Denice Marciner

10 things I would never do as a dispatcher. Or maybe just 1… for now.

In the area there’s a spot where everyone goes to camp and ride dirt bikes. It’s essentially a rock desert/mountain in the middle of nowhere. But it is the place to be on certain holidays – for some people.

4th of the July is one of the busiest nights in general as a dispatcher, but specially in this area. Picture this Sicily – I have my first trainee ever. Older man, super sweet, super unable to keep up with the pace of being a dispatcher but thats ok. He’s an officer now.

We are about 35 minutes from the end of our shift and a 911 call comes it. Great, it’s an open line with no one on the other end. Honestly these are my favorite types of calls. My trainee is trying to get someone to speak but there is no one there.

As he lifts his finger to disconnect I hear a grunting sound. I hold my hand out to stop him from hanging up. It’s night time, grunting could be anything from a butt dial while watching TV, to having sex, and literally anything in between. The grunting continues and I’m silently prompting my trainee to say something to the caller.

But this grunting sounds… off. Like someone is in pain…. Finally their grunting turns into a mumbled “Help.”

I can see on the map that this person is in the middle of nowhere, so getting a location for them is already going to be difficult. I prompt my trainee to ask if the person knows where they are.

“We were at the rock – rock crawling and it rolled over.”

I prompt my trainee to find a latitude and longitude for this man. While also trying to ascertain more information from the caller.

“Is anyone injured?”

“My brother in law.”

“Can you tell me where he’s injured?”
“The rock crawler landed on him….”

“Can you tell if he is breathing at all?”

“I think he’s dead.”

Well there goes those dispatch stakes we look for every day right? One of the worst things is having to move on to find the people that are alive when the most human thing to do is mourn.

I watch as my trainee is still trying to find a lat/long – however at this point, I need the call to have already been entered. Sometimes we can allow a trainee to fumble around and get the needed information. This isn’t one of those times. So I take over.

“Sir how many people are in the rock crawler?”

I enter the lat/long and hit enter to get the call started and people responding. It’s going to be hell trying to find these people.
“There were 4 of us.”

“Where is everyone else?”

“One is a couple feet away from me, and the other. I’m not sure we were all ejected.”

“Can you tell me if the person next to you is breathing?”
“I don’t know.”

“Are you able to take your phone with you and go over to him?”

“I can’t move.”
“Why can’t you move sir?”

“I can’t feel my shoulder.”

“Ok sir – don’t move unless you’re in absolute danger. Can you yell over to him and ask him if he is ok?”

“Chuck, you alright man?”

There’s silence on the other end. I’m hoping the person is just too far away to be picked up by the phone speaker.

“Chuck?”

More silence, “He’s not answering me.”

“Ok – that’s ok. The other guy can you yell his name?”

I now have one person for sure dead, another possible dead, and one completely unaccounted for. And it’s going to take minimum 45 minutes to even get to the area let alone find them.

“He’s not answering me either.”

“Ok – that’s alright. I have lots of help en route to you guys. Can you tell me your name?”

“Jamie.”

“Ok – Jamie I’m going to stay on the phone with you until help gets there. Let me know if anything changes. I may be silent but I’m still here I need to update my partners.”

I mute myself and my trainee.

“How did you find the lat/long so quickly?”

I point to the lat/long on both the phone and the area where the phase 2 is showing on the map. Phase 2 is a pretty accurate location for where the phone is pinging. It can be wrong sometimes but 9/10 it’s correct.

“And how did you know it was the rock before entering it in?”

“Familiarity and also he told us. once you’ve been here long enough some things on the map will become regular locations and you’ll know just by looking at them. It takes time so don’t feel like it’s something you should know already. However you should know be making sure we’re not panicking and still listening to the caller and know how to find a lat/long by now. Remember even if you just type that in we can fix it later. But we have to get the call started for something like this.”

“Someone is coming”

I look at the map and see help is still easily 20 minutes away.

“Can you see who it is?”

“No I can just hear the bike.”

“Hey are you ok?” I hear the voice as the sound of the bike comes through the headset.

“Yeah I’m on the phone with 911.”

“Hi sir this is 911 can you take Jamie’s phone, there is someone next to him and I need to know if that person is breathing.”

If there’s anything we’re taught it’s to tell me what to do and not give them the option to help. Usually if people are given the option – they will refuse because they don’t know what to do.

“Ma’am I don’t know where my phone is. I didn’t call – the phone called on its own and it’s connected to Bluetooth. I’m just talking into the rock crawler.”

Jesus Davonte Christ.

“Ok sir do you have a phone on you? Can you take it over to the other person and dial 911 my partner is going to answer.”

“Ok.”

“Hey we’re going to get another related call bystander is going to check on the other two people.” I shout to the room.

The phone rings and Al gets it. I read the call for her updates.

“Confirmed code”

Damn. A second death.

“CPR in progress on 4th subject.” She shouts across the room.

Well that’s good I guess. Hopefully he pulls through. I look at my trainee and he looks fried. It’s past the end of our shift. Trained is EXHAUSTING!

“Hey you can leave if you want.”

“No I’ll stay with you.”

I nod my head at him. We watch the map as officers and the fire department get closer. But their still having difficulty finding the scene.

“Jamie, were you guys on a path?”

“No we’re in a rock crawler and we were on the side of the mountain and it rolled backward it was too steep.”

Photo of a rock crawler for reference.

Officers did finally arrive. Al did CPR via phone for 48 minutes. My trainee and I went home 30 minutes after our shift ended. And the only way officers were able to the actual scene was to “commandeer” a drunk campers ATV.

Two people died, two people fought injuries in the hospital.