Answering the call: 911 dispatchers can be difference between life, death

By Patrick Buchnowski
The Tribune-Democrat

CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pa. — Thomas Leamer answers telephone calls for a living.

One caller says a child is choking, another one tells him a friend is overdosing on heroin.

Someone is bleeding and unconscious after a car crash, someone else is shot dead during a family argument. Then a young hiker goes missing in the woods or a deer hunter goes into cardiac arrest.

Just another day for Cambria County 911 dispatchers.

Leamer is one of 28 full-time dispatchers fielding emergency calls throughout the county of more than 136,000 residents.

They are led by a team of seven full-time supervisors.

All understand they are on the front lines when tragedy hits home. What a dispatcher says and does the second a 911 call comes into the Ebensburg center often means the difference between life and death.

“When they call us, it could be the worst day of their life,” Leamer said. “This might be our 12th or 13th call, but for them this is a defining moment they’re going to remember.”

The job of a dispatcher is more than just sending an ambulance. The job is ever evolving as technology develops and emergency care improves, county 911 Director Robbin Melnyk said.

“It has changed compared to 20 years ago where we took the call, got the address and sent help,” Melnyk said. “Today the protocols are designed to actually start patient care, tell people how to preserve evidence on police calls as well as give safety instructions on fire calls.

“You’re taking someone in a very frightening situation, getting the address and getting them to start taking care of that patient before that ambulance gets there,” she said.

In Pennsylvania, every 911 center is required to give pre-arrival instructions, Melnyk said.

That means dispatchers must instruct callers how to perform CPR, how to control bleeding and how to deliver a baby.

Recent changes include dispatchers giving instructions on how to administer Narcan to an overdose patient.

That also means dispatchers must be well trained.

And continued training is mandated after someone becomes a dispatcher, Melnyk said.

The group tries to stay ahead of the learning curve.

“When there’s something new coming out, we’re getting our people trained,” she said. “I like to think our dispatchers are better trained than anywhere else in Pennsylvania.”

Leamer, who is married and has one child, became a county dispatcher in 2007 after working about three years as an EMT with Hastings EMS.

Answering emergency calls at times becomes an emotional roller coaster. More so when it involves children.

“We had a call from one of the stores where a child was going through the doorway but put their hand on the wrong side of the door and it took the end of his fingers off,” Leamer said. “I had a little one at home at the time. I instructed them to put pressure to control the bleeding.”

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome cases can be some of he most emotional calls.

“Those are always tough,” he said.

“They wake up one morning and the child isn’t breathing.

“While the ambulance is on the way we help them to do CPR to try to bring the child back.”

Someone who calls 911 needs to be able to tell dispatchers where to find them.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a fire, a shooting, a seizure. If we don’t know where they are we can’t help them,” Leamer said.

“These are people with their loved ones and you’re trying to help them,” he said. “They rely on us to be there.”

Copyright 2016 The Tribune-Democrat

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