| Barry Furey |
Dispatchers Who Make a Difference
| Barry Furey is the Executive Director of the Knox County (TN) Emergency Communications District. The current President of the Tennessee Chapter of APCO and a member of APCO's Fire-Rescue Services and Operating Procedures/Training Committees, he has been involved in public safety for 25 years and managed PSAPs in three states. Barry has been a frequent contributor to Firehouse magazine, Fire Engineering, Law & Order, APCO Bulletin, and other publications. |
This article can be found on
page 52 of the Sept/Oct 1997
issue of 9-1-1 Magazine.
One of the challenges in producing a regular column is to come up with fresh ideas that dovetail into the theme of a particular issue. There is, however, one topic that is at home in any publication; dispatchers who make a difference. Whether the focus is on law enforcement, fire, rescue, EMS, 9-1-1, or technology, telecommunicators will play a vital role. I can, therefore, think of no better subject on which to focus than that of our everyday heroes. Because I could not continue to survive in the world of communication center management without the support of dozens of dispatchers and calltakers, I'd like to talk about two special ladies I know; Jennifer Shreves and Edie Abshire.
Back in 1989, Jennifer was a telecommunicator at METCAD, the Metropolitan Computer Aided Dispatch center that serves Champaign County, Illinois. She had been there for four years, and was assigned to the afternoon shift. Always considered a steady worker, she got a chance to prove her professionalism on the evening of January 25th. Around 7 PM, a "check welfare call" was received - a fairly routine request from a concerned relative to inquire on the well-being of a family member. Like so many incidents, what started out as mundane became complicated very quickly. Another telecommunicator tried the initial call to the residence, but the phone was quickly answered then hung up. A concurrent emergency then demanded her attention. When police arrived at the home, gunfire ensued.
Jennifer managed to establish contact with the occupant; a distraught fifty-one year old female who was obviously armed. When attempts by negotiators to connect to the residence failed, control of the situation and the safety of all involved fell upon the dispatcher. Jennifer would maintain a conversation with the subject for the next half an hour while awaiting the arrival of negotiation team members at the PSAP. During that time she relied on instinct and basic human kindness to diffuse a deadly situation. Listening to the tape almost a decade later still evokes a palpable tension. The caller's mother had recently died. Her husband had been injured. Her kids moved away. She talked of suicide. She was serious. She had a gun, which she had already fired.
She hung up. Jennifer called back. The conversation turned back to family. A grandchild was on the way. Jennifer picked up on this and focused on the positive. It was something to look forward to - a reason for living. And for that evening, it was at least enough to keep the caller occupied and talking until trained personnel could finally take over.
Another dispatcher who made a difference is Edie Abshire. On October 30, 1995 while on duty at the Knox County, Tennessee 9-1-1, Edie received a call from a frantic motorist. While traveling the interstate on the way home to Michigan, the cab of his pickup truck was smashed by a tombstone dropped from an overpass as a perverse pre-Halloween prank. The granite slab slammed through the darkness denting the roof and showering the cab with glass and rendering the vehicle barely operable. But more importantly than that, it severely injured the passenger, who was the wife of the caller. In the darkness, on a strange stretch of road, he was now faced with the formidable task of getting her help. What moments before had been a safe trip home had now become the trip from Hell.
Edie, too, was now faced with some formidable tasks of her own. The first of which was determining the exact location of the incident. Because the call came in from a cellular phone it carried no ANI and ALI. The caller was from out of state and had little knowledge of the area. And to complicate matters, the call had emanated from three counties away; erroneously routed to the Knoxville center by a telephone operator. On duty staff who were unfamiliar with the landmarks being provided worked furiously to identify the county of origin. As this was being accomplished, dispatcher Abshire turned to the assessment and treatment of the victim. Among her priorities were the stabilization of existing wounds and the prevention of further injuries. She constantly reassured the husband and provided him with coaching for his obviously hurting wife. Despite all that could have gone wrong, everything came together. An EMS unit was on the scene only a dozen minutes after the receipt of the initial call.
As an administrator, I feel truly fortunate to have had these individuals under my employ. They learned their craft long before I became their manager, and needed precious little input from me on how to perform the exceptional. I am proud also to report that both Jennifer and Edie received the APCO Telecommunicator of the Year Award from their respective states in recognition of their performance, and that both have gone on to supervisory positions within their centers.
As an APCO chapter president, and now a member of the standing APCO committee that reviews applications for such awards, I am not so proud of the pathetic support that we as managers provide to this process. I have intentionally used the term pathetic to describe our lack of participation, because it shares the same root with the word "apathy", which certainly more than applies. We rant about negative public perception, and rave about unabashed talk show attacks, yet how many among us have taken the time to listen to tapes looking for the positive or to write up an employee for a good deed? Believe me, they're out there, and they're not so hard to find. Next time we turn our wrath against a cereal commercial, let us first ask ourselves what we have personally done to promote our profession and those dispatchers who do make a difference. Because, in the long run, it is those precious few dispatchers who don't make a difference that should be considered the exception to the rule.
