INDUSTRY NEWS
This article can be found on
page 4 of the May/Jun 1997
issue of 9-1-1 Magazine.
Reality Show
Fade out deodorant commercial.
Fade in, fast montage. Music up, loud. A competition of fast-paced synth and siren, speech and squelch. A fire truck, water flowing onto a wall of flames. Sirens converging. Smoke erupting. A calm voice over the din: "Ten-four, Berryessa I/C, calling a Fourth Alarm, to stage at Berryessa and Hedding..."
Succeeding images in rapid montage. Click, click, click. Screeching cop car, lights blaring like multicolored popcorn battering nighttime air. "Three-El-Two advising in pursuit, northbound Shoreline approaching Highway 101... Possible homicide suspect..."
Blinding ambulance lights, up close. Jumpsuited paramedics rushing a gurney toward the rig, one leaning over, pumping, pumping, pumping.
Music up full. Superimpose title: "Emergency Dispatch! Tales Of 9-1-1."
Fade out music. Dissolve to: Interior, Emergency Communication Center, Anytown, USA. Aging celebrity steps into the foreground, wrinkles grinning.
"Hello, I'm Roy McCue! You may remember me from such reality-based shows as Animal Control Beat and K-Mart Security's Greatest Foot Pursuits. Tonight, we'll be sitting along with the dispatchers of the Anytown Police Department as they process and dispatch emergency calls. Hold on to your armrests, friends. This will be a wild ride!"
Cut to dispatcher at a console, answering a beeping phone. "Anytown emergency, what are you reporting?" The call is heard over closeups of hands prancing across a keyboard, colored pixels materializing on a dark video screen. "No, Ma'am, we don't respond on those..."
Fade up superimposed title: Cat In Tree Call, 1113hrs.
Cut to another dispatcher, another beeping phone. "Anytown emergency, what are you reporting?" More closeups.
Superimposed title: Came Home And Discovered Apartment Burgled, 1125hrs. "Yes, sir, we'll get a unit out..."
Roy McCue's grin is starting to fade.
Another dispatcher. "Anytown emergen" 9-1-1 Hangup, 1133hrs. Long shot of the comm center. Closeup of radio dispatcher. "Unit Three, go ahead with your third subject..."
Keyboard Closeups. Tap-tap-tappity. Screen closeups, letters marching across. Names blurred to protect the innocent.
"Seventy-Eight Charles, report of a transient bothering pedestrians ..."
Screens beep. New incidents pop up. "Six X-Ray Ten, RP insisting on contact, claims neighbors are vaccuming too loudly..."
Clickity-click. Beep. Squelch tones accentuate each transmission.
"Engine Five, a smoldering couch to the rear of Liquor Habitat, not endangering..."
"Three-twenty-six, subject sick after drinking too much alcohol, Mission at San Pedro..."
"Unit Three, copy, five more to run. Standby...."
Somewhere, in the midst of it, Roy McCue has crept quietly away.
Do TV reality shows really depict the real picture? Cops don't run pursuits every shift, fire crews don't put out 6-alarm fires every night, medics don't always revive the expired. Oh, we dispatchers definitely have moments of drama, stress, high action, heartbreak and victory. When those spectacular calls occur, we are there to manage them. Some dispatch centers more than others. But there's more to public safety communications than that. More often it is the day-in, day-out routine of public service, professionalism, and dedication, punctuated by a few of those dramatic climaxes TV suggests to be the everyday norm. The key is that dispatchers - like their counterparts in the field - must always be ready for that dramatic, extraordinary call. We can never get complacent, no matter how "routine" the shift may seem. We must train for the extraordinary and we must mentally anticipate it - so that when it happens we will handle it effectively and proficiently. We are able to handle those spectacular events because of the proficiency with which we handle the unspectacular calls, day in and day out.
