911 Experiences
 

Several of you have showed an interest in my lifestyle of being a full time 911 dispatcher/supervisor and have asked for me to share some of my experiences. I am honored beyond words to be asked to share this part of my life! :D

I would also like to hear about any experiences you have had with any 911 world wide. I am very interested in learning how other states/countries handle their 911 services.

This is my first attempt at this endeavor so I will just start out with this little poem we have posted in our lobby here at the center. It was written several years ago by several of us 'ole timers' who had a slow night and was feeling creative...

Protecting the Three

I am the Officer, follow me
Preserving the peace is where I'll be
I am the torch that lights the way
In darkness my courage will never sway
Leading the others, that is me
I am the Officer, guiding the Three.

I am the Fire Fighter, follow me
Into the flames is where I'll be
I am he who battles the beast
To protect that on which it would feast
Lending strength to the others, that is me
I am the Fire Fighter, supporting the Three.

I am the Medic, follow me
Easing the pain is where I'll be
I am the one who helps them survive
Lifting the fallen to keep them alive
Treating the others, that is me
I am the Medic, healing the Three.

I am the Dispatcher, don't follow me
Agony and chaos is where I'll be
Working in obscurity, the forgotten place
Not death, but insanity is the danger I face.
Answering the call, that is me
I am the Dispatcher, protecting the Three.

Good start. :thumb:

The call came through her office when Brown Thrasher was shot twice with a 50 caliber by his roommate (whom I also knew). I'm sure a lot of you old timers remember old Thrasher... RIP. They gave the guy who shot him life. I've posted about this before.... too lazy to link the threads. He's still in the members list. Brown Thrasher = shit stirrer = somebody finally killed that sumbitch = wish I'd have never told him about teh Cellar.....

Glad you started the thread juju! Now I'm calling 911. Nah... I'll just wait and talk to you in the morning on our way to the dentist. OUCH!

Always say good morning to dispatch! They're much nicer to you the rest of the day if you do.

Now don't be going to the dentist with curlys 'tween your teeth. :headshake

No mooshie cooshie tonight, XO.... she's on the radio.

juju, love the poem. :)

Just took a call from a child screaming his daddy was beating his momma! Those are the hardest ones when the children call. I just want to rush out and hug them to my bosum and comfort them. But before I can think too hard about it, another call for a crisis such as a cat up a tree, a wreck on the freeway, or a house fire comes in and duty calls.

Holy ƒuck.

911 calls me more often than I call 911.

...

jujuw, I know that kind of a call. Do you ever use your local CISM team?

(I just got applications for my team from four dispatchers from my local call center, we already have three on the team, and the best CISM guy I know is a dispatcher, so you do have plenty of peer support. And by that I mean peer support other than going out for beer at the end of the shift.)

...

The poem is awesome.

Wolf, I hate to sound stupid but I've never heard of CISM. What is that?

I can tell you a little bit about the ambulance side of things in the UK.

The 999 call goes through to an operator(s) whose sole job is to put the call through to the relevant service - Fire, Ambulance or Police. Actually, I think the Coastguard is the fourth emergency service, but living so far inland I've no experience of it personally.

The call will then be diverted to a local office, although as thime has gone on, the offices have been less and less local. Mum used to work at the end of Dunsham Lane (10 minutes walk?). Now I think the office is in Northampton. 40 odd miles away.

When the call came through as an emergency (ie a 999 call) a light went off on the top of the consoles. The caller was then dealt with by a member of staff in the office, who had to get as many details from them as possible. They then decided which ambulance was closest/ free/ properly equipped to handle the nature of the call and contacted them on the radio. It was all done manually and required excellent knowledge of the roads and area and meticulous paperwork.

Note - my information is probably well out of date by now!

In the UK, even if the staff suspect it is a hoax call, or know the caller as a hypochondriac, the ambulance still has to attend. Mum said some of the most upsetting calls were when some old dear was on the phone trying to hold back tears and apologising for calling about their husband turning blue when Mum knew she'd sent an ambulance on a call to someone who probably only had bad indigestion.

She used to work shifts - 07.00-15.00, 13.00-21.00, 15.00-23.00 and 23.00-07.00. I could never get my head round what she was working when, so there used to be a big shift chart on the wall. I'd look ahead to days like birthdays and such and just cringe if it was nights. That was the worst shit in so many ways, and she used to be very difficult to live with. We had a couple of miserable Christmases when the shifts fell in the wrong pattern.

Dad worked shifts too, and I got older I might be the only person up for her to talk to when she got home at 21.30 (my sister has always been early to bed). I remember her coming home one night telling me about a Police motorbike fatality where they had to collect what they could in plastic bags... And of a woman split right up to her bellybutton, with everything below the waist lying on the road.

I'm not really sure how helpful I was to her. I was a selfish teenager. The stories have stayed with me though.

Still, at least I was the only call-centre member who never had to stop and think about the call sigh alphabet - we learned it alongside Mum when I was 11.

