911 Dispatcher - A Day in the Life

hi I'm Sarah and this is a day in the life of a 911 dispatcher [Music] [Music] our shift changes at 7 I typically like to get to work about 6:30 because I want to get myself settled get my bags in here maybe get a cup of coffee and then I try to take over for the person who's coming off shift between 6:45 and 650 depending on where I'm sitting at that day if it's going to be phones or maybe it's radios or maybe it's SSN between the two of us as I relieve that person and they're gonna go home for the morning and I'm gonna take over we'll do a quick pass on I was relieving Lou so she was just kind of filling me in on if there was any operations channels out or anything like that as a shift before everyone leaves from the off going shift we'll do a pass on for the whole group where we kind of explain either the calls that happen the day before were there any big calls large calls anything like that or just how the day went and because there's anything to pass on and then the off cone shift we'll go home for the day and we get settled in and start going right good morning family all right under 25 calls we had eight almost eight our gas leak in Castle Pines eight seven four to loosen Boulevard there's a huge sprinkler system supply line that burrow under the building so they had a Haven Oh sprinkles right now Amanda's out sick we called checked on her she has no needs everyone know the short code for the e IDs did that the slash the stat got pulled yesterday that we had 885 cardiac arrest is that's last year so anybody else got anything CJ Chris okay have a good day so I've actually been a dispatcher for about seven and a half years now dispatching is hard to describe I guess for some people that might not know the phone calls and doing the radio traffic and things like that everyone always thinks all must be really hard and yeah you definitely have really hard days sometimes it's just crazy phones all day long or you just get those really tough phone calls but actually you have a really great days - and here at South Metro and in matcom the environment the dispatch environment itself is so different than where I've been before and other agencies that it makes it really easy to really enjoy coming to work and doing the job yeah you got long hours we're here for 24 hours in an hour shift but the day goes by really fast when you're with a good group and the team works really well together and even on the crazy days where it's just call after call after call it goes really quickly it seems like next thing you know it's five o'clock and you're like hey it's either bedtime for me or you guys are going to bed and you know it's amazing how fast the days can go by even when you're really busy because it is such a great environment your heart starts to race when those phone calls dropping it's a really tough call or you're starting CPR or something like that so it's a lot of up and downs throughout your shift you can get your heart rate up and get your adrenaline going really fast to the bathroom alright and just to confirm NC a week Kisa wait and dizzy breathing is he completely alert right is he bleeding or vomiting blood you know and does he have any pain no all right so now just a couple more quick questions me and my partner already has him on the way has he traveled in the last 21 days no right as he had contact with the person who's traveled in the last 21 days you know and as you had contact with some with flu or flu-like symptoms yeah if you become less awake and vomit can quickly turn on his side and then before the responders arrives we could reason for the weightiness gathers medications anyway so this is what our typical console looks like we can perform any task from any console we do typically sit at certain consoles for position just for the ease of normality I guess this is typically the TAC rule position where we're sitting today but again I can perform any task at this console that I want I'll just kind of run through it real quick so this is the centennial Airport alerting so and they have air Lert ones twos and threes we get the notification here and then we'll build our call and go forth as necessary yeah so the tower will send out an alert if they've got like an air one Lert or an air alert - and we'll come up here it'll tell us the type air alert one earlier - typically they'll also put in the issue landing gear or a fuel issue or something like that and it'll give us the runway this is my phone system I have a mapping system with my phone as well as the phone system itself I get all my incoming lines here all my transfers 9-1-1 transfers police agencies other fire agencies we can do the text to 911 one so depending on what type of call it is it'll either drop in as a 911 here that's got its own ringtone admins crew lines fire alarm calls all come in on this box and it'll say admin crew or fire so we know if it's an alarm company calling in a fire alarm or a medical alarm if it's someone on the crew calling with some questions or just some updates maybe it's a call recap or giving us some information on a patient I do have my little keypad that goes with my phone system it's got some speed dials built in as well IRA Excel Electric Excel gas Denver Water Castle Pines state Greenwood Lone Tree Parker Littleton so we do have some speed dials kind of built in there centare we can use those I would say the majority of us use this as much as we can this is where I'm going to answer my phone put my phone on hold release my phone dial if I need to make an outside number call it RP back with most stuff there's multiple ways to do things my map will drop in but only for 9-1-1 calls so i'm only gonna get mapping on my 9-1-1 s with my auntie alleys and then that then correlates into my cad system so when I get a 9-1-1 call it'll map it here drop it into my cat and then my CAD map should map it the same way so I can verify that they both look the same like if that looks like that looks like my address is good or my location is good and then again yet this is our CAD map so everyone getting to set up their cat a little different as how they want to look how they want it to look for their login this is sort of what I've settled on I've got my regular CAD map here that has all the tracking shows all the units shows my calls and then this is the Pictometry map that's going to be showing me the buildings from a slightly different angle not straight overhead as an aerial and photometry can be pretty helpful this is usually what we'll go to if we need to find access off of trails or