IamA 911 dispatcher. First time doing this so ask away!

I an held hostage, can dial 911 but can't speak. Can you locate me and do you send someone over a silent call?

Over a completely silent call? Sadly no, because we recieve SO many butt dials, and sometimes we hear things on those, others they are completely silent, on calls like that we just call back if someone answers we ask if they have an emergency, if the call goes to voice mail (most of the time is what it does) we close the call. If we hear anything we deem suspicious during the call, ie yelling, banging, we can work on getting suscriber info and best location from a ping on the cell phone but that rarely happens, I've never had a hostage situation though.

35% of 911 calls are inadvertent. Part of the reason is if you dial 9 and 1 it will auto dial to 9-1-1. Kind of a bitch

Yes it is 911 hang ups dominate our call load and we have to call back every one of them. Except on disconnected phones because we can not call them.

Is there any way to contact you by SMS/email/chat in a situation where you can't talk?

So far no but the government (sorry I don't super specifics on it) are working on bringing text to 911, also if your phone has TTY capabilities (used by the deaf to basically text through an open line) and you know how to use it you can but TTY is very loud beeps so if your trying to be silent it may not work well.

Has a call ever impacted you psychologically?

Well all calls impact me some way or another, but none have impacted me so bad that I needed counciling, the ones that impact the most though is talking to people who find their loved ones dead in the morning when they wake up

When I found a relative who had committed suicide I had to make the call, I was pretty messed up at the time, the woman who took the call actually stayed on the phone with me for the 10 minutes until they arrived because she didn't want me to deal with it alone, I never got to say thank you :/

Anyways has someone ever found you after to personally thank you? You guys and girls deserve it.

That has happened to me before as a dispatcher I stay on the phone to help comfort because when that happens to someone they've never felt more alone, and no they never looked for me in person but they did go down to my pd and wanted to thank me for staying on the phone with her (it was with the grandmother who found her grandson).

How do you feel after? I would guess you've dealt with that situation so often that you just move on to the next call?

Sometimes I have to step away and take a breather but it is apart of the job and you gotta keep truckin' on.

I feel sad that someone lost a loved one but I've gotta keep trucking on, and then talk to someone about their baby daddy kidnapping their child, because apperently this person had the child asexually without the help of the "baby daddy".

So it goes from tragic to jerry springer within minutes.

Thanks for answering my question, appreciate the answer and what you do.

Yes it does and thanks I appreciate it.

I am a behavioral health care manager and often have to refer suicidal clients to call 911. How much training have you had in mental health first aid and how do you feel when you have to talk to patients actively suicidal? Thanks your time!

I have quite a bit of training dealing with people who are suicidal or that have mental health problems. I actually just had training dealing with people with mental health problems. I do not mind in the least bit talking to people who are wanting to commit suicide, I do my best to ask about their problems, while being empithetic and do my best to hold off the suicide attempt until someone can physically get there.

When you're not on the job, and friends and family call you, are you ever disappointed by how boring their calls are?

I have actually realized I don't really like to talk to friends and family over the phone anymore because it's my life now lol. So yeah I try to avoid it now, not sure if it's because it reminds me about work or just that talking to loved ones isn't the same anymore.

I know your feeling. I work in an alarm monitoring center. My wife doesn't understand why I do not like talking on the phone to her, haha. Maybe I will talk to you one day dispatching on an alarm :)

What alarm company?

Dynamark Monitoring. We are a 3rd party central station so we use the name of the installing company. What state do you dispatch in?

South texas gotta say never talked to that company our big ones are triple d, tyco, vcs and asg

That's why. We are not licensed yet in Texas. But we soon will be.

Awesome hope I hear from ya!

What is the most ridiculous reason someone has ever called you?

Very good question one of the most common is that their power is off, and they want us to just stop messing around and flip that big red switch again. Right next to us to turn back on the power lol. One time we had a woman call because a store didn't want to give a refund on pants she stole lol.

Craziest 911 call? Call that will stick with you the most? Have any regulars that call a lot?

We had a naked man run through our mall high on laced cocaine, one of the calls that sticks with me the most is a grandmother who found her grandson dead, suicide. And yes many callers I know by name, most of them mentally disable.

