A dispatchers nightmare

One boring Sunday morning I was sitting in dispatch trying to stay busy doing any paperwork I could find. Sunday mornings are usually slow when the 911 line rang.

I picked up the phone and said "911 please state your"

My grandson said in a shaky voice "Grandma mom just ran over my brother"

My heart raced, my breathing stopped, my brain said OMG OMG OMG OMG but dispatchers have an automatic mode as my mouth said "is he breathing?"

Grandson:  "I don't know he is screaming his head off"

911 still in auto pilot while brain is saying "thank God, thank God, thank God" my mouth is saying "tell mom not to move him and try to keep him still until the ambulance gets there.

The ambulance got there and he was bruised, sore but very much alive. He was taken to the hospital and was ok. It was in soft ground and a back tire with not a whole lot of weight on it.

One thing you learn real quick is that you never know what is on that line when the phone lights up. Many 911 type calls come on the business line too. You can never fully relax because life changes so fast in one phone call and it might be a loved one.

 I have dispatched ambulances to my kids, my grand kids, my parents. I have been on the ambulance that responded to loved ones and I can say this in all honesty. It is harder to dispatch the call then it is to be the res ponder.  When you respond you see what is happening, you can give hugs, you can care for them. When you are sitting in that office all you can do is try to keep breathing until someone decides to tell you something and then you still don't know if it is as good or as bad as they say. Are they just trying to keep me calm?  Is it really ok?  It doesn't make any difference if it is police in trouble or loved ones your heart is in your throat. It is extremely hard not to run out the door and go to the house.  In your heart you know you have to stay there and do your job no matter what as lives depend on your getting what is needed to the call.

Please give your communications officers (dispatchers) more credit then they are given.  A dog catcher has to know his job and the laws. A corrections officers must know his job. A police officer must know his but a dispatcher must know a little of everyone's job.  When you are in a bad mood you can go be by yourself, an officer can drive around in a slow area or go set somewhere quiet.  A dispatcher is always at the mercy of the phone and radio, She can't even go to the bathroom without permission.

Dispatchers are amazing people who do a job very few including officers understand. Put a police officer on the radio for a month and he will have a different view of his dispatcher.  They have all my respect.