Ask the 911 Calltaker

Most 911 lines can be but aren’t designed to be used as a switchboard. It is a (mostly minor, but if we’re busy *whoa *do our butts hurt) pain in the ass if you call 911 for anything other than a crime in progress, an active fire, or a person who needs an ambulance right now. What you are describing is the bane of emergency dispatchers everywhere: someone driving around with no clear idea of where they are and firing up their cell phone to report something they saw but did not understand and cannot quite articulate.

Call 911 if you need it. Memorize the single seven-digit number for non-emergency law-enforcement, in case you need that. Most of all, for everyone out there, realize that the biggest and most important thing is, KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE AND SAY SO IMMEDIATELY IN EVERY LANGUAGE YOU KNOW AND THEN STAY THERE FOR #%$*&^'s SAKE!!!

Unless you’re told not to, of course.

This happens a lot. We have a button we just press and you’re automatically get transferred to a recording which repeats the non-emergency number. This call typically goes like this…

“Can I get the non-emergency number?”

“Yep- here you go…” <press button, caller automatically transferred>

What is more of a pain, to me, is somebody who insists their issue is an emergency when it isn’t really. Again- this is where a national established 311 # and education campaign would be helpful. I guess bottom line to your question- it’s not a pain as much as a minor annoyance. Of course- if it’s not an emergency- there’s really no difference between calling now and calling in 15 minutes either.

Trupa- I’m not going to copy your post because it was long…

Your situation happens every so often. Usually by a crying female who calls… and you answer 911… and they start talking to you like you’re somebody else. “911” “Hi Janet! Just thought I’d call and say hi.” “This is 911, do you have an emergency?” “yeah… I do…” “Are you not able to talk about it?” “No…”

If it’s a hangup and I’m calling back if she answers something similar will usually occur. If the other 1/2 of the disturbance answers… you will usually be able to hear the other half in the background… and we’re required to talk to two people on a callback anyway… so we can ask to talk to the other person. Especially if the angry half in the disturbance is clearly agitated- our radar is going to go on alert. If he’s listening on the other line, I guess the jig is up- i’d encourage her just to give all the information she can before he takes action.

I don’t honestly think I’d be quick enough to get morse code or a reference to stockholm.

For emotionally disturbed people- we usually send police and not medics. The rational being that they aren’t necessarily having a medical emergency- but a psychiatric crisis. Police officers are trained on, and deal with emotionally disturbed people every day, and can transport just as easily as an ambulance if they decide hospitalization is needed.

When I send ambuli- we send the closest unit, or the unit with best access if thats readily apparant. I have no idea the fitness of the crew. Although, as a member of the donut brigade- I can tell you I’m sure I could hold my own :slight_smile:

No, I’m thinking about time in particular- a friend walking over to my house is harrassed by some morons in a car, but she gets to my house safe and sound and is in no immediate danger. This is obviously a police matter but obviously not an emergency.

Thanks for all the answers so far–this is fascinating!

Not sure if you can answer this one, since it doesn’t apply in your area. I tried calling the non-emergency number this summer about some vandalism in a local park and was told to call 911. Apparently, they now handle all calls here. Any idea why some places are doing this now, and how do they manage it so that non-emergency calls don’t stop an emergency from getting prompt attention?

I felt bad calling 911, especially since it turned into a longer call. Their computer system wasn’t finding the park, even though I knew the cross streets. I actually hopped online to look at the city’s webpage to find the official name of the park and confirm the exact location. It took me a few minutes to find it, though.

Wierd- I have no idea. Why would they even have an active non-emergency number if it was no longer in use? Why not have the number forwarded to the 911 operators if that was the case? I really don’t know the answer to your question. But if thats how they want to handle it, I wouldn’t feel bad, its their official decision.

I"m surprised they didn’t know the name of the park. I can’t say I know the names of EVERY park in the city of Portland- but if you had intersections, I’d know the name of the park pretty quickly. We have map software attached to our dispatch software. So when I enter an address or intersection, the map automatically shows that location. If I’m really slick, you’d give me the intersection and I’d spout off the park name like I knew all along- because I"m just cool like that.

