I was having heart palpitations once and called 911 and to make a long story short, I had to literally go hunting the medics and ambulance down. They went to three different houses and I had no idea why.
Well, I declined to go to the hospital, but while they were taking my vitals the driver of the ambulance said, “you may want to get a sign up on the tree with your address or something” and I said, “there is one on the tree, right over there” and he said, “but that says 851 lower marlboro rd, 911 dispatch has your address down as 855 lower marlboro rd !”
So, how do I go about getting 911 to change my address in their system to the correct address? Because I obviously didn’t make this mistake, they did. And a typo like that can cost somebody their life.
I really have no questions but wanted to say thank you for what you do. I have only called 911 once or maybe twice in my life and they have always been wonderful.
If you call from a landline- we send police officers out to investigate. The reason this is only for a landline is because we have a solid address to go check. (We call these calls Incomplete calls).
If you are calling from a cell- you’re going to be out of luck. The reasons for this are two fold- 1> We don’t have a solid address to find you. 2> There is a big problem with what we call “butt dialers” where the cell phone manages to call 911 from your pocket or purse or what have you. These are usually silence or the swoshing sound of pants walking. So- if you have the option available- and you think you won’t be able to speak… use a landline if you have the option.
Funny the order of questions. This would also be an incomplete. Anytime a call is made to 911, even if you hang up before we answer- your call remains in the 911 queue and comes up to us. In this case an Abandoned call (which gets typecoded incomplete in our dispatch computer). We call the number back to find out what the scoop is. A great majority of the time, people accidentally called 911, realized what they did, and hung up hoping to avoid tying up the line.
If I get a hold of somebody, I actually have to confirm with two people that things are OK there. If I don’t get ahold of somebody, or the person refuses to hand the phone over to somebody else (especially if I can hear somebody else) they get a visit from the police.
diggleblop- In our agency, the Address we get from a landline is dug out of the phone companies database based on the phone number calling. And again- we are required to have you verbally verify that the address we get is the same one you are at. Occasionally there are mistakes. But if there is a mistake- it’s a phone company one. Your area may be different.
To give you an example- Your call should have gone something like this:
Me: 911
You: I need an ambulance to 951 diggleblop lane, I’m having chest pains
<At this point- you’ve said your address- if it confirms with where my address screen says you are calling from, this is verbally verified. If it doesn’t- My responsibility is to say…>
Me: You said 951 diggleblop lane, I show you calling from 955 diggleblop lane- which is correct?
You: It’s 951
Me: Perfect <and I continue to triage your chest pain ambulance call with the correct address- i note in the call the address system was wrong… and I print it for the supervisors who notify the phone company>
Ok- time for this 911 dispatcher to sleep! Keep coming with the questions! I’ll keep answering them!!! Again- I also dispatch police and fire, so I can answer questions about that if interested!!!
As already stated, this is a phone company problem. They have an identifier code that E911 systems use to provide geographic information to the dispatchers, and the phone numbers and snailmail addresses are tied to the identifier. The entered data can be wrong.
Once, I was responding from home to a call for a stroke, because the address given was close. I went to that address, and the people there thought I was nuts because they had not called. The patient was finally located, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTY. :mad: :smack:
The patient’s family had lived in the first house I went to many years before, then moved to the other address, taking their phone number with them. The 911 database entry had not been updated in the entire time.
When the county Emergency Management agency stood up this spring, one of the first tasks was updating the E911 database. What a boring, tedious mess that was. The only consistently correct numbers were those started as new service (like mine).
What are some of the more intense calls you’ve taken?
Have you ever had any funny moments on calls, where someone says something outrageous or ridiculous? If so, how did you handle it? I’d imagine laughing out loud is probably a bad thing on a 911 call…
Re children: some of your examples would seem really ambiguous to me - if a kid says their mommy is ‘being mean’, how do you know if they are just upset at having their toy being taken away vs actual child abuse?
Re frivolity: I was in a minor car accident that needed an officer to write an insurance statement but didn’t need an ambulance. I tried calling information but they were unable to connect me with the closest precinct, so I was forced to call 911. Is this sort of thing a big issue or can you transfer non emergency calls to the proper operator with ease? Would it help to have some kind of universal non emergency assistance number like 991 for these occasions? Or maybe just update the computer of the operators at 0 and 411 to make it easier for them to transfer people appropriately?
How much do you get paid? How much did you start at? How long was training, and did you get paid for that? What were the qualifications?
