What does it mean to be a 911 dispatcher?
Helen Terry
You ask what it means to be a 911 dispatcher, what is it that they do day after day? You can describe the job as stressful, exciting, sedentary, and every one of those adjectives is correct. But, what does it really mean to be a 911 dispatcher? What is it that someone who claims to be a 911 dispatcher really does?
A 911 dispatcher talks to person, after person, after person each with their own crisis. Sometimes the crisis seems small, a barking dog, a vehicle parked where it shouldn't be. Sometimes the crisis is big, a suicidal person, a cardiac arrest, a shooting. Either way, a dispatcher answers the phone and deals with each crisis. They don't get to say it isn't anything big and tell the caller to call back later. They don't get to say they aren't equipped to deal with a grieving parent, a scared child, or an annoyed neighbor. This is their job and they do it. Each call has to be handled from beginning to end, there is no putting it off until more time can be found to deal with it, no waiting until tomorrow.
A 911 dispatcher has to be empathetic, not sympathetic. They have to take control of a hysterical caller, calm an angry shopper, reassure a panicked parent whose child is missing, be someone that a person who thinks life is no longer worth living can talk to. They have to know when to be stern and when to be passive. They cannot coddle someone, taking the responsibility to make everything better, but they do have to understand where the caller is coming from and be willing to help. They have to put aside their own feelings, build a wall to hold their emotions in check, yet be strong enough to feel for the caller. It's not an easy task, yet it is one that every dispatcher does because they make a difference when they do.
Unlike the first responders, a 911 dispatcher doesn't always get to know the outcome of a call. They have to be willing to step in, take control, get help enroute, then back out and let someone else handle it. They don't have to see the fatal accident, choking patient, assaulted female, but they have to hear it. They have to be able to put themselves, visually, in the situation and be sure to get every bit of pertinent information for those that do respond. They have to worry about the responders, make sure they aren't missing anything that could be a safety issue, listen on the radio when an officer asks for backup, a paramedic advises CPR is in progress, a firefighter says there is someone inside the building that is burning. They are public safety responders, just in a different way.
A 911 dispatcher has to temper the excitement of being busy, spending their shift in the controlled chaos that is their job, with the knowledge that someone else, the person on the other end of the phone, is having the worst day of their life. They have to be willing to spend their shift, whatever hours those may be, sitting and doing nothing much, just to be there when someone needs them more than anyone else. They have to be able to talk the panicked parent through how to help their choking child, give CPR instructions to the adult that just came in and found their parent not breathing, while listening for the officer wanting to do a traffic stop, run a drivers check, or sign out on his cell phone. They take multi-tasking to a level most people wouldn't ever dream of, hear eight different conversations at the same time, and still remain focused enough to hear the tremor in the voice of the person on the phone telling them there is no emergency when they call back an open 911 line.
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