Do you ever get any prank calls? If so, what happens?

Yes and depends, if it's on 911 we will dig through records and do our best to find out who has the phone and if it's a child, yell at the parents, and if it's an adult, arrest them for abuse of the 911 system

I call 911. I say "I need help. I can not talk." Then I proceed to not say anything, but leave the call up, can you find me?

I can't guarantee that I could find you but I would do my best, getting a second phase on the call which gives us a general area of where the phone is, but the problem with that is if it's a high density area ie apartment complex or close housing, it can be very hard to find you. But we also contact the phone company get subscriber info and try to get a better location.

Can I call 911 and ask permission if it's okay to kill someone?

eg I'm aware that someone's breaking into my house and I'm sitting at the front door pointing a gun towards it.

I can't tell you to take the shot, you have that right to defend your life and property all I can tell people if they take the shot make sure they know it isn't a loved one coming home early. You can say I feel threatened and I am going to defend myself but we can only say do what you feel is right because we are not there and be sure what you are shooting you want to shoot.

How stressful is your job? Are you always intensely focused the whole day or are you relaxed for the most part?

It can be stressful but really it depends on the day and call load the most stressful part of the job is the lives in my hands, ie the officers, firefighters and paramedics. The worse feeling is when one of them ask for backup asap and you just have to sit there and call out to other people.

Hi, thanks for doing the AMA, two questions.

1. If I call you guys, 911 from another country, like the UK would you put me through to the emergency services over here? for example a tourist coming to the UK not knowing the emergency number is 999

2. If I need to tell you guys im in danger but cannot speak, what is the best way to let you guys know over a silent call?

Thanks again, hope you respond.

Well when you call 911 you get the closest comm center I'm not sure what would happen if you called 911 from the UK but if you called 911 and needed another jurisdiction we can really only transfer to neighboring comm centers ie I can't transfer you from south texas to new York you'd have to find their direct number and I usually help people find those numbers.

And I would imagine if you have an attentive dispatcher at least answer the questions with very wrong answers ie do you need help? Say yes I'm free saturday, if the dispatcher is smart they will catch on and get you to answer the questions in a way that will not tip off your captor.

Oh wow, I never thought about the "Yes I'm free saturday" type ones to answer the questions, thanks for the reply!

no prob, sadly if you dont respond at all (at least i and the rest of the people I know) will think of it as a pocket dial, because it happens so much. What I would suggest is try the either ordering a pizza or talking to a friend.

Hi, just thought of another question but the AMA has ended, hope you could still find time to answer, what was your first call when first getting the job and how well did you handle it? if it was a minor/less serious call then how did you handle your first serious call?

Thanks

No prob I love answering the questions! AMA after dark :-D hmmm one of my first calls I really can't remember lol that was literally thousands of calls ago, but I don't remember having too much trouble I know I was scared shitless at first and did not know how to handle the calls but I learned!

I am an Emergency Medical Dispatcher in the UK. I can confirm that if you dial 911 in the UK then you will get through to the local ambulance service. It will also work if you dial 112, which is the number used in some mainland European countries.

Awesome thanks for that info I actually believe if you dial 999 here you will also get us

What is the craziest call you've gotten?

Asking that is kind of like asking what's the craziest shit you've ever taken, one time we got a call of a naked man running through our mall high on laced cocaine.

What's the craziest shit you've ever taken?

I've had volcano diarrhea once. It was terrible.

Best penis related 911 call?

I don't believe I've had any I've had quite a lot of girls call about girly problems though.

Go on

Lol its usually not so please n't things, profuse bleeding, hardcore cramps, possible misscarriages.

Sorry I asked.

It's no biggy lol

If a cop find a body (not on duty), does he call his friends or 911?

Depends if he caused the death. Lol no he would call us and we would get on duty officers to handle. If the officer is off duty he is treated as a regular caller.

What was the call you had that you will never forget and why?

Probably the grandmother who found her grandson who commuted suicide, mainly because after he did the family lied about how he died and I didn't agree with it. Mainly because he died from suicide due to bullying and sweeping why he died under the rug made me feel that his death was for nothing then. Also we got a call of a house completely blowing up, wife and baby inside, sadly the mom died but the baby was found safe under debris, and survived.

