I go home, I know I did something,” Wilson said. “I know every day when I come to work, I touch somebody’s life. I created something for somebody to continue on or made a bad day a little bit better.”