Commentary—

From Dispatch To Delivery — Be Glad They’ve Got Your Back

By John Voket

Last week marked the latest chapter in the media’s ongoing examination of all things 9/11. But for me, it also brought home an important reminder about how lucky we all are to live or work in (or even drive through) Newtown.

On a more global scale, in a move that only inflamed some critics who dubbed the initiative another example of “the press’s obsession or fixation with the macabre,” The New York Times celebrated victory in its protracted battle to have another side of the multifaceted and unforgettable New York story of 9/11 revealed.

I’m talking, of course, about the release of sanitized audio transcripts of New York emergency service dispatchers interacting with callers from the ill-fated World Trade Center towers.

In clipped and increasingly emotional disembodied monologues, the transcripts provided a glimpse into what was occurring in those harrowing, fleeting minutes between the time American Airlines Flight 11 hurtled through that serene blue morning sky forever changing the world as we know it, and when dozens of tragic conversations between overwrought dispatchers and individuals trapped inside the South Tower went silent about an hour and 15 minutes later.

I thing for the great majority of individuals who blessedly never had to deal firsthand with an emergency dispatch worker, reading about or hearing replays of some of those interactions might have seemed strange. One might have, in some instances, labeled certain interactions as coldly efficient, disengaged, or seemingly uncaring.

But for anyone who works or volunteers in any capacity in fields from law enforcement, fire, EMS services, to dispatchers themselves, I believe the perspective would have to be one of qualified admiration. Even here at The Newtown Bee we almost exclusively cover “the scene” or “the aftermath” of tragedies that emergency dispatchers know is always one phone call away.

While nobody in that field may consciously sit there saying, “bring it on,” the unique training of these unsung heroes of emergency services qualifies them to delicately juggle myriad decisions that may take just a few words or the push of a few buttons on a console to convey. Those decisions have life and death implications on a daily — no, hourly — basis.

From our perspective in The Bee newsroom, the chatter across the emergency services airwaves is generally white noise — routine correspondence between switchboard and unit. Sometimes it is even humorous (I reference last year’s now infamous runaway emu incident as one example).

But you never know what will come across those airwaves next, so somebody here always keeps at least one discerning ear open to the chatter, just in case. One of those cases occurred just last Friday, and it was one of those snippets of voices through the air I hope I never have to hear about again.

“Shots fired at the high school…”

It was Associate Editor Shannon Hicks who picked up on that brief dispatch, but it triggered a sequence of activity that virtually everyone involved trains for, and probably prays will never happen. And while we know now that the incident of an individual firing a single rifle shot into a tree on his property adjacent to the school never put Newtown High students in immediate jeopardy, it provided an opportunity for anyone listening to gain or renew a level of appreciation for our local emergency dispatch team.

While police and ambulance crews raced to the scene, our dispatchers once again orchestrated a fine dance of precision in communicating, moment to moment, exactly what needed to be said and done. And thankfully, when all was said and done, nobody got hurt and for a moment, you would think that even our local dispatch center would have taken a moment to sit back and look back on a job well done.

But even during those critical noon-hour moments last Friday, as dispatchers coordinated response to what may have been, from a media perspective, another internationally reported incident of school violence, a possible heart attack call was also being handled.

And a couple of hours after that it was a rolled over tractor trailer on Route 34…and within the hour a raging structure fire. And the hits just kept on coming.

Even in the relative quiet of last Saturday morning, where an agitated caller might complain of someone’s lawn mower jarring them from their sleep, Newtown dispatchers were coordinating response to a terrible motorcycle wreck on Church Hill Road. The weekend late shift got its dose of mayhem as well, directing fire, police, and ambulance crews to a rollover accident on Berkshire Road just about the wee hour when Daylight Saving Time was springing forward.

So while so many of the incidents of that indelible day in September, and the days and weeks that followed, focused extensive and deserved attention on all the brave responders on the front lines of the tragedies in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, I believe it took too long for a concentrated spotlight to shine on the many dispatchers who valiantly and professionally carried out their duties and orders that day.

And it provided a reminder of the critically important role, and the great job, our dispatchers do right here in Newtown — every day. So whether you have occasion to deal with any of Newtown’s finest, bravest, its dedicated ambulance crews, or the local emergency dispatch staff, you’ve got to be glad these fine men and women have got your back!