Interested to know

[Blspirit911]

Hello All!

I was just reading a thread on some of the stranger calls taken by 911 operators. I am interested in becomin a dispatcher and I am wondering, what are some of the most stressful calls taken? How did you feel after taking some of these calls and do you take the job home with you?

Thanks!
:rolleyes:

[MrJim911]

There are too many stressful calls to mention. I've dealt with an officer shooting. Children dying, wives dying, husbands dying and numerous other situation involving death and serious injury, burglaries in progress, vehicle pursuits etc... It depends on the call how you feel. It also depends on the person. I have never had to get up and leave the room and I have never had to cry or go kick a wall. I love stress and deal with it very well. Others may not be able to do it that way.

And you absolutely under no circumstance bring it home with you!!!!!!!! Go to the work bathroom and kick the wall, get in your car and scream at the steering wheel or if it suits you cry your eyes out whe you walk out the door. But when you get home have it out of your system. Especially if you have kids or a spouse. You can TALK with them about how your day went but dont let the stress affect your the conversation or home life.

[Lupey]

We just had a good one. Numerous calls of gunshots at an apartment complex. Every unit gets there and they can't find anything. So we call back a residence from a 911 hangup and ask the gentleman if he heard any gunshots. His reply was "yes I fired them from my shotgun..... I think they are dead" He then went on to say that there was 2 lions attacking a woman so he killed them :D

[DispNowCopL8r]

First off it's hard to do, but I never take these calls home with me, it'll destroy your family and friends.

I have had almost every type of call, from "I have a gun to my head..." to "I have just been shot..." to "What's the phone number to....", but my all time favorite funny calls has been, from our local crazy...

CR: 911 what are you reporting...
RP: There is a rhinoceros in my backyard...
CR: ummm...
RP: I think it's my neighbors...
CR: okay...
RP: I just want to know what the leash laws are about large animals...

I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 mins, in the end I just gave her the number to animal control..lol

[Blspirit911]

Thanks for sharing all of your hard times as well as the funny ones. I just really want to get an idea of what Im getting into. The story about the animals in the yard was a funny one, I answered lines for the local Crisis Clinic for a couple of years and we had all kinds ppl call, one guy claimed that his spaquetti was talking to him...you know...he was one of the strangest guys but always interesting to listen to! Very intelligent. Well, I sure appreciate all you help..I will keep you posted to how things progress.

[Lily]

Do any of the classes that are required cover this issue?

I am thinking that this can be a special problem because you dont know the outcome. You only get a little part of it and never really know what happened at the end.

[MrJim911]

The vast majority of states do not require class room training to be a dispatcher. That is up to each individual department. Most of the external training are classes your agency will send you to. And that's if your agency understands the need for con-ed for their employees. What you said is true. As dispatchers we are sometimes left without an ending in our calls, and you may never know the details of what happened. Again, training/classes are dependent upon the agency you work for.

[KYEMT325]

OK this has to be one of my best ones by far. It's a Saturday afternoon, I'm sitting in dispatch watching TV bored out of my mind (Saturdays are really SLOW until about 6pm). I get a 9-1-1 call stating that there was a man on the 5th story ledge of a building we have under construction on campus. He had decided he was going to climb the construction fence and jump off that building. There were 2 extenuating circumstances, however. First of all, the building he was on was facing the patient rooms in our medical center, so there was a LARGE audience watching this, and the other is that he had taken all of his clothes off. I immediately dispatched 2 units and a supervisor and the fire department. Then I get my second 911 call, this one from the hospital. They said there was a "nut on the building across the street naked shaking his d*ck at us". At this point, I didn't think I had heard what they were saying correctly, so I was like "excuse me, could you repeat that" and they did.

About that time, our Sergeant arrived on the scene and advised indeed there was a "naked man" standing on the ledge threatening to jump. At this point, the man informed the Sergeant that if he saw any police cars, fire engines, or otherwise with their lights and/or heard any sirens, that he would commence jumping. So now, I have 9-1-1 ringing from everywhere in the hospital (I'm by myself as usual in our small dispatch center), and I have to call the fire department back and tell them to approach from the backside of the building with no emergency equipment on. Further, I have to call the Chief at home and advise her of what's going on, call the Metro Police and tell them not to run emergency lights in that area to any of their calls, and get them to send out their ERU (Emergency Response Unit or SWAT team). Further, I have to get Metro PD to sit at all the major intersections leading to our medical center to stop all ambulances coming from other parts of the state and have them turn off their emergency equipment before they get in range of the hospital. Mind you, I'm about to lose my mind at this point, and luckily I had thought when I got the first call, that I should page an off-duty officer who lives 2 blocks from headquarters. She called in about this time and I told her to "get your ass in here now and you're on the clock, I need help!" She was there in like 3 minutes. Then we had to call in the next shift early because all our units were tied up on this call and I was backing up on miscellaneous non-emergent calls that needed to be taken, and we were unsure how long this was going to last.

OK, so back to the guy on the ledge. He would ONLY talk to the Sergeant who first arrived at the scene, and didn't want to see anyone else. So I'm listening to the operations channel for incidents, and I hear 2 other officers making entry into the building, so I tell them to turn their radios down so he can't hear it and to approach with caution due to we weren't sure if he had any weapons or not (other than his bad looks and even worse body HAHA). So, they sneaked up to the level he was on, and hid behind 2 I-beams that were holding the next floor above them up (on each side of the ledge he was on). He then tells the Sergeant that he wants a cigarette, a root beer, and a 3 musketeers candy bar, and wants the Sergeant to bring it up to him.

