Once or twice I year I teach a class at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy. The class is called Public Safety Telecommunicator I. It is basically a "Dispatching 101" course and is geared towards new public safety dispatchers who are starting their careers (although I've had students in the class with as much as 26 years of service as dispatchers).
One of the things we talk about in the class is that you can't take it personally. People will call and yell at us for any number of reasons. As human beings, our natural reaction is to become defensive. It's not my fault your street hasn't been plowed yet. It's not my fault your electricity is out. It's not my fault you were arrested for OVI on Friday night and you can't get your car out of impound until Monday when it's already racked up 3 days worth of storage fees by the tow company. I try to explain to the students that those people are not upset with us as individuals. They are upset with the police dept. or the city or county or whatever. They don't know us as individuals. To them, we are the police dept. I am not Chris Burkhardt, I am the City of Dublin. I even have a name tag that proves it.
One thing that I try to remind the students of is that people very rarely ever call the police dept. or fire dept. because they are having a good day. If they have to make that call, it's usually to let us know that there is something wrong, sometimes tragically wrong. But if we, as dispatchers, take it personally, it makes our job even more stressful that it already can be. It can lead to burnout and lead to a very short career.
Today was a little different though. Today, the first emergency call to come in to the center ended about as positively as a call to 9-1-1 can end. It started off a little frantic, and while I hope to be able to get this call in the future, I'm glad I'm not the one who got it today. The call came from a man telling us that his wife was in labor, and this child was in a little bit of a hurry to make her way in to the world. Ironically, the call was taken by my supervisor, who herself is expecting a little girl in a couple of months. She stayed on the phone with dad and provided him with the instructions he needed to help mom if the baby did show up prior to the medics. It was also the first time I saw her make a follow up phone call to the medics to make sure that everything ended up ok.
To make a long story short, medics arrived prior to the child being born, got mom to the hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl within minutes of their arrival.
That's a good day!!
I've had a few calls of my own that stand out. Ones that I probably won't forget. The worst call of my career so far was the three year child that drowned in a swimming pool. The best, the call from a new father. Not just new, but BRAND new. You see, his wife actually gave birth in the car while they were on their way to the hospital. I asked dad if he wanted to pull over and wait for a medic, but he was close enough to the hospital that it actually made more sense for him just to continue to drive on in to the hospital, so while I stayed on the phone and gave him some directions for making sure mom and baby were ok, and radioed ahead to the hospital to let them know what they had headed their way, dad drove his wife and new born child on to the hospital.
They're not all bad calls, and today was a good example of that.
One of the things we talk about in the class is that you can't take it personally. People will call and yell at us for any number of reasons. As human beings, our natural reaction is to become defensive. It's not my fault your street hasn't been plowed yet. It's not my fault your electricity is out. It's not my fault you were arrested for OVI on Friday night and you can't get your car out of impound until Monday when it's already racked up 3 days worth of storage fees by the tow company. I try to explain to the students that those people are not upset with us as individuals. They are upset with the police dept. or the city or county or whatever. They don't know us as individuals. To them, we are the police dept. I am not Chris Burkhardt, I am the City of Dublin. I even have a name tag that proves it.
One thing that I try to remind the students of is that people very rarely ever call the police dept. or fire dept. because they are having a good day. If they have to make that call, it's usually to let us know that there is something wrong, sometimes tragically wrong. But if we, as dispatchers, take it personally, it makes our job even more stressful that it already can be. It can lead to burnout and lead to a very short career.
Today was a little different though. Today, the first emergency call to come in to the center ended about as positively as a call to 9-1-1 can end. It started off a little frantic, and while I hope to be able to get this call in the future, I'm glad I'm not the one who got it today. The call came from a man telling us that his wife was in labor, and this child was in a little bit of a hurry to make her way in to the world. Ironically, the call was taken by my supervisor, who herself is expecting a little girl in a couple of months. She stayed on the phone with dad and provided him with the instructions he needed to help mom if the baby did show up prior to the medics. It was also the first time I saw her make a follow up phone call to the medics to make sure that everything ended up ok.
To make a long story short, medics arrived prior to the child being born, got mom to the hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl within minutes of their arrival.
That's a good day!!
I've had a few calls of my own that stand out. Ones that I probably won't forget. The worst call of my career so far was the three year child that drowned in a swimming pool. The best, the call from a new father. Not just new, but BRAND new. You see, his wife actually gave birth in the car while they were on their way to the hospital. I asked dad if he wanted to pull over and wait for a medic, but he was close enough to the hospital that it actually made more sense for him just to continue to drive on in to the hospital, so while I stayed on the phone and gave him some directions for making sure mom and baby were ok, and radioed ahead to the hospital to let them know what they had headed their way, dad drove his wife and new born child on to the hospital.
They're not all bad calls, and today was a good example of that.
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