by Linda Olmstead
This work we do is pretty much the same everywhere. I can say that because I've worked for two different agencies and at five different Comm Centers. (The first 15 years were spent in one of two county-wide, consolidated PSAPs handling law enforcement, fire services and EMS responders, and the last seven years for a law enforcement agency that operates 24 Comm Centers, so I've had different places to hang my headset and lots of different policies to learn.) I also visit Comm Centers out of sheer curiosity-and the chance to meet my peers around the nation.
We all deal with the public over the phone, we all tell officers where to go (okay, so some of them are firefighters or EMTs or paramedics or whatever, but we talk to our "units" on the radio), we all have to document an incredible variety of stuff with tools from differing technological eras, we all deal with shift work, and we've probably all had to jiggle in our seats too long before it was clear to go use the little dispatcher's room.
An inadvertently-keyed microphone in the Comm Center is something common to us all. Let me share one such story from an agency some distance to the east:
Busy shift, CAD system providing superfluous service call updates (this CAD has a clever feature preventing one from deleting things too fast, telling dispatchers "You can't have read the call in that amount of time" if they try to dismiss an update that's been on the screen less than 3 seconds). Frustrated that she couldn't spin through them fast enough, she muttered an emphatic "Jesus H Christ"and from the radio came a deep male voice-of-doom saying reverently, "Yes,and He is our Lord and Master."
Anyone who's had an open microphone knows that second of confusion followed immediately by a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach. A look to the side at the radio controls confirms the telltale red transmit light. (So much for casually resting one's foot on the pedal!)
Everybody got a kick out of it and the click-clicks started. But the timing was serendipitous not! At the same time, out in the field, a female deputy sheriff was getting out of her car, about to go on a family disturbance call. She doubled up laughing, and when she straightened up, she was confronted by an angry elderly female complainant, who demanded to know: "What are you laughing it? Do you think I'm funny? Do you think this is a funny situation?"
Explain This
Oops. How could one explain those circumstances truthfully? (Kinda wish I knew what she did tell the complainant!)
We've recently started using an unofficial abbreviation in CAD. We know what it means-and we could explain it quite easily as appropriate documentation of a caller's complaint, too. "SGGK" means "Somebody's gonna get killed!" Y'all have my permission to plagiarize it, if it works in your Comm Center, too. [smirk]
Miscommunications between the public and call-taker are common, right? It takes a well-trained communications professional to either figger out what's going on or to ask clarifying questions to get the full story. One of our dispatchers answered a cellular 911 line to hear, "I want to report a deer hitting my car." She asked the caller, "Is the deer still hitting your car?" Heck, it's rutting season, maybe there's lady-deer pheromones smeared on the left door panel or something, who knows?
The RP's tone of voice and emphasis indicated a serious eye-rolling response: "NOit isn't still hitting my car!" (As if one of the two people in this conversation is retarded and it's not HER.) Well, of course the car struck the deer, not the other way 'round. They get that settled and the gal gave her best guess of the location where the injured deer may still be suffering, and where she will be for our officer to take her accident report.
About 20 minutes later she called back-this time using the 7-digit number-wondering why the officer hasn't shown up. (You know, an eternity has passed.) She assumed she'd reach a different place than where her 911 call terminated, and told the call-taker she really didn't trust an officer had been dispatched, "because that person who answered 911 was a little weird."
Right. A deer is hitting her car and we're weird? Take that woman's cell phone privileges away from her!!!
Where's Jack?
Then there's the "navigation by landmark" syndrome, during which incidents can get all mucked up in the reporting, responding and on scene information relay process.
There are four counties within the dispatch jurisdiction of my little Comm Center. The cell phone user just outside Jack In the Box has to tell us more before we can figure out where to go, much less what or who needs to be sent. I'm not sure how many JITBs there are in our four counties, but there are a slew of 'em! And, if a community happens to be a renowned source of something, there's bound to be name references to it that can truly complicate the situation.
"I don't know where this accident is, but it's really bad." Where are you? "I'm not where it is, this is the first place we could get out on our cell phone." Are you involved in the accident and is anyone injured? "No, they didn't have a phone-and their car is upside down in a ditch."
Where is it, I mean, do you have any idea, what highway it was, is it on the same road where you are calling from?" "No, it's back on that highway between here and Hollister." Great; that could be one of four highways. After a bit more narrowing of the playing field, we asked if she could show our officer her route of travel. That was a workable planBut where was she?
Well, with the vague description of the accident location and the elapsed time from when our RP left it, we had already hazarded a guess and dispatched one unit towards the possible accident scene. She didn't check to see if anyone was injured, and we really couldn't send out fire and ambulance units to troll up and down two highways, hoping to locate that vehicle off the road on its roof in a ditchwhich could be in either one county or another. (Doncha hate calls near county lines?)