About how many legitimize calls do you handle in a typical day? What are the most common issues in your city that cause calls other than typical medical emergencies?

It all depends on the day I'm working, usually it's around maybe 30-50 calls for my 4 hours on call taking, and we have a lot of people fight and get drunk so lots of disturbances.

Do you only work for 4 hours a day? Or do you also work on something else the other times?

I work 12 hours a day, 4 days on 4 days off, 3 weeks of days 3 weeks of nights, we do 4 hours of call taking, 4 hours of pd radio, and 4 hours of fire radio. Also do any paperwork that comes in like warrant entries, entering stolen items into a national database entering missing people stuff like that.

which part is the hardest? both psychologically and difficulty wise? I'd imagine you can get some pretty disturbing calls on radios as well.

Well, psychologically it is very demanding, you have to go from talking someone out of ending their life, to telling a mom that we don't discipline their disobedient children, then back to talking to someone who just got assaulted by their significant other and they are afraid they are coming back to finish them off. difficulty wise, you just have to be quick on the draw with your words, never run out of things to say (open air on a call) and be able to type decently fast. Sometimes we get some calls over the radio of officers stopping out on calls as they are happening we've had that happen with accidents before, But the worse are when our Officers are involved in something like an accident or sudden disturbance and they call out for help. Super not cool.

Do you ever get frustrated/angry with a certain kind of caller - if so, what do they do?

Yes I do and it's with people who demand that I hurry and send someone, or that they know more then I do when they clearly do not, or when they refuse to answer questions I have to ask them ref medical calls.

Are those pet peeves in your normal life too though?

Well I don't like to be rushed but the things I have to deal with at work are very different from what I deal with at home

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Sometimes it is hard, some people yiu can't reason with but we have to do our best to get them from a 5 to a 2 or 1. Best way is to tell them I can't get them help until I get the info I need.

What do you mean by 5, 2, and 1?

We use a scale to base people's ability to talk to us due to the call a 5 is completely hysterical and unable to get any info from them because they are just crying or yelling uncontrollably and a 1 or 2 is very mild, and answering all questions we have

What do you get paid (if you don't mind)

What was job training like and how much did you receive before taking calls, and how much was more "On the Job training"?

I get paid about 35 k annually, and I was in training for about a year before I was out of training and on my own, and we go to more training regularly. I got paid the same thru training and being on my own but I get a pay raise every year of around 2 to 3 percent.

What's the gender breakdown among dispatchers where you work?

I ask because I'm a female and when I tell people I work in law enforcement they always assume I'm a dispatcher.

I work with (on my shift) 3 other females, in my comm there are 2 guys including me, and the rest are females, and everyone who talks to me who doesn't think I'm a girl (happens a lot Idk why though) they think I'm an officer lol.

If you had the chance to swap to another job with the same salary, would you? Or have you come to really love the job?

I absolutely love my job, I really don't think I could do anything else. I have been thinking of becoming a LEO though because that was my plan at first when I turned 21.

What is an LEO?

A law enforcement officer

Have you ever received a call about someone you knew or a place you were familiar with?

Nothing involving them. My family doesn't live around here.

Whats your favorite part about your job?

Without trying to sound extremely cheesy, It's helping people. I enjoy being there when people are facing the hardest times of their lives and helping them through it. I also enjoy being on Either Fire or PD radios when the shit hits the fan. Lots of fun getting busy like that.

I dont know if you want to answer it, but because of the alcohol vs. weed debate... what group is more often in trouble judging by the calls you get?

Alcohol defently. Unless you count synthetic Marijuana with the regular stuff because we have a large synthetic problem around here and 90% of people who do synthetic end up calling us because they are ODing. But regular marijuana, the only real time we deal with it is on traffic stops and when mom's find it in their teenage kids room lol.

Have you ever had to excuse yourself for a moment because a call made you laugh too much?

No but j have laughed silently on the phone with some people. Most of the time it's our officers on the radio that make us cackle, and each other.

Every had anyone call because they had something stuck up their butt?

Surprisingly no not yet I don't believe I've ever had a call involving sexual complications.

What's the deal with airline food?