something like that as for my CAD system itself this is the bulk of where I do most of my work down here as far as processing calls checking my units this is our notifications box so if we get swap recommendations and things like that a little notification will pop up here if it's thinking units are closer and they need to be swapped on calls if there's words that are dumped and sometimes on the CAD - CAD calls with law they made put in some notes that have some priority type wording like weapons type notes or drugs or something like that then you get little notes and messages here this is going to be my pending queue so when we get a new call that drops either from one of the call takers putting it into the CAD system or possibly on a CAD - CAD push from law agencies I'll pop up here for me first and then I can click on it here open up the call and assign the units and then this box here is going to be where all my active calls are so these are the calls stub units assigned to them and for me this is where my units live so these are all my medic units that I have either available or actively on a call we're still working a call this is going to be all my suppression units my battalion Chiefs my safeties they're all going to be in this box for me it just worked better to kind of keep them separated out and then this is all my out of service so over here I've got my admin style Computers is where I get my emails I've got access to Google and things like that if we need to so I keep my iam resources up here that's going to be like all the hospitals in the area they've got any kind of psychic vibes ER diverts things like that that's where I get that information so here I would get to my weather application as well so that's where I can pretty much see the whole metro area there's different weather stations throughout and some along i-70 for the eastern departments that we dispatch for I could listen to any one of these radios channels the ones that are green highlighted with the white background are the ones that I've got coming through my headset so those are the ones that I have in my ear all times and then the blue ones are gonna come out of my speakers so this one is specifically for Metro net this unselect is every other blue channel that I don't have highlighted in green and white and then this would be my West Douglass stations if I didn't have them selected in my ear then they would come out specifically this speaker and we kind of broke up the speakers in such a way that you know again we can even set up our desks how what works best for us is where the dispatcher is sitting at the console so if I want to keep my West sideways here you know turn my unselect down I've got my selected channels here so when I'm on the phone let's grab that 9-1-1 South Metro Fire Rescue what's the address of your emergency your Mountain Vista High School was the telephone number that you're calling from no I'm saying exactly what happened what's your first what is your first night here vacation Jessica's here week getting pretty close or about to turn off a wildcat it looks like they're getting into the main parking lot now how's this color do this color get a little better it's like they might be going around to that West parking lot Jim so just let me know one they've gotten into the gym with you guys okay and is the whole block construction at this point right I've got it in just no use your way sorry so listen carefully are you right by her now yeah all right so listen carefully when I was driving her back on the floor that's when I be perfectly on TV sure on the bag you can grab she so let let's do this let's get her flat on her back make sure she's flat on her back you can be honest on the bed if that's what you got for Vic my poster hey and I have four have you ever heard under the net and tilt the head back and put your ear next to the no I want you to say now every single time she takes a breath and starting immediately yeah okay we're gonna we're kind of counting the Raiders rough so let my only take some other ones I was taken aback yes okay we're gonna change it we're doing then so we're gonna let's try and get it onto the floor corpus so listen carefully I'm going to tell you how - compressions right so please feel your hand on the breast bone in the center of the chest right between your nipples put your other hand on top of that you an attorney so far see that I want you to say now every single time she takes the Russian okay so let's just keep an eye on keep her flat on her back with her head tilted back and trying to gently run her side let her go ahead and keep all the way and then when she's done with that we'll cut it out of mouth and nose okay so when i get a call dropped in on my 9-1-1 i only have 45 seconds to get that call shipped over when we call it shipped over a dish you know sent to the queue so that the systems management person can assign units to it and they only have 15 seconds to assign units to the call so that's really a minute with within a minute someone is already getting toned out the crews are getting their stuff on and they're getting in their rig to roll out to you while the rest of the questions are getting asked we like to do crew lunches on our weekends so when we're here on shift either on a Saturday or a Sunday especially in the summertime we love to barbecue then yeah we got this really cool setup out here this is our summertime jam so we got Chris working the grill ooh jalapeno poppers that would be delicious got some chicken today we're having tacos for lunch cooking for the shift my last shift on sea ship today so as a parting gift thought I'd make them all lunch we're definitely more a little more family like cooked together just like a firehouse furniture so I mean I don't know how many comm centers in the Denver Metro area can come out here and Grill but it's a beautiful day and we're out here Berlin yeah in the kitchen to check out our kitchen like similar to a firehouse right so this is our sous chef kitchen this is our sea ship fridge of our own chef ridge everyone's got their it's packed well there's six of us on shift seven now with the new Jennifer so seven of us share this one fridge and freezer our freezers really full yes so there's no lack of food here everyone has carved out a little space like here's mine this is a bit community area Amanda you Jennifer other Jennifer Chris so everyone's got a little space plus doors and stuff her kind of community and then we all have our own cupboards like a little dry storage space it's like here's my dry storage space keep