Yeah, it surprised me too that they didn’t know the name of the park. But there are lots of little parks around here, and I think her software was simply wrong. She was able to look up parks in general, and named some I’m familiar with that were within a mile or two, but the one in question was missing. I could be misremembering, but I think she even said her map didn’t show it.

A police officer called back, which also surprised me. But it turned out they’d been called to a fire in the park the night before. By the time they got there, however, it was out and they didn’t see anything. I was calling to report a burned phone book with pages strewn everywhere and a water fountain that was overflowing onto the grass because someone had used a stick to keep the water on. I took the stick out before going home, of course, and picked up the phone book pages. There was a woman sitting on her front steps across the street watching me, and it really annoyed me that nobody else bothered to help. Geez, it’s everyone’s park, isn’t it?

Maybe that’s the advantage of having all calls go through one number–perhaps they can get more of a handle on what’s happening in a neighborhood and look for patterns of problems? There’s a chance the vandalism was gang related. That park got tagged a couple of times later in the summer.

I don’t know… When I’m answering calls I’m answering both 911 and non-emergency calls. it all goes in the same dispatch system anyway. Really, who knows. That one is a mystery to me.

Come on- nobody else? I’m having fun here. :slight_smile: Surely we haven’t exhausted all the questions.

The fact I live out in the ‘boonies’ and the closest 911 call taker is in the next county and 15 miles East of my place.
My phone line comes out of the county East of the line and ends with my home phone.

I live 1/2 mile West of the county line. The 911 call taker for the county I live in is over 55 miles southwest of my place.
To call any where in my ‘home’ county is a long distance call

I called 911 because my son was having breathing problems connected to a life long heart condition. It is the first and only ‘emergency’ we have had concerning his heart condition .

When I told the 911 ‘call taker’ ‘where’ I live she tells me I need to call the 911 in my county, I told her that because of the phone exchange ends with my number I couldn’t call ‘911’ anywhere else. I ask her for a number in my county she gives me the police departments dispatchers number 55 miles away ,I call them.

I tell them my story , ‘where I am’, ‘what I need’ and they tell me I need to call the 911 ,

Because my phone line comes from the next county dialing 911 goes to the 'next county '.

But because my physical address is in the county I pay taxes in ,I’m told I’m calling the wrong number when I hit the numbers 911 on my telephone hand set. ,
What finally happened was I told the people at the other end of both numbers to forget their ‘BS’ ,hung up the phone ,loaded my son up and transported him myself to the hospital 98 miles North of my home .

My son was lucky I didn’t wait any longer than trying 2 times to each number trying to get some help .

He really needed medical attention and oxygen
lot sooner then he got it that night.
I hope I have explained the situation clear enough so no one is confoundedly confused,

My question is this , is there anything I can do ‘before’ the next ’ emergency’ happens to get this straightened out? All I get from either county ‘the run a round’, " this office don’t Handel questions on that subject" here try this number", 'pass the buck style. ’

I understand that by living ‘way out here in the boonies’ I can not expect the same response times as someone 'living next door to the call takers desk. ’

Specific-to-Portland questions:

Now that the folks and rigs at Station One have been sent thither and yon while they do seismic retrofits on the building, has your system been updated to know who’s where?

Is it safe to assume that someone recalculated response routes and coverage?

How’s the salary, and the pay scale?

What do y’all do between calls? Screw around on the internet? Take online courses? Or is there a specific duty you do when no one is ringing?

katpohl: Up here anyway, the 911 centers have a 10 digit 911 number. I’d find out what it is for your county and program it into your phone or post it somewhere, so that is the number you call instead of 911.

In the meantime- raise hell with everybody who will listen that your phone needs to be fixed. I really don’t know if it should be the phone company or what. You might even see if your county’s 911 center has a business line- and see if there is somebody there who might know who to contact to resolve the problem.

But the 10-digit 911 number should be a good work around.

Wow-- there’s a question I didn’t think would have come up.