What's up with that stuff? No one knows! Good ice breaker though.

It's an amazingly critical job that you do - what is your own support network? How do you cope?

Jokes, you have to keep light hearted about the job, Also I enjoy to play games to blow off steam, and listen to music. Also thank you!

I've never needed to call 911. If I do, what are the basic questions you ask. What info do I need to have when I call in?

Address of the emergency, what is going on, ie disturbance, theft in preogress, feeling sick and any descriptions you can give the 911 operator ref the problem.

Do you dispatch PD only, or PD/FD/EMS? Annoyingly, we get no way to talk to PD Dispatch on our EMS/Fire radios to check on things like scene security.

We do city pd, and city and county fire/ems and we are all in the same room so we communicate very well.

Follow up question...why do you hate us? :P Also "Take a right at the barn" is not good directions. We honestly curse you for just about everything you ever do to us, but we still try to understand. I know you're not evil on purpose.

Haha yeah our CAD system requires a physical address to put the call in so it's better then the right at the red barn but we still get those directions because out in the county our city folk paramedics have no idea where they are going lol.

How do you feel when we hit you up to relay to the hospital for us? We rarely do it but sometimes if I'm running a code, I'll just key up dispatch channel and ask them to relay to whatever hospital what's going on. Is there anyway we can make that easier for you?

Our ems have a direct radio to the hospitals' ER so all it takes is a switch of a knob, the only time they ask us to relay info is when they have like a trauma activation but that's about it.

Is your PSAP in a position to receive texts, is so have you received any? I work Oregon's 911 service making maps for 911, what sort of maps do you all use and how helpful do you find them? Complaints?

No text yet, and we officially use our cassini an mapping that comes with our phone system, but I use the hell out of Google maps and it is extremely helpful

How do you react in times of extreme emergency,e.g. hostage situation?

I've never had a hostage situation but I do get more I. The zone when the shit hits the fan I handle the stress pretty well.

What is the most insignificant thing you have been called for?

Probably the lights being out, besides that we get calls about some dumb things like wanting to log a control burn, or cars parked in front of their house.

What's the most funniest call you have had?

Intentionally funny? Not to sure bit I did get a good laugh out of the man running naked through our mall high on laced cocaine.

Have you ever had a family member or someone close to you call for help?

I had an old friend call about a gas leak, that's about it.

How successful are you when talking people out of suicide and how many times have you had to do it?

Luckily I've never had anyone commit suicide while on the phone with me but one of my co workers had a person shoot themselves while on the phone with her. I've had to talk to maybe about 4 or 5 people threatening suicide directly to me ie not a 3rd party caller telling us about it.

Any tips on how to get into the profession?

Is there any specific 'type of person' who tends to be in this field?

If you could change one thing about it (policies, equipment, anything) what would you change?

Call your local non emergency number and just ask if you can come in and watch for a while and that you are interested sadly I can't say if they are hiring but if you have a clean background you should be able to sit in and get a taste of the action. One of the type of people are the negative people or the people just there for the money. If you get into the profession make sure to not let the negativity get to you because it easily can and then you become one of them and it ain't no fun! And if I could change anything probably the dress code. We are behind 2 locked doors and no one ever sees us but we still have to wear dress clothes. I want to wear comfy clothes! Lol

If you encountered George Bush Jr., would you let him "do" you?

Negative

What is the protocol when someone calls in speaking a different language to English? Is it ever hard trying to figure out what language they are speaking?

We have a program called language line we call and when the caller can't tell us what language or we can't tell they have someone who can detect it, all 24/7 too.

Hello! First off thank you for your work on doing what you do and making sure the right response teams are sent to the right location. My question is, with the increase on SWATTING, have you or your department taken measures on trying to identify calls that could be trying to do this? Also what is your favorite soft drink and why is it Dr. Pepper?

Well I haven't heard of this swatting but if it's a search warrant being served there is a lot of investigating that is done by our undercovers, and we only send out swat otherwise if the sgt on sight request them for a dire call, also yes it is Dr pepper and because of those 23 flavors!

How long are your work shifts / when are your work shifts?