my coffee cups in there Chris was grilling for us and then he diced up all the meat so I'll come in here and I'll prep the limes and the tomatoes and things like that we're gonna put our hot corn in on top of our cotija cheese sprinkle a little jalapenos in there you can use sour cream but I'm actually going to use some Greek yogurt it's pretty tasty let's go tell the crew it's ready shift is from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. and we break throughout the day depending on if you're gonna have early sleep early sleeps from 5:30 p.m. to midnight for those late sleepers because we're gonna be up until midnight and then sleep from midnight 6:30 a.m. so you want your break much later in the day kind of break it up because you're you're gonna be up for another six hours after everyone else goes down or the early sleepers go down I'm gonna head into the sleep rooms here I'm gonna make my bed for the night I got laid sleep but we usually like make our beds a little early just so that when it is trying to go down to bed you can get in bed as quickly as possible so we got four sleep rooms set up two beds in each room this is typically gonna be the supervisors room so this is the room I typically sleep in this is three psalm I make my bed this is my locker my fancy bedsheets this is pretty cool we were doing some vr studies for dispatch trying to help with stress reduction better sleep and things like that so I've got a VR headset in here this is some new technology that South Metro is working with Health Institute Mental Health Institute on seeing it's like a new study they're trying to see if there's ways to help with stress reduction reduction of PTSD things like that in the dispatcher environment because of the way that the job is so if I ever felt like I needed to I could come down here in my sleep room and I could go through a guided meditation on the VR headset it's really awesome can be really relaxing [Music] so we actually have first in in our sleep rooms just like the firehouses do so if we need to get woken up in the middle of our sleep time and that could happen again either in early sleep between 5:30 p.m. and midnight or late sleep when you're midnight to 6:30 a.m. they can tone individual rooms and again once we hear that tone we have 90 seconds to get back into dispatch on the floor and be ready to go and they'll tone us out when they've got a big incident structure fires if brush fire broke out they need people on the floor inundated in phone calls could be really anything so South Metro we have the added advantage especially us in met comm to be right down the hall from this amazing workout facility it's actually right next to our wellness department so if you guys anybody needs physical therapy or just training tips or anything like that wellness is right next door but we have access to this gym 24 hours really I prefer brighter hence why put my light on after hours like once it gets dark and stuff it feels like night I prefer it a little brighter but a lot of people like it darker so I use my light because we do so much at our desks and work at our desks we most common centers but definitely here at South Metro we have very ergonomic desks to help us with that being comfortable at our desk I can raise it up if I want I'll show you what it looks like when you raise whatever height is best I can bring it all the way up and I can stand up if I want to stand up during my shift I can drop it really low so it's it's really designed and the back goes up as well so if I want my computer screens higher or if I want to if I like having some issues with my neck or something like that I can drop my screens down a lot lower so I'm not sitting up and viewing it like that so these are amazing the desks are awesome we've got some heaters underneath our desks because you have to have air on in the comm center pretty much all the time because all the computers and hardware that's in the room itself so it can get pretty cold in here so having heaters underneath out be comfortable and then our chairs are actually 24 hour rated chairs so these are designed specifically for dispatch and things like that since someone's going to be in the chair presumably 24 hours a day 7 days a week you're in and you're out so you've got these really fantastic chairs they've got lumbar support we can pump up hump down if we need so when I'm coming through my notes on an MBA I'm going to try and get as much information as I can but also need to deliver it quickly and concisely to the crew I don't want to be on the radio for a long time but they do need to know some information so in this one there's a lot of notes already through PD but what I can see so far is going to be two vehicles in the intersection I do have a party complaining of neck and head pain so I changed it from an unknown injury accident to an injury accident because I do have a patient complaining and it looks like they're getting close I'm going to go ahead and give them their information now if you know that I know usual personalization we do clean anything and reviews isn't so we're giving on the information are you doing one for me I really enjoyed dispatch it really has given me something that I felt like I wasn't missing before I found dispatch and so I enjoy almost every aspect of my job in June 41 that comb see yourself in your medic going on our two vehicle and VA Honda cr-v vs. a truck we do have one party complaining in flip flash EtOH possibly involved and we got Parker PD around so it's about 15 after sevens midway through our 24-hour shifts I'm obviously sleeping late like we talked about earlier and got quite a few calls on the boards probably gonna be like this for the rest the evening off and on get spurts calls coming in calls going out and you just keep cranking them out throughout the day so tends to slow down just a little bit in dispatch it gets a little bit more relaxed after 5:00 p.m. and that's nice we can chill out a little bit with our crews we get a little smaller I definitely appreciate you coming in and hanging out with me today this is what it's been like you ever want to know it's like as a dispatcher we got lots of screens lots of sounds lots of radio channels but it's pretty awesome job I'm glad you got to see it with me [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: South Metro Fire Rescue - Centennial, Colorado

Views: 1,103,000

Rating: 4.9372516 out of 5

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Id: HmGj9o-Jqtk

Length: 24min 54sec (1494 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020