Dispatchers always ready

EDITOR'S NOTE: In recognition of Emergency Medical Services Week, the newspaper will publish a multipart series on local EMS providers over the next few days.

MERCER COUNTY - Most 911 dispatchers carry with them a story to remember the reason why they come to work each day, Mercer County's 911 Administrator Monte Diegel said.

For Diegel, who's worked at the county sheriff's office for 22 years, that one career-defining moment he revisits happened during an overnight shift in the early 1990s. A man called and said his wife had collapsed and wasn't breathing. Diegel coached the man through CPR and remained with him on the line for 10 minutes until the fire department arrived.

The woman did not survive.

"It's the only time in my career that I've done this. I went to the funeral home for her visitation," he said.

A man greeted him at the front of the line. Diegel recognized his voice.

"I said, 'I'm the 911 operator who took your call the other night,' " Diegel recalled.

The man cried, hugged Diegel and told him "he felt like I was his guardian angel and that he appreciated everything that I did."

Diegel said if he never got paid again for his work, "that guy paid the bill for me." Diegel carried the man's thank-you note with him in his planner to remind him "we're here to help people."

"Sometimes as much as we try to make a difference ... it's just in bigger hands," he said.

Diegel oversees the operations of eight county dispatchers stationed on the administration side of the Mercer County jail. They receive calls for assistance - from complaints of barking dogs to shootings - and direct the appropriate emergency agencies to the address.

"We can't send anybody help until we know where they're at," award-winning veteran dispatcher Leah Cramer said.

"Our business is location, location, location," Diegel pointed out.

The location of the phone call registers on the county mapping system, which has been in place for almost a decade, Diegel said.

"If it's a landline phone, it will pinpoint their address and it will show us a picture of their property line," Cramer said. "If it's cellular, it will give us a pinpoint and then it tells us a confidence factor."

The confidence factor, Diegel explained, gauges the precision of the call location as it appears on the map.

"The smaller the number we get, the more confident the system is that the caller is right there," he explained. Anywhere between 1 to 50 is a good number to see.

As long as the caller remains connected, a dispatcher can rebid the call to strengthen the signal and get a more accurate location, Diegel said.

"We ask questions to narrow down the location," Cramer said, pointing out she'll ask for landmarks.

Eighty percent of dispatch's monthly calls come from cellphones, Diegel said.

"We're getting less and less landline 911 calls all the time," he said.

Dispatchers, Cramer said, will send for emergency service providers based on the location and the type of incident. Mercer County EMS receives about 2,500 calls a year, according to EMS coordinator Matthew Nietfeld.

"Figure out what agencies need to be dispatched. We set off tones. Give them the message. Let them know what's going on, where it's at, and then wait for them to respond to us," Cramer said. "If it's an injury accident, we're going to be sending out a firetruck and a squad."

Diegel said all county fire and EMS personnel carry pagers.

"We set off a specific set of tones so every fire department and every EMS squad has specific sets of tones," Diegel said.

A responder's pager will beep and then a voice message will come across.

"Soon as I get that tone, it's my responsibility and/or whoever else is on call to respond back to central (dispatch) within a very short period of time," Rockford EMS member Lisa Faust said.

Oftentimes a sheriff's deputy or police officer will arrive on a scene first and provide dispatchers with additional information.

"If we get updated information, we relay that to the responders, letting them know if we're getting further information about injuries, about number of personnel that are hurt," Cramer said.

All county ambulances are equipped with GPS, allowing dispatchers to monitor their movement toward the scene of a call for help.

"So we can actually see them on our map at the office ... and literally we can guide them turn by turn if we need to," Diegel said.

It's the responsibility of the EMS squad to let dispatch know when its run is complete and the ambulance is back at its station.

"Talking to the injured parties, we try to keep them on line as long as we possibly can until EMS or a deputy arrives. Sometimes that doesn't always happen depending on call load," Cramer said.

Cramer, who worked as a Celina EMS volunteer for five years before dispatching, described how she handles a call.

"I've had a lot of experiences in my 14 years and you do your best. Common sense comes into play a lot. You just have to be calm ... kind of leave your emotions out of it," she said. "Because they're stressed. Sometimes these people can't even remember what their address is because they've hit their limit where they just can't comprehend."

Dispatchers handle all kinds of calls, some not so serious, some utterly tragic.

"I've handled my fair share of really tragic car accidents and suicides," Cramer said. "You never forget your first. Your first suicide. Your first multiple-fatality accident."

"This is not like any other job you're ever going to have," Diegel said. "The dispatchers are dealing with life-and-death calls and tragic things."

Unique to this area is the number of calls for help regarding farm accidents. Emergency responders have had to rescue people from grain silos and manure pits.

"To me that is a huge part, especially in the spring, summer and fall that you're dealing with that the big cities don't have to worry about," Cramer said.

In describing what type of person makes a good dispatcher, Diegel spoke of the "it factor" - a willingness to learn, to engage people, to work with policies and procedures and perhaps most importantly of all, be able to adapt to the situation at hand.

Ashley Carr, who signed up to be a dispatcher in April, recalled marveling at the multitasking required by the job as she first trained and watched dispatchers work.

"Their hands move so fast," she said. "They're working with six monitors. They jump from three different programs looking up plates and people and addresses and dispatching these people and then they're talking on the phone to the callers and then they're also talking on the headsets to the EMS and fire."

Cramer and Diegel agreed the job can be chaotic but ultimately, very rewarding.

"You never know what the next five minutes are going to be," Cramer said of the job.

"But the one thing you know in the next five minutes is that you're going to be helping someone," Diegel pointed out.

"Possibly, yes. That's what I'm here for," Cramer said.