12 hour shifts, 4 days on 4 days off, 3 weeks of days 3 weeks of nights. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For a small taste of how calls go here, I went from talking to a woman who thought 911 and (one of the 3 hospitals here) ER were the same thing, to a guy calling about his naked neighbor with a machete, to talking to a 14 year old about her mother having a seizure for the first time. Edit: typo

How did you apply for the job? It's something I'm sorta interested in looking into, but I have no idea how one "starts".

Well I went to my city's website and looked under careers but I kinda knew what I was getting myself into. I'd suggest call your local non emergency number, ask to speak to a supervisor and tell them you are interested and would like to see what it's all about, after a background check they may let you sit in on some calls!

How much do you get paid? What area do you live in?

South texas, and I make about 35 k annually

What type of training do you do for this position?

A lot. I had to learn a lot of emergency management and stress management training, how to handle calls, how to work the radio, how to properly talk to callers and get the info I need aka verbal judo. There is so much training g with this job and it's literally Neverending.

Wow! That's crazy. Thanks for answering my questions. I've always thought that might be something I wanted to do, but physiologically I don't think I could handle it.

Try doing a ride along with your local pd, or see if you can come in and sit in on a few calls, it's a real eye opener.

When you say south do you mean rvg south or san antonio south

South of San Antonio, we are between Corpus Christi and Houston on us hwy 59.

What's the most frequent reason people call?

We get a good load of medical calls, non medical though usually are disturbances.

Do you often get calls that are rather mundane and unnecessary? (i.e. raccoons eating through trash, car parked on residential street, etc) How do you deal with these situations? Thanks

Yes we get those frquently, usually we tell them to call our non emergency number, which comes Into the same place but as a lower priority.

Have you ever had the same complainant reach you when calling back on the non emergency number?

Sometimes, if I know I am going to be talking to them again I give them our non emergency number, handle their call and tell them next time if it's not an emergency to call that number because people don't like being told to call another number, just to get the same guy, that makes them upset lol.

How long are your shifts and how many other dispatchers work each shift per location?

We work 12 hour shifts, 4 days on, 4 days off, 3 weeks of days, then 3 weeks of nights. And we have 4 shifts working, so 2 different shifts working each day. With between 3 and 5 dispatchers on each shift.

Craziest emergency call you've ever had?

One time we received a call from an alarm company reporting a fire alarm at a house in a neighborhood, we started sending a single engine, after about 5 minutes we get calls from other houses in the neighborhood saying that a house in the neighborhood just exploded. So the house ended up being completely leveled due to a spark after a large gas leak in the house. The fire alarm call we got, was from another house down the road, about 100 yards away from the ground zero house. Also destroyed most of the houses around it.

Holy shit! What could have caused that kind of explosion? Gas?

Yeah i think it was a propane leak, the husband left earlier that morning, and its suspected when the mother woke up she started the stove to warm a bottle for their baby and the spark caused the house to go.

Were you worried about the background check?

No I was not, I was a good kid and the worse thing I had was a speeding ticket. lol

Have you ever called 911? If so, what's the reason?

Bonus: What if an emergency happens in your office? At my workplace, we need to call the emergency number for our country (112 / 110). I guess you don't have to do that?

I did call 911 before well honestly I don't remember if it was the non emergency number or 911 but it was before I worked there I was calling about to subjects that were high at our hastings bothering customers then they were about to drive off when the cops showed up. And if something happens in my comm center we have the appropriate units respond and if needed evacuate the building.

Have you ever had a call where the person was being super non-descriptive about what happened? Like "Look I can't say what happened, I just need an ambulance."

Also I've called 911 before because some lady had her car halfway off a cliff contemplating whether to kill herself or not. I kept giving the dispatcher the address and asking "Are you sending someone? She is literally hanging off the cliff." And the dispatcher would not confirm that an ambulance/police where coming or that she would even contact them. Is that normal? Are you not allowed to confirm that you are sending someone to help? It was super frustrating because I live literally 3 blocks from a police station and it took them 15 minutes mainly because I was on the phone for 10 minutes with the dispatcher.