I just called 911 cuz there was a pretty bad car accident out front - guy that answered was a douche.

This one time, on 9 11 my sister was walking our goat under this tower when she was hit by a flagpole when it fell...

hahaha brilliant!

911 dispatchers tell cops where to go!

911 dispatchers do it with frequency!

WAIT.

how did you two meet again?

Bruce - that's obviously a public telephone near the coast.
As I said, I suspected it's a proper service, but I am (and always have been) near to the geographical point furthest away from the sea on this island. I'd never dare speak for the Coastguard, being all of approx 70 miles away ;)

70 miles? That's almost beachfront in the wide ol' US of A. Funny thing is we actually have Coast Guard in Arizona.

Out here on the coast we dial 999 and are asked by dispatch - 'Fire, Police, Ambulance or Coastguard'? The CG then alerts RNLI, lifeboat service, and/or RAF rescue helicopters. Its a sort of cascade system and works well. Lifeboats can also be summoned direct by 'MayDay' signal or maroon rockets fired from on board, two rockets indicate souls at risk. Nothing is this world would induce me to take to the lifeboat, as crew that is. The waters here are as treacherous as anywhere on earth.

We met in the local Moose Lodge. I was a radio operator in the Corps and she an operator for the 911.

Star crossed?;)

You did note the absence of a 9 key?

You just press the 3 three times. Don't they teach maths over here? if you can't figure that out, Darwin rocks.

:blush:

[mumblemumble] yes, I completely missed the joke first time round [/embarrassedmumble]

OMG it was a very slow Friday night and it really made these 12 hrs go by really slow! Thank goodness a co-worker left her laptop for me to use or I would have been bored beyond tears! I will be glad when mine gets fixed.

It may be boring but I'm pretty sure you don't want the alternative. :headshake

We had a domestic violence call earlier this week. Husband pushed the wife into a coffee table, she dropped the three year old she was holding. Kid smacked his head on the table on the way down and was bleeding pretty good. The husband was in the "oh my God I didn't mean to.." mode when we got there.

10-16's are always scary calls. You are never really sure what is going on till you walk in. The info the dispatcher gets is usually only partially accurate, I understand.

Yea, we have more officers hurt during domestics than from bar room fights. It never fails, the wife calls 911 to have the 'so in so' arrested but when officers arrive and try to handcuff the abuser, the wife kicks in with 'DON'T MESS WITH MY MAN!!" A simple argument between a man/woman can turn volatile very quickly.

Example of how a simple call can turn ugly quickly...

We are having hard rain here tonight and we have had several trees down. Most of them have been simple clean ups but one large one was covering 2 lanes of traffic and we had fire enroute to get it. However before the fire could get there, a young woman hit the tree head on, she was not injuried but her veh caught on fire. The car fire led to the tree on fire!!! The incident description had to be changed from tree down to accident no injuries to vehicle fire then to a woods fire!!! Finally we just a general code in which is our signal for such cluster Fucks. It is listed in our computer as GFUM (general fucked up mess)!!

Well, that's not boring. :eek:

Well it's raining which means that none of these Morons in this county can drive!!! But at least it causes job security.

Just hope it stops raining before you have to drive home among them.:eek3:

I've got to hand it to you Juju, I'm completely tuckered out and I've only gotten as far as 327 experiences.

I'm gonna have a little nap and get right back at it though!

:eyebrow::confused:

*chuckles* ManCold. I love that sketch.

ManStrokeWoman was such a good show.

it's read as ninehundred and eleven experiences...

I'm a child and my daddy is hurting my mommy. Booby time!

You'll shoot your eye out!

HA! Dream on, Baby, Dream on!! :headshake

If you are supposed to dial 999- that would be dialing 3, 9 times? :3eye:

In about 1988 I got my first car phone. It wasn't a cell phone as they were new and expensive and resembled old WWII walkie talkies. Mine was known as a car land line and was similar to the old "ship to shore" radios. The handset was a princess style phone with a mounting plate that I installed to my center console. There was a huge transmitter box that was mounted under the drivers seat. I got it from a guy who was splurging on a cell phone.

Anyway, I used it to call 911 (which was relatively new then) and reported a house fire in an old neighborhood I was passing through. The dispatcher kept asking me my address and I told him I was in my car and it was like he could not understand how I could be in my car and he said I could be punished with jail time for doing a hoax like this. I kept trying to report the fire and the address and he finally connected me to the fire dept who took down the information but told me not to leave the scene or I would be arrested. I did and I wasn't but I wonder if they ever showed up to put out the fire.

It would be interesting to find out, chris, that's for sure. I know that I have been with 911 for almost 13 yrs and just in that amount of time, our technology has changed drastically. I can only imagine how it was in the 'old days' before enhanced 911! It is hard enough to get directions from 'old timers' who give us directions like, 'it's over here next to where old Mert's house burned down in the 70's and now there is a tree stump with lots of grass around it!' LOL

"The same old place?"
"Oh you must mean the old Same place..."

Ha. either way...it's the 'same' and 'old' place...