My Story As A Dispatcher .

                                                                                                          

                                            

                                                   
The phone rings ,not again I hope it will not be a  tough call but an easy call 😃I receive that call with faith ,hoping for the best.'' Hello?'' This is the emergency medical call cent re ,kefa on the line .How may I help you and what is your emergency? I hold my breath to hear what the caller on the other side of the call has to tell me.The caller is yelling at me ,I need an ambulance right now 🚑,My CHILD ONE YEAR OLD  IS DYING ,please help come right now.What has happened to the child ?Where are you  calling from? ,I ask the caller.H e answers me ,"why are you asking to many questions ,cant you not get it, my child is dying ?I really try explaining to the caller why am asking questions but doesn't understand why ? He hangs up the phone.My worst calls are for infants and babies.I try calling the caller but the phone goes  unanswered and later on  the mobile subscriber cannot be reached .This is one of my worst  days during my shift.Lots of questions run through my mind.

 

What if the child dies?
Have they rushed the child to the hospital?
How urgent was it ?
At times I would think what If  it was my child ?
The baby is just so innocent if she /he dies forever will I hold my guilt  and blame myself.











There times when you have  dispatched your crew and it becomes  another night mare .The lead EMT raises me,"This is alpha one  and I  am informing that  that we have a papa who is in critical condition and we are  about thirty kilometers away from the facility that the patient is been taken  ,and we are stuck in traffic .The patients condition has deteriorated ,blood pressure is low ,no sign of breathing,temperature cold ,Glasgow coma scale (GCS)is five out of fifteen ,and we are losing a pulse .We starting resuscitation but no pulse after 10 seconds ,no shock-able rhythm ,unfortunately the patient is dead and my crew just switches of the radio.It is never easy hearing the patient never made it .What if it was my family ,the love of my life ,my best friend  or that long time friend you have never met for met for so many years.I go home a sad dispatcher  and that call keeps haunting me





At the end of the day I get positive remarks from my crew" the patient was critical but we still managed to keep the patient alive and arrived at the hospital on time ."That day is a successful shift and everyone returns to their home with a smile on their faces .

There times I  have to give medical directions over the phone ,guide you how to start CPR which is known as cardiopulmonary heart resuscitation ,how to control bleeding ,how to use an inhaler if someone gets an asthma attack or what to do if he or she does have an inhaler,what to do also if one has seizure and other medical directions.










WHAT PEOPLE THINK I DO 
 


  Being both an EMT and a dispatcher, I see things a little differently. Most people think dispatchers sit in our chairs, answer phones and punish crews by sending them to calls they don’t want to go to. Nothing could be further from the truth.They call us idiots
When a dispatcher walks in to begin a shift, we walk in to the equipment. We don’t have to clean stretchers, wash trucks or worry about checkoffs. What we do have to worry about is keeping our crews safe and understanding callers in a complete panic who are trying to give us their location. We rely on good teamwork from our fellow dispatchers and trust they will always by our side when needed. You can be the best dispatcher in the center, but only if you have the best partner.
When it really boils down to it, dispatchers are the first first res ponders. Without being on scene, we are still the initial contact in an emergency. The mentality, both in the field and in dispatch, can be “us vs. them”; why not just “us”? Dispatchers couldn’t help callers without crews, and vice versa.


Reasons Why I Am Still  A Dispatcher
1) My co-workers. Although there are days when we can irritate the hell out of each other, I do work with a good bunch of men and women. We have one another backs. I know if I call another local agency, I can get help or information. Dispatchers are good folks. We offer a place to stay when another s house burns down. . When a disaster hits, we’re there for our companions.Most of all, we watch over out law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel every shift come heat, cold, or rain. We laugh, yell, hold our breath, and cry with you. Our best part of the shift is when the field personnel get to go home at the end of their shift and the worst part is when they don’t.




2 ) I’m in the ‘know’ about the big crimes or tragedies before the media even finds out. We find out and tell each other what is going on faster than The Flash can ran around the World. I can’t say how many times a member of the press has called wanting information that I was told not to say a word about, or officially had ‘no comment’ on when we really had a wealth of data. There's nothing worse than being the last to know about a crime spree, especially within your own department
3 ) I like handling ‘hot calls’. I love that adrenaline rush when an in-progress call (event) comes in. There is no better drug than adrenaline. Let’s face facts, our heart rate speeds up, we get excited, and high-five co-workers when the event ends on a positive note. In that respect, we’re no different from the field personnel. In my earlier days, I loved handling working fires,No one can multi-task like a dispatcher. 




 


 5) I get to tell cops, firemen, and paramedics what to do. I’m basically a control freak. Hey, what dispatcher isn’t? Having power over what field units do with their time is a rush. Am I on an ego trip? No, I’m thinking more along the lines of a conductor in a symphony. Sure, the musicians can play without the guy with the thin stick but they sound a thousand times better when he leads them, coordinates the sounds (activities), and even fixes to occasional goof. Sure, the guys & gals are good-nature d and do a great job. They will mess with us a bit, in good fun, but when it's time to be serious, we all take care of one another. I won't go home if one of 'my' units is still out there. I don't rest until he or she is code 4 (secure).



7) I get to talk with nice people on the phone. Remember when we were teenagers and loved to talk on the telephone about nothing all day? Now I'm are paid to be on the phone. Oh, and some of the callers are not very pleasant and a small percentage need to have their mother’s hand them a bar of Lux soap to stick on their mouths. Seriously, get creative with the English language and tell me off with a twenty-letter word that doesn’t end in ‘er.