The Sergeant calls me and advises me of what he is going to do and I let the Chief, who is enroute to the scene, know what he is asking for. So, the Sergeant bums a cigarette off another officer (cause he doesn't smoke), and gets the rest of the stuff and starts up the stairs. When he reaches the top, the guy demands that the Sgt bring the items out onto the ledge to him.

Being a 20 year veteran and pretty witty about things (as well as being a certified hostage negotiator), he quickly tells the man that he's afraid of heights and will not come out onto the ledge to bring it to him, that if he wanted it he would have to walk in and get it himself, and the Sgt lays the stuff down (right beside the hidden officers) and steps back. After convincing the guy that he is not going to try anything, the guy finally agrees to get his cigarette, rootbeer, and 3 musketeers bar. At this moment, when he crosses the point where the 2 other officers are waiting, they jump on top of him (naked HAHA) and tackle him to the ground. The rookie officer who was one of the two who tackled him said he never thought he would have to tackle a naked man before and that the guy (had legs as white as Bill Clinton's) LOL!!!

So, everything worked out fine, some people complained that they were offended by the man's penis (which we couldn't help, told them to file a civil suit against him if they wanted to). But the Sergeant told me he has learned 1 thing for sure from that situation....and that is that he now ALWAYS has a pack of cigarettes in his cruiser in case someone who he is out with needs one, because it was the best bargaining tool he's ever had.

Just thought I would share that story with you, I get a kick out of it everytime I think about it. :bounce:

[MrJim911]

And a good story it was!!! Thanks! :bounce:

[Sheri S]

In the three years that I dispatched, I only remember two or three calls. I could have had a terribly exciting, which unfortunately means that somebody else had a horrible day, and I could go home and Husband would ask, "HOw was your day, anything exciting." I would always relply NO, because I always forgot it all.

One time I had to get up and that was after taking call of 2 year old drowning in the family pool.

One that stunned me for a second, after I disconnected was I took a call from a Mother who just found her 14 year old daughter who had shot herself in the head who was still alive but had been laying there for at least an hour. I was working with 5 other women and we all just sat there replaying the call over and over.

Anyway, for me it wasn't taking the work home or the stressful calls, it was more the rotating shifts. Got to me eventually.

Good luck with your career.

SS

[ladymoonlite]

I don't think you can help but take it home with you, to some degree. I have always told those I've trained that you're not a dispatcher until you've spent the night dreaming about it!

My strangest call (and I'll just say that this did not occur in my current department but at a previous job) was probably the one that started with "my baby's choking!!" shouted by a woman on 9-1-1... but it turned out that her "baby" was a dog. Since I couldn't send her help (the guys on the Rescue units get a little upset being sent out for choking poodles), I mentally reconfigured the heimlich maneuver to work on a dog, gave her the modified version of the instructions, and it worked! Fido heaved out the bite of steak and everyone lived happily ever after.

[Noodle]

I believe that the call that took me the longest from start to finish and held and extreamly high stess rate was one similiar to KYEMT325's. I work on a campus and it took place in a dorm room. It started with a guy coming down from Detroit to visit a girl who he thought that he was dating, but only had ever talked to on the computer and did not realise she had a boyfriend. She did put him up for the weekend, but when she decided that she had to go to class on monday, he thought that she was leaving him forever, and barricaded himself in her room with a gun. Soon afterward my switchboard lit up like a christmas tree with people saying they see a man with a guy in a dorm window and on the hallway when he was patroling the floor. I did have one other dispatcher with me which made it nicer but we were still swamped. We had to call in extra shifts to cover the street, SRT, Negotiators, City cops to block off the area, EMS, Detroit PD to check his home affairs, plus my partner was on the phone with his dad for the majority of the time. I forgot to mention that after he lacked himself solely in the room he decided to shoot at people out of his window. A couple of hours went by and it seemed that every thing was going to be ok, then shots were fired by the suspect. officers made entry, and all i heard was "GET AN AMBULANCE OVER HERE NOW". I can tell you that at that point all feeling that I had went straight to my feet. It had to be the absolute worst feeling that I ever had. Everyone in our department is very close and all the guys are good friends of mine. I had no idea who was shot or how bad. Well to make matters worse, i did not know if the area was secure so EMS would not enter until confirmed, which I must add is understandable. They did get over there as soon as the area was secure. Fortunatly all of my officers and Firepeople were allright, unfortunatly the suspect shot himself. No charges were filed and he is now going to live in a hospital for the rest of his life as a vegitable. :( Not a good ending but sometimes that happens. All of the departments that took part in the action did great job and did everything possible. News crews were on sceen when the suspect was shooting out of the window and they watched everything take place. They also did an excellant job of coverage and commended the service pesonel that night on the news.

[Noodle]

Strange calls
By the way there is a 911 site out there that has recorded calls on it. The funnest that I heard, and every dispatcher that I know has heard it is a call taken from a Detroit suburb of a guy getting bite by a deer. If you can find it is sunny. be adivised that he says the F word something like 36 times, but it is worth it.:D

[Lily]

Joe Deer. Its really hilarious. Its here along with many others.

http://911audio.com/audio/Audio_Files/Funny_911_Calls/

Also, on the right hand you can select other categories and hear more calls.:bounce: