'A Day In the Life of an Oak Lawn 911-Dispatcher'

As the Village of Oak Lawn pursues outsourcing the emergency communications dispatch center to a private vendor out of “budgetary concerns,” the department’s 20 telecommunicators are fighting for their jobs and their union, the Metropolitan Alliance of Police Local 351. Village officials have proposed a plan which they say will save the village $893,000 over the next two years.

Charging that no mention was made of outsourcing, the village’s budget deficit or a consultant hired to assess the cost effectiveness of Oak Lawn’s emergency dispatch center during 18 months of contract negotiations, the village’s 911 dispatchers have submitted a letter through their union attorney, Ron Cincinelli, explaining their position.

With some telecommunicators bringing decades of service to Oak Lawn in an industry with a high burnout rate, Local 351 members tell in their own words, what multiple  communities would lose in terms of skill, training and intimate knowledge of the local first response system.

Out of concern for retaliation, the letter is unsigned.

'A Day In the Life ...'

It's 3 p.m. and a dispatcher just starts her shift. Her first 911 call is a 10-year-old girl who just got home from school to find her father dead in his bedroom of a self- inflicted gunshot wound. The dispatcher must obtain an address, location of the gun; somehow have her describe the scene to see if pre-arrival medical instructions can be given, and to get the police and fire department dispatched. All of this information needs to come from a ten-year-old girl who is terrified and afraid. The dispatcher is trained to remain calm in the most horrific situations.

I am a 911 dispatcher in Oak Lawn. We dispatch for four police departments and six fire departments. To "dispatch" means we handle 911 emergency and non-emergency phone calls for police, fire and emergency medical service as well as dispatching those calls out to the appropriate response units. It is a stressful and challenging career and is a career in which we all take great pride.

Consider the following regarding my career:

1. No one calls me because they are having a good day. In many cases, they are having the worst day of their lives. A family member needs an ambulance and is very ill, their house is being broken into, their daughter is being followed by a man in a car on the way to school, shots are being heard through the neighborhood, or that there is a house on fire.

Extreme examples, but residents need to understand this is what 911 operators hear every day. Not to mention in between those calls are the "non-emergency" calls, alarm companies calling in burglar or hold up alarms, barking dog complaints, traffic signals not working, accidents, teenagers being too loud or gathering on the street corners. Also, during these incoming calls, we are managing the safety and locations of all officers, firefighters and paramedics calling in information on the radio.

We are responsible for logging all of this information in the computer: en route and on scene times, which hospital patients are taken to, and what ambulances we have available for the next call we receive (if one is at the hospital, we have to replace that one with another from somewhere else).

2. I am the first responder on the scene of any crime or call for service. When you call me reporting that you just came home from wherever you were to find your door open, I have to know what to tell you to do next and it has to be the right thing to do. When that 10 year old girl came home to find her dad, one of the questions asked was "Where is the gun?" In order to keep emergency personnel safe on scene, one very important question can make a big difference. I have to rely on my callers to tell me what is going on. I have to describe what they see to my responders to keep them safe.

3. There is a tremendous responsibility on the shoulders of a dispatcher. If the wrong information or protocol is followed, I am held responsible for that. Someone could get hurt or die due to something I tell a caller. Not only can I lose my job for not following protocol or procedures, I could be sued. On top of that, the emotional and mental implications of any errors I make could be life altering to both the caller, and myself as the dispatcher. I am responsible for the safety of my callers and my responders, whether they are paramedics, firemen or police. When an officer or paramedic is yelling into his radio for help, he is calling a dispatcher, not another officer. The dispatcher then is responsible for knowing where he is and who is responding. All of this means that I am responsible to be at top performance at all times and in all situations.

4. Many trainees do not make it in this job. Most new people, if they make it out of training, don't last more than 2 or 3 years. This is a mentally and emotionally demanding job. We are in a constant state of readiness. Each time the phone rings, we have to be prepared to hear the very worst and to deal with that professionally. I have many roles: counselor (both marriage and family), problem solver, help provider and complaint department. Dispatchers are yelled at every day, all day. Dispatchers must treat each new call with a renewed sense of compassion and without skipping a beat. This is one of the many reasons for dispatcher burnout or what's referred to as "compassion fatigue". These are documented issues that first responders face.

5. A dispatcher works nights, weekends, holidays and everything in-between. The phones simply do not close or shut down. If a dispatcher were to call in to work due to illness or a family emergency, the dispatcher finishing up his or her shift must stay for the next shift. No questions, no excuses. This is where overtime pay comes into play. There are nights where a dispatcher has to stay for a 16 hour shift. That's just how it is - someone has to be in that chair to answer the phones and the radio. Residents expect and deserve that without question.

This letter is to show how important we are in the whole help provider system. It takes a special personality to accept this job and to do it well, day in and day out. The Village of Oak Lawn has been repeating over and over that the outsourcing decision is not a question of service. It's all about money.

In Oak Lawn, the dispatchers have stayed, some for over 20 years. We stay because we feel that our presence is a vital one to the community. We stay because we feel that we were given the gifts of compassion, empathy, and the ability to stay calm in situations where calm is difficult. There is some satisfaction at the end of the day when you give CPR instructions over the phone and that person lives or you've helped a resident find shelter when their house caught fire.

When a person dials 911 they need help. They need it fast and they need it from a person skilled enough to get them that help in an orderly and safe manner. This takes years of training. This takes skill. This takes a committed crew of fellow citizens who deserve to feel as though what they do matter. Because what they do, to the people they do it for, makes all the difference in the world.