Ex-P.G. woman named international dispatcher of the year
A former Prince George woman’s contribution to saving a man’s life has earned her a prestigious award.
Kelly Wells Cayer, who now works at Calgary 911, was named a dispatcher of the year by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch this week for the way she handled a call in October 2017 from a woman who said her father was choking on some food.
“At that point, he was conscious but not breathing and the scene transitioned quite quickly,” Cayer said Friday. “It became very chaotic, of course, because their whole world was stopping as they’re watching their dad choke to death and then he went unconscious.”
Prior to Cayer taking to the stage in Las Vegas to receive the award, an audio segment of the call was aired.
There were some tense moments as Cayer worked to get a sense of the situation from the caller and get her to relay advice to others in the household. It culminated in Cayer counting along with the caller as chest compressions were delivered to the man until medics arrived.
“I had to follow the policy to a T, I had to say everything exactly as written, I had to follow all of the steps properly, it had to have some extraordinary circumstances,” Cayer said of why she was selected for the award.
“It was a chaotic scene and I had to use different techniques to try to calm the caller down.”
Even if she hadn’t received the award, the call would have been especially memorable because she was told the man survived.
Dispatchers are usually not told the outcome either way, Cayer said, but an exception was made this time, partly because one of the medics called to the scene is a friend of hers.
“Afterwards, they called into my lead and basically, to pay it forward, gave us kudos to say that I had done this amazing job and saved this person’s life,” Cayer said.
She was also told they arrived in the nick of time.
“He was seconds away from dying and they said if they had made one wrong turn or one person tried to get in front of them as they went through an intersection, he wouldn’t have made it,” Cayer said.
Cayer tied for the award with a woman from Florida and, as far as anyone can tell, she’s the first Canadian to win.
Cayer grew up in Prince George where she attended College Heights secondary school and College of New Caledonia. She and her family have lived in Calgary since 1997.
Twenty years of working as a dental assistant took its toll on her neck, back and arms and forced her to look for a new career.
“I had a heart-to-heart with my dad, who’s a retired fire captain with Prince George fire department, and he felt that I’d make a great dispatcher,” Cayer said. “That was five-and-a-half years ago and I wish I had made the change sooner, I absolutely love it.”
Cayer initially went through 12 weeks of training to get the job and needs to re-certify every few years as policies change. She is trained handling medical and fire-related calls and expects it’s a matter of time before she’s trained for police calls.
For Cayer, speaking before 1,200 people when she received the award was arguably more nerve wracking. Either way, she called the whole experience very humbling.
“Each and every one of us who do this job could have taken this call,” she said.
A video of Cayer receiving the award and airing the call she handled is posted with this story at pgcitizen.ca.