I have usually it's from people not wanting to admit they are involved in the call, and that is odd I always tell people if we have someone on the way because it's all public record and I'm not going to lie to someone about it, sadly we do have calls hold, not one like that though. I would tell you we are either getting someone on the way or they are on the way and be calling officers off lower priority calls, and refrence being close to the police dept, sadly if they are like us which they most likely are being closer to the police dept doesn't necessarily help, because all of our officers patrol the streets, only during business hours are there detective and administrative at the pd and they do not go out to those calls, I am sorry you had to wait so long but that is sometimes how the cookie crumbles. Now with that dispatcher not giving you info, we can tell when units are dispatched, enroute and on scene but can't see them via GPS or anything like that, she may have also been busy on one of the radios, I've taken a medical call while on fire dispatch and I tell people to hold on as i dispatch it (have to tone then give general description of call) and I have people try to talk to me while I'm going across the radio and they can't hear me, not trying to make excuses for that woman but who knows what it could've been.

(Sorry if this has been asked already, disregard if it has)

What are some of the most trivial things people have called 911 for?

I've been called about the power going out, neighbor dogs barking all night, not getting paid for giving someone a blowjob

How frequent are false alarms?

False alarms like burglary alarms? Or false alarms like 911 hang ups? False burglary alarms are pretty frequent but we still get some good ones from time to time. And 911 hang ups that are butt dials are very high I'd day about 90% of them are accidental

That sounds incredibly awkward. "Oops, I just accidentally called 911 lol!"

edit: yeah, I meant false alarms as in somebody thought there was an emergency.

Yeah they always tell us they butt dialed us lol

What is the worst situation that you have ever handled ?

The toughest is probably talking to someone who just found a loved one dead, because for that time until someone gets there it's just you and them and the only way you can comfort them is with your words and you are trying to comfort them over a person you kitterally know nothing about.

Do you feel that your job has impacted your life and/or the way you view the world either positively or negatively? Surely starting a high stress job like that at such a young age has had to do something.

Well I've always felt older then I am but it has had a huge impact on me I see the world out of completely different eyes, I've lost a lot more faith in humanity but also hold life more dear, and it has taken a toll on me. My wife has found white hairs on me and I've had some winkles lol everyone thinks I'm older then I really am. But I do love the job.

One time I prank called 911. How do you deal with pranksters?

If it's a kid we try to convince them to bring the phone to the mom or get into if they are older and just being an asshole we will try to locate them and try to charge them with abuse of a 911 system. It can be a real pain having a bunch of young kids saying they hate you and want you to die and stuff like that but you just gotta shake it off

Have you had anyone call you for unrelated reasons to your job?

At work or personally? At work all the time people call us for numbers, addresses, stuff like that, and when I'm out of work not really.

What is the number one thing the general populous can do to make better use of the 911 system?

No 1 would be know when to call 911 and when to call the non regency number, no 2 would be to give pertinent info ie location, description of what's going on, description of subj and or vehicles, no 3 would learn to lock phones so 911 butt dials don't happen

Do you have to be able to act on your toes whenever there is a call? Or is it basically the same thing regardless of the situation?

Sometime one sometimes the other. You've gotta act on your toes because no two calls are the same, and you never know how a call will go but also some calls can follow a general guideline in the way of questions we ask

Do you use AMPDS?

I'm guessing not since it doesn't ring a bell what is it used for? CAD?

It's a medical triage system for use over the phone. We use it to establish priority of medical incidents and determine what response time an incident will get. It's widely used around the world, and was originally developed in the US.

Ah gotcha we use EMD Emergency Medical Dispatch, and ProQA for all our questions to ask people

Edit: typo

I am a 25yr old firefighter, wanted to say thank you, you guys watch our asses. That being said funniest call?

One I recently remember was a local lady of the night called us made because she didn't get her 20 bucks for a bj she gave to some random guy lol

Have you ever been prank called ?

Multiple times mostly by little kids wanting to say little kid mean things.

how accurate was halle berry's movie?

It had its moments, but I would not be going Into a dark hole by self with no weapons lol

yeah. that kinda ruined it for me. but the rules they followed and technical capabilities were accurate?

Pretty much we most of the time can get a rough location on a phone and can keep getting a location if it's moving and that is what we would want to do is keep them in the phone and know what is going on and if they see anything or stuff like that.