National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week is a time to recognize the first-first responders. Many times they are the forgotten bunch. They are only a voice. With the information they are given (or sometimes even nothing) dispatchers help assess emergencies and help those who are in immediate need. They are the ones who connect us to police, firefighters, EMS, and those who are the ones who respond to an emergency call first. On April 16, the Lake Region Law Enforcement Center held an open house where members of the public could meet and see what dispatchers do daily.
Sarah Britton, the communications manager at LRLEC, said, “it’s awesome” that there is a week to acknowledge the people behind the scenes.
“A lot of people don’t know what we do behind the scenes. They don’t know that we are actually the first first responder. We hear them calling us, crying, screaming… we try to help them deal with or manage the situation that they’re in until we can get the appropriate responders to them,” she said.
She also said she wants people to know dispatchers do get “emotional” when they get emergency calls.
“We do sometimes cry. It is a hard job dealing with the calls that come in. They affect us too, even though we’re not seeing what is happening on the scene. We do hear the fear in the voices of the callers, and we feel that too.”