Given your line of work, if you should, one night, get a bee in your bonnet and think, “screw it! I’m gonna go get some blow, a baggie of heroin, and a couple of hookers!!”, would you know exactly where to go without doing any research?
What is funny is that the intensity of the call sometimes doesn’t really indicate the intensity of the situation. For example- I took a call of two guys fighting once (very common) caller was just hearing from her house. Couldn’t see because of some bushes… so she was mostly annoyed. Very low key call- police arrive to find a dead guy, stabbed to death.
Petrified caller, screaming and afraid to an inch of their life because they heard somebody in the house and downstairs. Turns out to be the cat.
The second call was more intense, because the person on the phone was terrified, but the first situation was clearly a more intense situation. That said- what stuck out in my head was this:
Callwise- some guy snapped a screw holding himself together. Grabbed his shotgun and went on a shooting spree. My caller had heard some loud noise, opened his apartment door to check it out, and found the guy with the shotgun. Crazy guy wheeled and pointed the gun at my complainant who managed to close the door and dive to the floor just in time.
This guy was petrified… but he also had really important information in terms of what the guy looked like, where the shooter was at that moment. So it was important to keep him on the phone, talk him down and try to get some useful information out of him.
Interesting sidenote- the shooter- ended up being “caught” when he pointed the gun at, who I can only assume to be Chuck Norris. The random Portland resident, somehow dodged a bullet, took the shotgun from the suspect and beat him to within an inch of his life. Then he called 911 and said, “I’ve got the shooter here, I’ve disarmed him and he’s going to need an ambulance.”
There are frequently funny moments throughout the day. You do try your best not to laugh. Most commonly it’s people who are mentally disturbed, and they just say the whackiest stuff sometimes.
Just last week a guy called and told me government agents had taken out the implant from his abdomen. OK- so clearly the guy is disturbed but I need to send police to check on him. We chit chat for a few as I cleverl try to coax out his name and location, etc. At one point it occurs to me- if he thinks his implant was in his abdomen and he thinks agents have taken it out- is it possible he’s gutted himself? Well, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t ask, right? So I ask him out the agents took out the implant and he wouldn’t tell me. So finally I straight out ask him, “Are you bleeding anywhere? Did they cut you open to take out the implants?”
He responds, with true sarcasm in his voice, “Get Real!” Like I’m the one who’s being outlandish here. I had to mute my microphone to keep from laughing at him.
You don’t really… but it’s enough to setup a welfare check to have an officer go check out the situation. The officer can then assess what is going on. To a certan degree I can filter some cals out- but even if I talk to the mom (who in the case of actual abuse would have reason to lie to me) I’m likely to send somebody out just to check it out. (Liability and all…)
In our county- if you call 911 with a non-emergency- I tell you that you need to call non-emergency and immediately transfer you. (I just press a button). The transfer actually goes to a recording that says something like, “The non-emergency number for multnomah county is 823 3333.” and it repeats over and over. Our center dispatches for all calls including non-emergency, so you would never call a precinct unless you needed to speak to a specific officer for some reason.
There are two reasons for calling non-emergency. First our phone system will automatically put 911 calls in front of non-emer calls to be answered. Two, there are only so many open 911 lines available- so they need to be open for 911 calls. (i don’t fully understand the technical details of the second reason… I’ll see if I can research that a little bit.)
Some cities have implented a 311 number for non-emergency calls. I know that our call center director is really trying to push Portland to do so. I think this will help a lot, and it’s going to gain national momentum I’m fairly certain. “911 for emergencies 311 for everything else!”
In your case- for your accident- unless there is an injury, your blocking traffic, or there is some sort of exchange problem (a fight, guy is drunk…) there is no police response in our county. Since Oregon is a no fault state- insurance companies determine all the details and don’t require police reports.
Wage scale for my call center here:
I notice they’ve changed the designation so it doesn’t read ECO II but EC Senior Dispatcher. So for my specific information you want Senior Dispatcher. There is no such thing as an EC Fire Dispatcher- I’m not sure why they have that option on there. All Fire Dispatchers can do both police and fire- which makes them Senior dispatchers. <shrug>
Training takes about a year for calltaking and dispatch. Training was paid.
I would really like to see them add a longevity pay. Maybe a raise at 10 years, 15 years and 20 years. It makes me unhappy that once I get to step 6 i only get Cost of Living Raises.
