First responders: A glimpse into the roles 911 dispatchers play in serving the West Orange community

For those employed in law enforcement, there is no such thing as a typical day. The same holds true for 911 dispatchers who work behind the scenes.

By Gabby Baquero
| 10:53 a.m. April 27, 2017

911 dispatcher Debra Duval handles a call while working in her height-adjustable desk in front of six computer screens in the WGPD call center.

West Orange Times & Observer
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One call is all it takes to shift the room’s energy. One sentence before the adrenaline kicks in and you do all you can to maintain a steady voice and mental clarity while managing a situation with multiple potential outcomes — some of which you try to avoid at all costs.

The biggest challenge is the dead silence, Winter Garden’s 911 dispatchers all agreed. Those tense seconds of not knowing what’s happening on the scene while you sit in front of an array of six computer screens and hope the police officer or civilian on the other end of the line is still alive and unharmed.

“You never know what you’re going to get when you pick up the phone,” remarked Julie Anderson, one of the 20 dispatchers who works at the Winter Garden Police Department’s 911 call center.

A CRUCIAL ROLE

The dispatchers employed at the Winter Garden call center field both emergency and nonemergency calls from Winter Garden, Ocoee, Oakland and Windermere. With rotating positions and four different agencies to handle, the responsibilities vary daily, but the assistance they provide on-duty officers and civilians in distress is crucial.

“The job that they do — people don’t really understand what it entails and the amount of multitasking it requires and the fact that you never know what you’re gonna get when the phone rings,” said WGPD’s Criminal Investigation Sgt. Michael Mason. “That would stress me out. I don’t know how they do it. … I have a tremendous respect for them and what they do.”

WG Police Chief George Brennan and WG Police Lt. Scott Allen with 911 dispatchers Melissa Oehler, Susan Burns, Julie Anderson and Melissa McCarthy, who received certificates of appreciation from the Town of Windermere.

And respect and appreciation for 911 dispatchers is why the second week of April is designated National Public Safety Communications Week. The Windermere Police Department, which recently integrated with WGPD’s call center, thanked the dispatchers’ hard work with certificates of appreciation during the April 11 Town Council meeting.

‘FALL APART LATER’

While most call centers tend to specialize in one aspect of the job, dispatchers at the WGPD call center tend to do it all. One of their tasks is to assist officers by running license plates, driver’s license numbers and checking for warrants.

However, most of the time, they answer calls from civilians requesting help, which, at times, may be someone pretending to order a pizza. Other times, it could be a suicidal caller that dispatchers try to placate while subtly trying to ascertain the caller’s location.

THE ODD CONVERSATIONS

“Probably one of the strangest questions I’ve ever been asked was while asking someone what their emergency was. Their emergency was they wanted to know if I slept on a mattress or did I sleep on cornflakes.” – Debra Duval

“We have a local elderly gentleman that I believe is starting to get either Alzheimers’s or dementia and he calls me every single day to talk and he thinks I’m his girlfriend. He just says some funny things. He calls on Valentine’s Day and tells me to not tell his wife what we talk about, not that it’s anything big. He thinks that someone wiretapped his phone and people are listening to him or there are people outside. It’s just very comical. When he calls he always makes sure it’s me on the phone.” – Melissa McCarthy

“Then we had one at a Walmart in Ocoee and the loss prevention officer called in and said that a female was in the wine and beer aisle and she opened up a bottle of wine, sat there and drank the whole thing and then walked out the door. I think that was my call of the week and we ended up having to call fire rescue because she was heavily intoxicated by the time she walked out the door.” – Julie Anderson

The types of calls vary, but dispatchers do their best to expect the unexpected and adapt to any situation. The stress of some calls can take an emotional toll, but they are trained to keep it together.

“Sometimes, I’m talking to people, and I’m counting shots being fired while I’m talking to them,” said Debra Duval, who’s worked as a 911 dispatcher for 21 years. “I have strong faith in God, and I’ll just quickly and silently say, you know, ‘God give me the right words.’ And you just kind of go into dispatch mode. You can fall apart later, but you can’t really fall apart during the call because you’re not going to do yourself or the person on the other end of the phone any favors.”

The scariest moments are the seconds of silent suspense, as they wait for officers to report back with information about what’s happening on-scene.

“That’s one of the scariest things — when your officer is out there and he’s been approached with a weapon that could potentially harm him or other officers out there on the road,” said Anderson, who has worked as a dispatcher for 11 years.

THE AMUSING CALLS

Although a significant part of their eight-hour work shifts requires handling troubling calls, there are times when calls offer some comic relief.

“There’s always those calls you don’t forget, but there’s also those calls we laugh about, too,” Duval said. “This job is not all stress and horrifying. Sometimes, it’s quite comical. So you know, it’s a good balance.”

Duval recalled a time when another operator had to handle a call about two men who somehow found themselves swimming around in a gator-infested pond wearing nothing but their underwear.

The caller claimed he had gotten into an argument at 8:30 p.m. but did not call until about 12:30 a.m., which meant they had been swimming in the pond for about four hours.

“And when the officers got there, they couldn’t get to them because of the gators, but the officers got them to swim to the shore, and when they pulled them out they both had no clothes on and just their underwear,” Duval said. “We don’t really know what the truth is behind this, but it was pretty funny. The operator really had to keep her cool with them, because he’d give her information and then he’d start freaking out and going, ‘The bubbles, the bubbles!’ and the operator was like, ‘It’s just fish, don’t worry about the bubbles.’”

Anderson recalled an experience she had while working at a Cocoa Beach call center for five years. The unforgettable call came from a man who was appalled by the fact that a Waffle House did not take credit cards.

“So he wanted to file a police report, and I was trying to explain to this gentleman that we were not going to send an officer out there because he thought it was suspicious and that the world was against him,” Anderson said. “It was just crazy; he just could not get past the fact that they didn’t take credit cards, so he had to go across the street to the ATM and go get cash to pay for his meal and he was highly upset.”

With the funny calls counterbalancing the stressful ones, the dispatchers all agreed they loved their jobs and the chance it provides to serve their community.

“I wouldn’t give this job up for anything in the world,” Anderson said.

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Contact Gabby Baquero at [email protected].