An important person you’ll never meet — a 911 dispatcher
WATERLOO REGION — They are the first ones to hear it all — the screams, the cries and the uncensored details of a crime unfolding live.
The 911 dispatchers at Waterloo Regional Police headquarters respond to an average of 950 calls a day.
“The officers see the scene. We hear the scene,” said Joanne Miranda, communications trainer and analyst, who has worked as a 911 call taker and dispatcher for 15 years.
Every 911 call in the region, from as far as 15 minutes north of Elmira to the border of Brant County, comes into the police headquarters. During the summer months, 911 calls can soar to 1,300 calls a day, Miranda said.
At any given time, there are 10 communicators on the floor, plus a police sergeant. There are six call takers and four dispatchers, who field the calls to officers. Each call taker answers 70 to 80 calls a day.
Next week, it’s national public safety telecommunicators week, recognizing the work dispatchers do each day.
911 calls range from parking complaints to robberies, stabbings, suicide attempts and fatal crashes. Some calls are routine, but many require nerves of steel, and some calls never leave you.
Of the millions of phone calls Miranda has responded to, a few stand out for her, such as the time a woman called to say her estranged husband was at her home hitting her with a hammer. There were two young children hiding in the closet.
Miranda was able to speak to the estranged husband, who stopped hitting his wife until the police arrived.
In another instance, a three-year-old girl went into a cornfield looking for a kitten and her parents called 911 when they couldn’t find her.
Miranda dispatched officers to the scene, including a helicopter. Nearby was an irrigation ditch and police were worried
about her safety if she went near the water.
“I can picture her, yet I never saw her,” Miranda said.
The best news that brought Miranda to tears that day was when an officer said, “I got her.”
There are also the quirky stories that are serious in nature but raise eyebrows.
In one case, a woman called 911 to report a break and enter in progress at her home. The suspect was in the house and took a lasagna from her freezer and was cooking it in the oven. Police arrived to find the man hiding behind the furnace.
The 911 dispatchers receive months of training and often rely on each other to decompress from stressful calls.
Jason Causton, a dispatcher since 2012, remembers a call in which he was speaking to a suicide caller who had a knife.
“I was talking to him for 30 minutes. He was emotional and crying,” he said.
There are also the pocket dials, referring to calls that come in inadvertently. They can amount to 75 in a day. And every one of those calls must be returned to ensure it is not an emergency call, Miranda said.
Emily Thompson, a dispatcher for almost three years, said sometimes you have to be stern with a caller who is distraught.
During one call, a woman said her eight-week old baby, who was in a crib, was grey and appeared to have died while sleeping.
“The mother was hysterical,” she said. “You need to figure it out quickly and jolt the caller with a firm question.”
Some calls are easily forgotten because of the sheer volume of 911 calls but others stay with you, depending on your own life experience, Miranda said.
But most often you never find out what happened to the person, she added.
“It’s like reading a book until the last chapter,” Miranda said. “You don’t get to know the end.”