The requirements to apply (Recruitment opens November 22-December 13 | Join Our Team | The City of Portland, Oregon) are pretty vague. You really need to be able to stay cool under pressure and strong multi-tasking ability. (the 45 wpm in the requirements I’d also suggest is very much a minimum goal. I can do double that and more if I really get going- and sometimes I still feel like I’m not going fast enough).
The employment process takes awhile, too. I was required to take a general knowledge test. It was a funny combination of logic and reading comprehension like you took in high school standardized tests. There was also a math section. <shrug>
If you pass that you take a computer test which tests your computer ability, and your ability to multi-task.
If you pass that you have an interview. Mine was a taped interview administered by a guy who was not part of the hiring process. It was then reviewed by the “Hiring committee”. Now you have a panel interview.
THEN- after all that, the committee decides who to hire among the interviewee candidates.
One thing which has always bugged me about the first Die Hard movie is how that female dispatcher takes McCain’s radio call-always seemed unprofessional to me. “Whoever you are”…“FCC violation”? If you are familiar with the scene in question, I’d like to hear how you would have handled it. [Yes I know this is Hollywood where careless goofs abound]
I like the sound of your agency’s hiring procedure. At my last agency the hiring criteria was something like, "Do you have a pulse? " It’s a little better where I am now - we at least have a computer and multi-tasking test - but it’s not terribly stringent.
You dispatch in a big city and I dispatch in freaking Hooterville (my mouse still has a trackball and there’s only two of us on duty for the whole county). What kinds of nifty toys do y’all have to make things easier? MDTs in the patrol cars, live map tracking of units, cool consoles that go up and down so you can stand up or sit as the mood takes you, wireless headsets, a window so you can watch the squirrels be merry?
I have a question about ambulance dispatch policy, but I’m in Los Angeles, so it may be a different situation in your area.
One time I called 911 because I heard a car crash in my back alley, following by loud, angry screaming. (It turned out some guy had deliberately rammed his cheating girlfriend’s car with his van, but anyway…) Without going outside to check out the situation first, I called 911 and reported this. The dispatcher asked me if an ambulance should be sent, but I said I did not know if anyone was hurt, I could only hear the yelling. She kept pushing me to answer, ambulance: yes or no? (And getting kind of rude about it, too.) Finally, I said, yes, fine, send an ambulance just in case.
So, I’m wondering, is there some sort of policy that the caller must specifically request an ambulance before one is sent out?
As I recall he was on a radio, correct? “Does it sound like I’m ordering a pizza?!!”
Anyhow- he would have gotten to a dispatcher over the radio. In addition, not only would I be hearing it, but every officer in the precinct. As a dispatcher, I’d have treated it like a called in disturbance and sent at least a couple officers to check it out. Likely a lot more would join in, because well, it sounded like something that would be fun.
When I actually heard the gunshots over the air, I’d have held the air (Meaning- no radio traffic except that which is for the specific emergency at hand. This is done if the officer is fighting with somebody or doing a high risk stop or a traffic pursuit or some such other dangerous thing that the radio traffic needs to be designated specifically for that one incident temporarily.) and sent a bunch of officers there. Certainly I would never just “Sent a black & white to check it out”.
Had he come through the 911 lines as a caller- I’d have set it up as a high priority premise check. The dispatcher would dispatch at least a couple officers and probably more would go as it would sound like a fun call when handed out. I had a call very similar really early in my training where some guy claimed a bunch of people were being held hostage in a building at Portland State by a guy with a gun. Turned out to be totally phony- but the call got a boatload of officers going.
Bottom line- the dispatcher in that movie is very very bad at her job.
One other thing about that scene- they show the dispatchers as uniformed officers. I am not, nor is anybody here. But it is a pretty common perception of dispatch.
Patrol cars, Fire rigs and ambulances all have mdt’s. We do actually have nifty consoles that go up and down so I can stand or sit as the mood strikes. My headset is very wired. We have 4 large windows and 2 tiny windows which face the outside world. All have the blinds down and shut. Which wouldn’t matter, because they face the back parking lot, Powell Bv, and across the street a tow lot and auto body repair shop. Not much view.
No live map tracking of units either. It’s all very low tech. When our police units are available- we treat them roughly as if they are patrolling their beat for purposes of dispatching calls. The only units with any sort of GPS type system are the ambulances. They have a GPS, which will tell me- when a medical call comes in for dispatch- which ambulance is the closest to that call.