No Sign
As for our caller, she claimed she couldn't see any signs ("Nothing's open around here!") but she knew she was on Highway 101. Oh! Wait! She was at Garlic World! Whew! The second unit was sent to meet her.
Uh oh. Our unit did not find our RP at Garlic World. First unit was still heading out towards the unknown-injury accident with the inexact location. And, by the way, the caller didn't have cellular phone service; she only used her phone for emergencies, so we couldn't call her back. The second unit turned around to go assist the first in locating the accident.
RP called back in a few minutes, pretty scared of the dark and wondering where that cop was that was gonna go with her back to the accident. It would involve his turning around again but she swore she could show us the accident scene. She said she was in a red Ford Escort in the parking lot ofOoooops! The Garlic Farm, not Garlic World. Silly her. (At that point, there were two people in the Comm Center ready to bang their foreheads against the console.)
We provided the "escort" unit with the new and improved location and RPs vehicle description, continuing to cajole a better location for the accident, which was still out there, somewhere.
Meanwhile, an allied agency had been listening to the scanner and they called offer one of their units to meet our RP-because they knew we were strapped for units, the Garlic Farm happens to be in their city limits, and maybe a face-to-face discussion with a uniformed officer would garner a more coherent location from the scared lady sitting in the dark in her red Ford Escort.
Then the first unit-the one on the way to try to find the accident scene itself-advised that he was out with a red Ford Escort with parties involved in the accident, and they'd be returning to the accident, about seven miles further down Highway 25.
Puzzled Look
The dispatcher looked puzzled and asked if it was the first unit or the second unit with the red Ford Escort at the Garlic Farm. It was the first unit, but he wasn't at the Garlic Farm. The second unit arrived at the Garlic Farm, to talk to the lady we had on the phone, and she was asked, "Didn't you say you weren't involved in the accident?" That's right, she wasn't. "Is one of our officers there to talk to you?" Yes, he'd just arrived. So the call-taker ended the call, shrugging.
Well, heck. The Garlic Farm is not on Highway 25, and we had an officer there, with the RP in a red Ford Escort. There was another of our officers out with a red Ford Escort on Highway 25, "with involved parties," apparently about seven miles from the actual accident scene. The dispatcher threw both hands in the air and stomped the foot pedal to transmit, "I show both of you out with red Ford Escorts. Advise location when you have it."
(There were indeed two red Ford Escorts-one with a cell phone that passed and one that picked up a couple of passengers from the accident.) We kicked around the concept of a third one, who could have used the pay phone at the Garlic Shoppe. But it would have been a wired 911 call, with ANI and ALI displays, so at least half of the confusion we experienced wouldn't have ensued. If you're ever out this way, be sure to stop by the Garlic World, Garlic Farm and Garlic Shoppe, okay? Just don't call us from 'em.
We generally use the word "cluster" to describe screwy incidents that tangle up one or more dispatchers for longer-than-usual periods of time. (Yes, that is half of a hyphenated word.)
One of our units encountered yet another disabled motorist who hadn't any money for towing services and wasn't a member of an auto club. She happened to be traveling with a young child. For some reason, the officer was compelled to provide a courtesy transport. No biggie. We would expect no less, right? Take her to a safe location where she can make other arrangements. Instead, he chose to gather them up and head towards their eventual destination. He got to the end of his beat-actually at the county line and the end of his Area's jurisdiction-and requested the dispatcher contact her partner at the other radio to arrange for a unit in the adjacent county to take over the escort.
Unit Clear?
Uhhh all the units on that radio were busy. It was one determined officer. He flipped to the other frequency to ask if she had a clear unit to take over his courtesy transport. Noop, nobody free. "No units clear at all?" No, four of them were working speed with the air units, and three were at the range. "What's [beat unit] doing?" He was down the coast, the dispatcher was not going to assign him. (Down the coast means 60 miles away.)
We were all listening intently to this exchange. He suggested another unit by beat number. Well, that unit was at the south end of the Area, working a crash. He asked about another beat, which usually had a unit assigned, but which wasn't anywhere near the location of the transporting officer's intended transfer point. We had a pretty good clue as to the outcome of that inquiry, but the reply made us all smile: "Sorry, [Beat Such-and-Such] is a motor. Got extra helmets?"
Eventually, the original unit went many miles off his beat and out of his area to safely deliver his precious cargo. It illustrated a very important principle to the newer dispatchers in the Comm Center: If you start a "courtesy" anything, make sure you can extend the courtesy the whole way!
Near the end of the shift, somebody alerted a radio position with the announcement that "Log 342 could have been another cluster but I fixed it." She added, "Just have the officer call in and I'll explain." The dispatcher whirled in her chair and blurted, "Look, they're all coming from your console! You're making them clusters! I'm gonna hurt you. Better yet, I'm working phones tomorrowyou're not getting the chance to give me any more calls like these!" We all laughed. "Clusters" can't be predicted.
Happy to be here, proud to serve.
Linda
February, 2000
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