At 911, they’ve heard it all. Drunk calls. Toddlers calling 911 when they play with a phone. During the height of the pandemic dozens of citizens dialed 911 every day to report people for not wearing a mask or social distancing. A man called for someone to come out with a metal detector to recover the gold necklace he lost at the beach. One person called saying they were running late for a flight and demanded that 911 hold the plane. When told that this didn’t rise to the level of an emergency, the caller said it was an emergency to them.
Then, in the middle of non-emergency calls and accidental dials, comes the kind of life-and-death situation 911 was designed for. A woman says her husband is in cardiac arrest. Public Safety Telecommunicator Jessica Howard talks the panicked wife through detailed CPR instructions. By the time the fire department arrives they are able to get a successful heart rhythm. Today, the man has made a full recovery.
That is one of the many success stories that will be celebrated during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, April 10-16, 2022. Begun in 1981, this event recognizes the phone operators and dispatchers who have saved countless lives around the country.
“Our Telecommunicators are great multitaskers, compassionate, caring… they’re amazing, the unsung heroes of public safety,” says Lori Collins, 911 Database Analyst and Public Educator for Pinellas County.
The 911 telecommunicators work 12-hour shifts, four days on, three days off, with a lot of overtime. The phones have to be staffed all the time. During Hurricane Irma staff slept in the building. COVID swept through the call center three times. They created ten take-home kits with two radios and a laptop so radio operators could work at home if they were COVID-positive but asymptomatic.
A High Stress Job
The stress level of the job can be incredibly high. Cardiac event calls like the one Howard took are among the most traumatic for telecommunicators, as are childbirth, choking, and suicide. 911 telecommunicators are trained to give detailed medical or safety instructions for every possible scenario.
When Hurricane Irma was at its most intense, there was a 12-hour period when they continued to take calls but could not dispatch anyone to respond to them. Conditions were just too dangerous to allow emergency vehicles on the road. A telecommunicator took a call from a woman whose house was on fire. She talked her through evacuating her children… and then had to tell her that no one could come out in hurricane-force winds to save her house. When she hung up the phone she collapsed in tears, overcome with a sense of helplessness and grief for the woman who had just lost everything.
By the Numbers
The numbers tell a story of the amount of work telecommunicators have to do. According to Collins, in 2021 they handled a total of 1,178,000 calls (including 911 and inbound and outbound non-emergency calls.) Of those, 577,482 were 911 calls. There were 12,022 pandemic-related calls, 5,400 overdoses, 1,027 suicides, 26,000 falls, 493 water rescues, and 380 animal bites.
Collins says that for every car crash that occurs, 911 receives an average of 25 calls. They have to figure out which are the duplicate calls and quickly clear the line for other emergencies.
Repeat callers can clog up the 911 system. Very often, though, there are solvable problems underlying repeat calls. One person called 911 a total of 192 times requesting the fire department to come out and lift them up the two front steps to their house. If every response takes about 20 minutes, that’s 64 hours of the fire department’s time that keeps them from responding to emergencies.
Digging Deeper
The Complex Case Management Team was made for issues like this. Made up of 911, Fire Department, Emergency Management Services, Sunstar, Operation PAR, and Pinellas Integrated Care, they meet to discuss repeat callers and complicated cases. “There are solutions out there,” Collins said. “We just have to get together as a group and figure out what needs to be done.” In this case, they found a donor who got the person a removable ramp so they could take it if they moved to a new apartment. They secured a promise for funding on a Wednesday, the check was written Thursday, and on Friday the citizen had a new ramp.
They never needed to call 911 for a lift assist again.
Public Safety Telecommunicators listen carefully to the stories behind the stories. When an elderly man called 911 three days in a row to ask where his dinner was, a telecommunicator realized that they had responded to hospitalize his wife three days ago. When they sent a deputy out to conduct a welfare check, it was discovered that the man had Alzheimer’s, which no one had detected in the original callout. Thanks to a telecommunicator’s diligence, they were able to successfully connect the man to services that could help him.
The communications center at the Pinellas County Public Safety Complex houses 911, Sunstar, and the sheriff’s office dispatchers. 911 also takes all of the sheriff’s office non-emergency calls. When you have to be in an office for 12-hour stretches, you need a comfortable work environment. The telecommunicators have 5-screen displays, chairs that are completely customizable, personal climate control, and tables that can smoothly rise at the touch of a button to convert to a standing desk.
Dispatching to Deputies
Sheila Sommer is a Communication Shift Supervisor with the PCSO. According to Sommer, certain qualities are vital in a public safety telecommunicator. “They need to be calm and strong, with plenty of empathy,” she says. “They must have the ability to make good level-headed decisions quickly, be able to problem solve very quickly, and have great attention to detail.” On the job they must be able to “deal with a horrible incident on the phone or on the radio and hold it together emotionally while it’s occurring. We cry later.”
Dispatchers do a lot to keep deputies safe on the job. “While working a radio channel, I was the dispatcher where a deputy ultimately ended up having to shoot someone who was shooting at people,” Sommer said. “I really just did my job, which was to send the back-up and resources needed to help to keep the deputy safe and calm after the incident. I received an award for my part in this incident.”
In another incident, Sommer took the 911 call when road rage led to a shooting. “This was an awful call and I can still hear them pleading for help.”
But Sommer loves her job. The best parts? “The adrenaline rush: high priority incidents, busy radio channels, and hearing the K9 excited on the radio.”
One of the most challenging parts can be the lack of closure. When you jump into a person’s life at one of their most traumatic moments it can be hard not to know how the story plays out in days and weeks to come.
Sommer knows that the public and even other divisions in the PCSO don’t always realize the extent of a public safety telecommunicator's responsibilities. National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week is a way to bring awareness to everything they do.
Somehow, these masters of multitasking manage to get it all done. Which is lucky for us, because their job can very often be a matter of life or death for deputies and for the citizens of Pinellas County.
“Celebrating National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week is important because it brings a spotlight to our often unsung heroes who wear the headset behind the scenes,” says 911 Supervisor Andrea Henry. “They act as the vital first link in emergency dispatch systems that ensures that the right assistance is sent to the right location and when seconds count in many life and death situations. They must make critical decisions each and every shift, several times a shift. Public Safety Telecommunicators deserve to be recognized for their expert skills in keeping the calm in the chaos!”