The fire crews are stringently assigned based on location… (If there is an incident requiring a fire engine at location x st/y av the first engine will be e1, if not available than e13 then e17, so on and so forth.)
We also have trackball mice I can take some pictures if you want.
Pyper- what you have there is an “Unknown if Injury Accident” (ACCUNK). Which is not uncommon- my procedure for that is to send the police who will assess if there is a need for medical. This isn’t really uncommon up here, I can’t imagine its not common in Los Angeles, but their policies may be different. Most often it’s a passerby who sees an accident and didn’t stop or anything- but call it in.
Our policy is to only send medical crews to an accident if there are confirmed injuries or what we call “violent mechanism of injury” which means a traffic accident with a high likelyhood of injury. Car vs. bicycle or pedestrian struck, high speed freeway crash into the median, head on collision… etc.
In your situation, I’d have setup the ACCUNK, I might have pressed if I thought you had more information and you were just not telling me for some reason. But I mean, if you can’t see it you can’t see it. I can ask a million times and you’ll never know. So my text would say something to the effect of… “Complainant heard car accident behind house, now hearing yelling, appears to be m v f… this is all heard only, unk if anybody injured in accident.”
In the Denver area, this would go down as an “Unknown Injury Accident.” Unlike Portland, most everybody around here is going to send the world on these calls (the world= EMS, police, & fire).
Police & fire here had MDTs for years. Most of our ambulances have them as well, and sometimes they even work!
A good friend of mine was a 911 Operator/Dispatcher for a long time. She is now a cop. I got to do a “ridealong” with her in the call center, but it was an astonishingly dull day, apparently.
One thing I noticed, and she backs up, is that the cops with her were HUGE flirts. She also tells me that most of them are more than willing to move beyond flirting. She scored more than her fair share of cops in her day, but stopped when she started meeting wives of these guys.
Are your cops similar?
Also, at one point she had a suicide on the phone. Having worked in a suicide hotline before she started doing 911, she has handled more than a few of these, but in this instance, while she was talking the caller smoked himself. She was upset, but finished her shift, and didn’t take any time off. Have you or anyone in your call center had similar experiences?
They don’t flirt with me that often- being as I’m a guy and all. So I’m unprepared to answer your question. Although, there are 3 dispatchers in our center who are married to cops, hmmmmmmm…
I have never personally talked to somebody on the phone while they died… be it by their own hand or otherwise. The closest I’ve come was a guy who was stabbed in the stomach and was dying- but he managed to hang on until crews got there, so I, thankfully, didn’t have to hear the death rattle.
I am sure that people have done so on the phone. We have tapes that we listen to in training of people getting shot and stuff. We don’t have a suicide tape, but I am positive it’s happened. I just don’t personally know of any stories I could pass along.
If I need to call non-emergency and don’t have easy access to a computer or phonebook to look the number up, is it a pain in the butt if I call 911 and ask for a transfer? Or should I really spend the fifteen minutes getting home and looking it up?
So, first, this is evidently the product of my overly active imagination. Did I mention I read too many Mystery & private detective books too? Anyway…
If someone is threatening me in my residence, and I dial 911, and start speaking with you, or if I hangup and you call back, and I am now in a situation where I am under threat to tell you that all is well, or else something really bad will happen to me/my loved one, what is the best way to convey that while pretending to comply with the “bad guy”?
Should I mention my crazy uncle from Stockholm (from 'Stockholm syndrome?")
Should I try to push a number button in morse code for SOS?
I can’t think of what McGyver would do…
What if the bad guy is listening on another extension?
The question arose from an actual situation in which our live-in nanny had a psychotic episode. She was paranoid delusional, among other things, and tried to call 911. Her family members, who had come to try to reassure her, tried to struggle for the phone to stop her because you have to pay about $200 every time the ambulance comes in our jurisdiction. Anyway, she got through enough that we got a callback from 911. At that point, I gave up, and explained that we have a person with apparent psychiatric issues who was combative. Shortly thereafter, I met not two, but three of the biggest paramedics I have ever seen, the smallest of whom was about 6’1’’ and 190 lbs. All those guys looked in pretty good shape too.
So do you dispatch more medics for emotionally disturbed people? what’s the rule on sending police along or not?
And do you know which units have the tall & fit guys vs. the donut brigade?
Thanks for doing your work. All your colleagues with whom I have spoken were stellar.
I have the local non-emergency number programmed into my cell, and animal control and poison control. Of course, this only works in my own city, but that covers me most of the time.
I can take some pictures if you want. 