DISPATCHER-ADDED SAFETY
BY FRANCIS X. HOLT
Once characterized as the “hidden professionals” of emergency service delivery, dispatchers and telecommunicators are now enjoying unprecedented recognition for their work, thanks to the popularity of numerous television shows. Anybody watching television can now tell you that dispatchers help protect the public. What is often overlooked by the public and those in emergency service delivery is that these dispatchers have just as important a role in protecting the responders they send to help the public. It is important that fire rescue services do not overlook the dispatcher-added safety factor in their day-to-day operations.
UNPREDICTABLE AND DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR
In some instances, the way a telecommunicator elicits information from a caller makes a substantial difference in the response. The most obvious cases involve calls reporting stabbings, gunshot wounds, or other trauma associated with unpredictable behavior involving criminal activity or mental illness. A dispatcher who tries to ascertain whether the perpetrator is still on the scene or in the vicinity does his responders a favor. In such cases, the dispatcher should also try to determine if there is more than one individual involved. This information can be elicited without delaying the response. The dispatcher should tell the caller to stay on the line after getting the basic information needed to make an initial response determination and start units to the reported location without delay. After the units acknowledge the run and are on the road, the dispatcher can then get more safety information. Responding fire rescue units may want to wait for the police to arrive to secure the scene before entering an unstable situation.
In some cases, callers initially ask for an ambulance for an “injured party” because they don`t want another friend to get in trouble for having injured that party. Getting more complete information will lessen the possibility of responders` walking into a dangerous brawl or shootout.
If your calls are received and sorted through a single public service answering point (PSAP), the caller mentioning “fire department” may forward the call to the local fire dispatcher. If the fire dispatcher determines that the caller is seeking services from the fire department because his buddy has been shot, it is important that the dispatcher have the police respond knowing this. Police dispatchers assign a different priority to a “man shot” than they do to an “assist fire rescue/medical” run.
MULTIAGENCY RESPONSE
When the dispatcher knows that several agencies are responding to the same incident, he should inform all responders that several emergency vehicles will be converging on the same location. Sirens may drown each other out at times, which may increase the possibility of an apparatus accident. Letting drivers know about other responders increases their vigilance at intersections and the likelihood of a safe arrival for all responders.
UNUSUAL RESPONSE PATTERNS (“BROKEN PLAYS”)
Similarly, if the dispatcher knows that some units may respond from unexpected locations, he should warn other units in the area. These situations arise when concurrent incidents are near one another and responders farther down the assignment cards come to fill out the first-alarm assignments at the incident. Having what, in effect, is a second-alarm response arriving in the same general area at the same time can result in some dicey experiences at intersections. The same effect is experienced when covering units move into an area and are assigned by radio to respond. Since they will be responding en route instead of from their fire station, their response route will not be the usual one. In other cases, covering units responding from fire stations take an alternate response route because they are not familiar with the territory. Either way, covering companies can present a response safety concern; a dispatcher`s “heads up” message to other responders in the area will be useful and appreciated.
SITUATION IS MORE THAN IT APPEARS TO BE
A caller reports a grass fire in an open field. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But a dispatcher aware of both Murphy`s Law and the need to get as much information as possible–even about what appears to be a mundane sort of run–knows that “straightforward” can get dangerously crooked pretty easily. What seems to be a silly question, asking about the grass fire`s cause, may provide critical safety information. Determining if any power lines are in the area and telling the responder makes him aware of a lethal hazard at a “routine” nonstructural fire.
In cases in which “a man down” is the only information a dispatcher can get, he should announce on the air that no more information is available from the caller. This decreases responder frustration with dispatchers and telecommunicators by informing them that the dispatcher tried to find out more but couldn`t get additional information from the caller.
Getting more than you bargained for is not a happy event for a responder; and the dispatcher can decrease the likelihood of an unpleasant surprise, injury, and even death by asking for as much information as possible on each and every call.