Every rig is always monitored, so the move around is completely under control, we ave tabs on every rig. This is actually done all the time. If there is a big fire in a certain area of town- it will leave a big gap in coverage- because we have obviously sent the closest rigs to the big fire. We then have to move certain engines around to stations to cover the gaps so the city still has fire coverage.

In terms of response times- as you probably know- each station has a certain response area. (We call this the stations FMA- which stands for fire management area.) But every address and intersection within the area has a long list with every station in the city that gives you the next fastest engine in. (Called the next-in engine). When I dispatch a call- the computer will automatically look at that list and pick the FMA engine, if the fma engine isn’t available it goes through the list. The only thing you need to really look for is freeways… because occasionally the system just doesn’t pick right for freeways if the FMA engine isn’t avaiilable.

Besides- Downtown is pretty well covered Even with Station 1 vacant… Station 3 and Station 4 and even Station 15 have it covered. Station 3 and 4 both have trucks as well as engines.

I posted a link to our pay scale earlier in the thread. I’m on the Senior Dispatcher scale.

I’ll give you a hint- I’m at home now, but I’ve answered 90% of these questions while I’m at work.

True confession: I do work for PF&R. But I’m “on the third floor”, meaning that I’m an admin-type, not a firefighter. And seriously, I wasn’t sure how/if/when FMAs were changed/adjusted/tweaked, especially in terms of dispatches from Station One.

Frankly, I’ll be glad to be back in the Big House when the seismic retrofits are done. I miss knowing what’s going on!

And (as long as I’m hijacking the thread, demonstrating that I carry a PIO pager, and also demonstrating my relative newness to PF&R) do the types of calls cycle over the year? Seems like there’s been a lot of jumpers recently…
/hijack

I have recently applied for a dispatcher position. Any tips on getting the job? Anything you wish someone told you?

I wish I had a good tip for you. Your agency probably has a different hiring practice than ours anyway. We’re really looking for people who can really multi-task, keep calm under pressure, smart, somewhat of a control freak…

If your agency is like ours they’ve been understaffed since the industry was created.

The one thing I wish somebody had told me before I started was that we lose 60-70% of our trainees during the process. In my class only 4/9 are still there. So, I wouldn’t plan on any major life changes until you’re sure you are going to make it.

I know it probably wasn’t too helpful, but good luck!

Props to you, Tof, I can imagine that being one of the toughest jobs, having to deal with such extreme emotions.

I once accidentally dialed 911, from work. Our phone system worked so that unless you were dialing an internal extension, you would have to press 9 and then 1 to get an outside line. Calling a distributor once, I pressed 9, then 1, then dialed my number. Unbeknownst to me, the 1 key had stuck for a second. Thinking the vendor was picking up on the other end, I then heard, “911, what is your emergency?” :eek:

I was mortified, kind of spluttered that it was a mistake, something about our phone system. The lady asked, “Are you sure you don’t need help there?” I insisted I didn’t, and hung up.

About 10 seconds later, the phone rang. I answered it and a gruff voice said, “This is Constable (Bob) from (City) Police, is everything all right there?” Oh man. I explained the situation to him, he understood and said not to worry about it, that that had happened a couple times before from my workplace, apparently. I’m glad they checked up on me, it put me at ease in case there had been something bad happening. But man was that ever embarrassing. :smack:

Oh, a few months later, the phone system was changed so that we now dial 6 and then 1. Wonder why? :smiley:

katpohl–I’d say you should write a letter to your county officials. Tell them the whole story and make sure they understand that this may happen again if your son’s condition flares up a second time.

No real questions, The Tof. Just wanted to send you our thanks from the City of Roses. If anybody holds me hostage at PSU, I hope it’s you that answers my call. :cool:

About the stress: I’m assuming it’s a fairly stressful job, have you noticed the stress impacting your own personal life? Have you accidentally brought any of it home with you?

Do you tell your callers to calm down?
It seems like every 911 call they play on the news goes like:
911 What’s your emergency?
Oh my God, there is a huge man on the other side of the door and he is breaking down the door to come in and rape and kill me!
Maam, I’m going to need you to calm down.