Chris Salafia, CEO (back left) and John Brunelli, Senior EMD Trainer (center front) with PowerPhone certified EMD students from Singapore Civil Defence Academy

This week, John Brunelli, a Senior Trainer with PowerPhone, gives his insight into the differences and similarities of the International Emergency Communications community.  A retired Firefighter/Paramedic with the Mansfield Massachusetts Fire Department, John Brunelli was responsible for fire suppression and on-scene triage of sick/injured patients, and for training public safety dispatchers in call taking techniques and radio procedures.  As an instructor for PowerPhone, John specializes in both fire and emergency medical dispatch disciplines, and holds students’ attention with his boundless energy and enthusiasm in the classroom.  PowerPhone is lucky to have him on board, and we look forward to his monthly office visits.

I have been with PowerPhone now for 2 years, full time.  It went by quick. I enjoy everyday that I’m up in front, instructing you, and doing my thing. Sure, there are times I miss riding in a fire engine; joking with my brother and sister Firefighters around the fire house. It’s a rush being in a house fire. Dragging a 1 ¾” attack line, and knocking down a room or two, fully involved.

As a 911 dispatcher, I was able to experience another type of rush. A similar, but different, rush. It’s the rush I get when talking to a frantic mother whose baby has stopped breathing, and successfully taking control of the situation while giving pre-arrival instruction. Makes me thank god for my medication.

PowerPhone has injected a rush in me similar to the previous ones mentioned, but different. As a senior Fire and Emergency Medical Dispatch Instructor, I get the chance to deliver PowerPhone’s years of experience through presentations, dialogue with students and our vast audio/visual library. One effective training tool is playing A/V clips which demonstrate dispatchers performing correctly and incorrectly in emergency situations. I have the students critique the calls, pointing out the good and the bad, and discuss how they would handle each scenario differently.

It is always an honor to meet students throughout the world. I get to know each one on a personal level by talking to them before, during, and after class. In my travels, I’ve noticed some similarities and differences with my students.  No matter where I am, when class members walk in on the first day, the front row is usually the last row to fill up. The last row will more than likely occupy the 10 plus-years, veteran dispatchers. In fact, when I was in Japan on a USMC air station, the last row contained Lance Corporal’s and above.

Also without fail, the last row in the room inevitably sits the class clown. He or she is usually well known and respected, and sometimes even feared through out the dispatch community. I suppose it takes one to know one… I think my paramedic instructor retired the day after I graduated.

Here is another similarity among students: Their reaction to my accent. I was in Singapore for just under a month (what a great experience for me, and for PowerPhone). I taught at the country’s Fire Academy, and the students were mostly former firefighters.

The first day, my students were acting particularly quiet. They would laugh at my jokes, but I think they were still trying to figure me out. They learn English very early, 4th grade, I think. So my Massachusetts accent knocked them for a loop. They were probably saying to themselves, “Where the hell are his R’s? Is he leaving them out to trick us?”

I was teaching an EMD class in Beaumont Texas, and on the 2nd day of class, I talk about the heart and its many functions. I noticed a student with a confused look on his face as he raised his hand, asking in a deep Texas drawl “You mean like temperature HOT?” I replied, “You know the thing that beats in your chest.” He said,” Oh, you meant the H aaaahhh Rrrrr Tttt.”

PowerPhone is my vehicle to reach out to these incredibly sincere, human beings. No matter where I am, students always make me feel welcome. I mean it, no bull. I have received so many thoughtful gifts; coffee, fire t-shirts, fire hats, cards, and candy. When my family travels with me, they are treated like royalty also. I’ve gone out to eat with my students, visited fire houses, and been introduced to their family and friends.  I have attended a rodeo, played golf, and even gone target shooting. Me with a gun! Most of my students still stay in touch with me through email, twitter, and facebook; we’ve become friends.

A major common thread that sews us all together is our desire to help others. People we don’t even know. Even though our pay isn’t all that bad, we definitely do not do this for the money. The feeling of helping someone, however, mild it may be, is awesome. It is not an understatement to say this job requires a special kind of person.

Each class is unique in its own way, but the people, my students, are always the same crazy, wonderful, warm hearted, down to earth people, wherever I am in the world. Thanks for being you.

Mike Dougherty pictured with his wife, Amy and his two boys, Keagan, 11, and Brenden, 8.

For the last 25 years, 18 of which I personally have been witness to, PowerPhone has championed a few basic tenets for effective emergency dispatch. Essentially that a properly trained and equipped (protocols!) emergency dispatcher can:

• Render aid prior to the arrival of responders
• Properly allocate and prioritize resources
• Preserve evidence
• Reduce agency liability exposure
• Enhance scene safety and better protect responders

As a cop’s kid and someone who had grown up around public safety, I have to admit I’ve always been acutely aware of that last precept – protecting responders. It’s something I’ve always been cognizant of, and after 9/11, became firmly ingrained in me. It’s one of the primary reasons we introduced Protecting Law Enforcement Responders, one of the most popular PowerPhone courses ever released. If we can empower our students to help just one more officer return home safely, than we have all done our jobs.

That said, despite employing dozens of public safety professionals across the U.S., we’ve been very fortunate to have never experienced firsthand what many families across this country unfortunately live on a daily basis. The Call. The call from a stranger telling you a loved one has been injured or worse…

The Call came to PowerPhone recently and it has recommitted our entire organization to making sure we do our part to best protect those who spend their lives protecting us.