MAINTAINING “RADIO DISCIPLINE”
A common habit emergency service responders all over the country are developing is keying the mike and starting to talk without waiting for dispatcher acknowledgment. This lazy communication technique can result in potentially disastrous outcomes. In one case, a county sheriff, trying to help a stranded tourist, switched from a county frequency to a local police frequency and started describing the tourist`s plight in lengthy detail. He asked the dispatcher if he knew of any hotels in the area that had any vacancies. He gave his location and explained that the tourist had not planned on being in this town at this time and thus had no room reservations. The message lasted about a minute. About 20 seconds into it, a local police officer who was getting seriously beaten by a large, strong, out-of-control drunk tried to radio for help. He was overridden by a deputy. Fortunately, civilians came to the aid of the officer. However, more discipline and short messages would have gone a long way toward increasing that local police officer`s safety.
Similarly, a unit stopped by a citizen reporting a fire, heart attack, or injury should call the dispatcher and make sure that he is acknowledged before proceeding with his message. He should then hear the dispatcher acknowledge his message and “return verify” the content before springing into action.
A dispatcher can be on the phone, on another frequency, or in the bathroom when a field unit calls. It is important for everyone involved to realize that. The dispatcher can raise responders` awareness of the need for the order on the airwaves by instructing people to stand by until acknowledged. The message “Units are covering one another, stand by unless urgent” tells field units that they are competing for air time, attention, and resources. A protocol for transmitting urgent messages from field units can be established so that a dispatcher can adjust his priorities accordingly.
Often, EMS responders are so intent on transmitting complete and accurate medical information to the medical control base that they write up a narrative before they call in or read an extensive checklist. Once again, by engaging in lengthy “one-piece” messages rather than breaking the message into segments, the technique defeats the technology. For instance, if the responder passes along information that the medical control didn`t hear because of the noise in the base (often an emergency room) or the medical control center wants to pass along instructions for interventions to take while en route, it is not possible for anybody to get a word in edgewise while the EMT rambles on. Dispatchers can gently remind all users on the frequency that short, incrementally verified messages are safer and more accurate than long-winded transmissions.
FIELD UNITS CAN USE DISPATCH FOR SAFETY
Anybody who has responded to a fire at midnight and then been surprised at the dawn coming up so soon knows how adrenaline and concentration can alter the perception of the passage of time. In some instances, an incident commander needs to be very much aware of the passage of time. If, for example, a chief determines that he has about 10 minutes to conduct a search before a truss roof becomes an untenable hazard, he may tell the dispatcher to “start a 10-minute clock.” The dispatcher will note the time (and in some cases actually start a timer at the radio console) and in 10 minutes alert the incident commander that the time has elapsed. In this way, a good initial judgment does not go by the wayside with potentially dangerous results if the fireground commander is engaged in numerous fire attack activities. By working as a team, the dispatcher and the incident commander increase the safety of the field forces at the scene.
KEEPING IN TOUCH
Many dispatchers report that a good deal of their job frustration comes from the time between dispatch and report. They have ascertained that there is an emergency and made a judgment as to the type and number of responders to send to an incident. But until they get the progress reports, they don`t know if what they did was fast enough or good enough to make a difference in the outcome. What they also don`t know is whether responders arrived safely. Having a strictly adhered-to policy about initial and subsequent progress reports goes a long way toward increasing responder safety. I have written before about having the experience of sending one engine out to a car fire (the “mundane” call again!) and then forgetting about that engine in the ensuing rush of structure fires and heart attacks. Long after an initial report was due, a faint and pained message that the company was struck by a drunk driver while operating at that “mundane” car fire brought our awareness of that “forgotten” company right back up to the top of the list.
Dispatchers need to keep track of who is out there and go ahead and bother them when they haven`t heard from them. In some computer-assisted dispatch systems, the screen in front of the dispatcher will prompt for expected progress and/or status reports after a predetermined time has elapsed. In systems where that automatic assist is not available, the dispatcher truly is a lifeline for field forces and should take responsibility for knowing, as much as possible, where everybody is at all times.
Overall, dispatchers and telecommunicators are assets that emergency responders can use to enhance their personal safety, which in turn enhances the department`s mission to provide emergency services to others. Observing a few easily employed techniques, dispatchers, telecommunicators, and field forces will decrease the possibility that responders will become clients of the system.
FRANCIS X. HOLT is the author of the textbook Emergency Communications Management (Fire Engineering Books, 1991) and more than three dozen articles on public safety issues, a registered nurse, and an expert witness in dispatcher liability cases. He has trained dispatchers from and consulted to hundreds of fire, EMS, and police departments throughout the United States and Canada. He is president of FXH Consulting of Wolfeboro Falls, New Hampshire.
