On The Job - 911 Dispatcher - May 2016

hi I'm Edina city manager Scott Neal and you're watching on the job a show where we reveal the city employees that keep you Dyna going and show you some things that can only be learned on the job tonight on one emergency you know all those acts of heroism that you see in the media of where a police officer or a firefighter saves the day well they all start here in the 911 dispatch center in a Dinah City Hall and I'm here today with crystal legate crystal is a dispatcher that works here crystal hey good to see you you too tell us a little bit about the life of a dispatcher what do you do here oh boy we do a number of different things we ultimately handle all 911 calls and all non-emergency calls to the center here we are considered to be the heartbeat of the police department that is a very accurate description it all starts and ends right here so there's a lot of as I just look around here there's a lot of multitasking involved right you've got monitors and you got people in one ear and you got a video or you got an audio in another ear you must be good at multicam you have to be an excellent multitasker to do this job we do a number of different things all at the same time I don't know if I'm good enough multitasker to do what you do but let's sit down and see what you can teach me absolutely I'm going to show you so crystal how long if you how long have you worked for the city of Edina just over three years three years so how long have you been a dispatcher almost 15 years 15 years wow so what is the what's the shift like and you work in that day and the night and the weekends and holidays all of that kind of stuff right yep 9-1-1 dispatching is a 365 24/7 job the day shifters work 12-hour shifts the night shifters work 12-hour shifts we work holidays we work weekends we work our birthday we work your birthday we work our kids birthdays we're always here well we talked a little bit earlier about all of the multitasking that goes on here and I'm seeing at least four different monitors right here and a couple of different keyboards and three different mice tell me how this all works how does it work so this is our dispatch console in our center here we have four of them they are identical they all do the same thing the big monitor that you see in front of you is our CAD which stands for computer aided dispatch okay the one to your right is our telephone it's not your average telephone because it needs to be able to handle multiple calls for service that come in to us both emergency and man emerge see to our left we on the bottom we have our radio as you see every one of those boxes is a radio channel okay so those are all the different channels that we have to listen to and monitor and potentially talk on or answer a call for service on and then we also keep track of all of the door alarms in both of the cities that we just got for Edina enrich them and we also so we dispatch for Richfield please Richfield fire our own police and fire any anybody else that we have Edina cosmetics so we have our own ambulance service that we do all the pre-arrival information and instruction for I don't know if your if I'm capable of learning a little bit of this but can you teach me how to do it absolutely I'd love to show you the things let's do it I'm just gonna warn you you are alive when you have the signs okay push this button you will be talking on the air who will be able to hear me everyone and anyone listening to the Dinah main channel and that could is that members of the public - oh absolutely it's all of our officers and firefighters are medics and members of the public to have access to it as well okay what's the address okay crystal I know there's a lot to learn and to know about the dispatcher but you've taught me a lot already so I think I'm ready to do this okay so let's do it show me what I need to do okay well I think because Edina is a very big traffic enforcement city we could just wait for a traffic staff to come in I think that would be a great thing for you and we won't have to wait long probably probably not all right let's go so when I have a call coming crystal what's the what's up how do I know what's going to happen the officer is going to give you her callsign and then she's going to say traffic which means she's getting ready to make a traffic stop 194 you can type in her number after the service road to cook foods zero zero nine and you're going to say cell phone New York at the service road to Cub Foods at 10:45 southbound York at the service road doing Co foods at 10:45 morning you got everything ready for me all right so now we're going to type in our location we in your location or you can type in New York York FiOS yep you have to be a good type and do a slash backslash wash and you can say six nine so that's about where she is got it and you can click OK click OK enter you want to click on OK on the hallway okay here you go just watch your speed drive safe so now she's actually cleared herself we're done that mean cleared me and she's done she's done and one night for I'm cold for one night for your code for at 10:47 all right well thank you very much for showing me what it's like to be a dispatcher and the different things that you do here I can't tell you how much we appreciate it both the everybody that works for the city all your co-workers but also the residents of the city too we're very fortunate to be able to have you and your co-workers here so thanks for doing that and thank you for watching on the job I'm Scott Neal Edina city manager join us next time when we bring you another story about the city employees that keep Edina a great city

Channel: Edina TV

Views: 553,450

Rating: 4.8939991 out of 5

Keywords: city, edina, minnesota, channel, 16, tv, government, on, the, job, manager, may, 2016, 911, dispatcher, dispatch, police, fire, department, safety

Id: LbZsicVBNWg

Length: 6min 45sec (405 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2016