Pontiac, Michigan Firefighter and Paramedic Michael Dougherty has been a PowerPhone trainer for three years. He has traveled the country providing emergency medical and fire service dispatch training to agencies of all shapes and sizes. “Passion for his job” is the phrase most often echoed on his course evaluations and Mike always had a true calling for teaching emergency communications.

On January 2, 2010, Mike was working an active structure fire when a stairwell collapsed. Mike fell approximately 20 feet, landing on his head and breaking his neck. Later that day, I received The Call from our director of training, advising me that Mike had been seriously injured on the job. We didn’t have any more information, but as he was scheduled to be teaching for us on Monday we had to get the word out to the host and attending agencies.

 While administrative wheels turned, we did our best to find out what we could about Mike’s condition. I now have a more intimate understanding of “time standing still” as we reached out to his colleagues for an update. Fortunately, despite breaking his C5 vertebrate, Mike survived the fall and did not appear to have any associated paralysis. While the road to recovery is no doubt long, Mike is home and thankful to be back with his wife and young sons. The alternative is something we choose not to contemplate.

Mike’s injury was an accident, and no amount of foresight, training, prayer or luck will ever prevent additional accidents from occurring in the future. However, being witness to how quickly lives can change has caused a recommitment and rededication internally to ensuring PowerPhone continues to do our small part to best ensure all members of the public safety community make it home safely. Thank you for your service.

If you’d like to read more about Mike’s Miracle please follow this link. Also if you are local to the Pontiac, MI area, there will be a benefit in his honor on February 12. More details here.

 About the author:
Chris Salafia is the President and CEO of PowerPhone. Founded in 1984, the company has trained more than 150,000 public safety professionals representing all 50 U.S. states and more than a dozen foreign countries. The maker of Total Response® Computer Aided Call Handling (CACH) software, PowerPhone is the driving force behind One Number…One Protocol™, the initiative to bring greater consistency and simplicity to public safety call-handling. Mr. Salafia can be reached via e-mail or 203.245.8911.

Dispatcher Alexia Feasel (center) was honored for saving the life of Angela Gibson (left). PowerPhone's Dispatcher Recognition Award was presented by EMD instructor Scot Sorensen.

Through her Emergency Medical Dispatch training, Alexia Feasel, a Tiffin, Ohio dispatcher, guided a 911 caller through the Heimlich maneuver, and saved a life.  Congratulations goes out to Alexia for her quick thinking and calm demeanor, turning what could have been a tragedy into a great triumph.

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“… I just wanted to let you know the tactics I learned in my 911 training class paid off. I had a man call in who didn’t want to live anymore. He wouldn’t tell us where he was but I was able to get him to talk about things he liked… He had his 12 year-old daughter with him and I talked him into letting me speak to her. As she didn’t know the address (she didn’t live there) I had her read me the license plate from her father’s car. We ran the plate and dispatched officers who were able to prevent the man from harming himself or others. I want you to know that the crisis communications training I received truly helped me that night.  I just wanted to say thank you for helping me save a little girl’s daddy.”

Congratulations Danielle and thanks for sharing your story with us! We’re proud of our reputation and even more proud of the professionalism of PowerPhone graduates such as yourself. You have proved once again that emergency dispatchers are the first person on the scene of any crime, fire or medical emergency. Your actions can and do save lives!

With five computer screens to monitor — four of them on her desk  and four radio systems blaring —  Brookings, CA Emergency Services Dispatcher Debbie Fries monitors emergency systems for the Brookings area, waiting for the next call for help.

When it comes, Fries becomes the ringmaster for an electronic three-ring circus – something is happening everywhere, all at one time.

Fries and six fellow emergency call center dispatchers are the brains of the city’s emergency system.

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PowerPhone

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A little girl got a big hug from her mom and Charles County, Maryland, officials at a ceremony honoring her for a 911 call she made that probably saved her mother’s life.

Samantha Mason was only 4-years-old in August when she found her mom unconscious at their home in Waldorf, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.  Her mother had told her how to make an emergency call in case the child’s grandmother ever had trouble.

“I always taught her (to call) 911 for my mom, a dialysis patient,” Samantha’s mother, Sharon Mason, told CNN. “I never expected it would be for me.”

Mason said on the day of the incident, she was feeling ill and hadn’t taken her diabetes medicine “because it wasn’t agreeing” with her.

When she went to lie down, Mason said, she apparently slipped out of consciousness because her blood sugar was out of control.

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When Orlando police responded to the downtown shooting last Friday, they were getting their information from 911 dispatchers hard at work on the other side of town.

Laura Rivera, pictured, took the first call to report a shooting at the Reynolds, Smith and Hills office in the Gateway Center.

“When I picked it up, all I could hear was a lot of commotion in the background,” said Rivera.

A frightened woman was on the other line.

“All she could tell me was that they heard shooting, but they don’t know what’s going on, and everybody’s running out the building.”

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Yet an emergency dispatcher’s keystroke error sent two fire trucks from that firehouse — as well as four other Fire Department vehicles from other companies — toward the wrong address on 62nd Street, rather than the illegally subdivided wooden home at 42-40 65th Street in Woodside where the fire started.

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