Who will answer 9-1-1 when we call?

Captain George Deuchar (Ret.), PowerPhone’s Director of Training, examines the need for Critical Incident Stress Management for 9-1-1 professionals in a special feature for 9-1-1.com.

One of the most fascinating features regarding your function as a Public Safety Dispatcher is the unknown situation, emergency call, or critical incident that awaits you. As you begin your shift, many times all is quiet and then the phone rings. Where will this call take you? Perhaps the call is another hang-up, or someone asking for a phone number or directions, or someone reporting a barking dog. But it could be the most critical call of your entire career.

PowerPhone instructors advise every student in every class that the dispatcher is the first person on the scene of every crime, fire, incident, or medical emergency. Until someone you dispatch arrives on scene, you are the most important lifeline that this caller and/or victim has. In a Domestic Violence call, you are the one witnessing the screams, cries, threats, frightened children, and furniture being broken. When a frantic caller dials 9-1-1, you are thrust into their crisis.

Picture this scenario. Many years ago, early on a Saturday day shift, my police department received a 9-1-1 call for help from a hysterical parent. Following the usual ” 9- 1 -1 Where is your Emergency? “, the dispatcher found himself in the midst of the caller’s most traumatic moment of their life. The caller had just found her child hanging from the upper bed of a bunk bed set. During the night, the child’s small body had slipped under the railing feet first, trapping her head between the railing and the box spring. The parent removed her child from the bed and then instinctively dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher assessed the seriousness of the call, and quickly initiated Emergency Medical Dispatch instructions for CPR. The dispatcher having a child that very same age, grasped for any hope he could find. At that moment all that existed were himself; the parent, and the child. As we know dispatchers save seconds, and seconds save lives. These seconds seemed like an eternity. A second dispatcher promptly dispatched the First Aid Squad, Paramedics, and the closest police unit.

As EMS raced to the aid of this child, I received the call and found myself within one mile of the house. As a veteran police officer, I planned my approach and resuscitation efforts in my mind, as I have done hundreds of times before. Within seconds I arrived, notified the dispatcher, grabbed my oxygen unit and ran for the front door. The parent ran to me, clutching her daughter in her arms, and placed her in my arms. Completely consumed by fear she said to me, “Save My Baby.” As I looked at this child with the eyes of a father, I anxiously began to initiate my pre-conceived plan. I then looked again at this child, but now with the eyes of a professionally trained and experienced police officer. This time I saw post mortem lividity in her feet and legs, rigor mortis had begun to set into her small body, and there were absolutely no signs of life within her. The paramedics had fortunately arrived seconds after I did. In their quick assessment they confirmed my worst fears. With all the weight of the world at this moment, I could only say, “I’m sorry, we can’t save your baby, she’s gone.” The reality of this painful moment completely engulfed this parent as she collapsed onto the floor. Today we had lost a child and its impact on all of us was devastating as we thought about our own children.

The critical incident that I just described is one that is similar to many that we experience far too often in our roles as police officers and police dispatchers. For me and the dispatcher, this was indeed a critical incident. Events such as this must be identified by law enforcement administrators and supervisors, as having potentially detrimental effects on their employees. They are incidents that experts such as Jeffrey T. Mitchell and George S. Everly, Jr. of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation define as any event with sufficient impact to produce significant emotional reactions in people now or later.

Fortunately for the Law Enforcement community in my county, help had arrived for the 39 municipal police departments. Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Teams are in place and respond to assist fellow police officers and dispatchers after their involvement in critical incidents. A Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is a group meeting or discussion about a distressing critical incident. According to Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Everly, the debriefing is based upon core principles of education and crisis intervention. They are designed to mitigate the impact of a critical incident and to assist personnel in recovering as quickly as possible from the stress associated with the event. When police personnel are involved in such incidents, a Debriefing Team consisting of peer support members from another part of the country are contacted. The teams were trained by the International Critical lncident Stress Foundation and the FBI Employee Assistance Unit. The Critical Incident Debriefing team is geared for the law enforcement community only. Members of the teams are volunteers from the police departments and agencies of the county. An officer or dispatcher who is in pain from trauma will realize that he or she is not alone. We actually treat police officers and dispatchers as people first, and gain an understanding of what the term law enforcement community really means.

Far too often in my travels, I listen to stories from communication personnel that have experienced Critical Incident Stress, but have never been included in a Debriefing. I have experienced Critical Incidents in both dispatch and the street. I have gone home with the haunting vision from the scene, as well as the haunting voice from the phone. The call taker/dispatcher’s role in a call is all that is needed to experience normal reactions to an abnormal event. Perhaps Law Enforcement agencies nationwide can follow the example of agencies that have taken steps to care for their own. During our times of crisis, when we dial 9-1-1, who will answer our call for help?

Captain George Deuchar is a retired 26-year veteran from the Washington Twp. Police Department in New Jersey. During his law enforcement career he served in numerous capacities including Patrol, Investigations, Communications, Community Service, and Administration. He has served as a team leader with the Morris County Critical Incident Debriefing Team and facilitates debriefings with Law Enforcement personnel throughout the country.

Captain Deuchar has been training law enforcement personnel as a PowerPhone Trainer since 1995 and currently serves as PowerPhone’s Director of Training. He travels extensively nationwide conducting law enforcement training seminars related to Suicide Intervention and Suicide Callers, Crisis Negotiations and Communications, Critical Incident Stress and Stress Management.

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