We Learn Things the Hard Way, Part 1 by Wendy Lotman
Written by Wendy Lotman, published October 13, 2020
Trigger warning: This blog contains real stories of 911 calls that can be a trigger for those who have lived through trauma. Please proceed with caution.
Our training was thorough and intense, and yet nothing really prepared us for dealing with the mental and emotional drain that was coming. We had to learn that the hard way.
Early on in my training, I worked night shift 21-07. My coach was one of those crusty on the outside and soft on the inside kind of coaches. One morning around 5:45 am, a woman called saying that someone was trying to break into the sliding glass door of her apartment. I got her address and information and told her I would stay on the line until police arrived. It was shift change so the night officers were going in and the day officers were coming out, and it took a bit longer than normal to get someone enroute. I got her to hide in her bedroom and lock the bedroom door and asked all the questions: did she see the person at all, have any idea who it might be, get any threats or any other suspicious activity prior, have weapons in the house, etc.
My coach was watching the call from the dispatch side of things to get an idea of when they were arriving. This was pre-GPS mapping so we could not see where the officers were; we had to rely on their status updates. As the first officer said he was arriving, the caller heard the glass of the sliding door shatter, and she could hear footsteps coming down the hall. I was willing all the power of the universe for the officer to find her apartment and be there already. As that thought crossed my mind, I heard the bang of the bedroom door being kicked in, the caller scream in terror, and the line go dead as the phone was ripped out of the wall. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, looked at my coach and said “What do we do now?” She said without flinching, “Take the next call.” Seeing the shell-shocked look on my face, she then revised to say, “Why don’t I take a few calls and you can listen for a bit.”
As she took more calls, I was watching the police call updates and seeing that a male ran from the apartment, and another officer that was arriving on scene saw him running and detained him. Luckily, at the moment the suspect had been kicking in the bedroom door, the officer was pounding on the front door and the suspect ran off. I didn’t know this yet, or if she was ok, and my mind wanted to figure out what happened and know the story. We learn the hard way that we rarely get to know the whole story.
The officers cleared the call without transporting anyone to jail, and my initial reaction was confusion and anger. I had heard her terrified scream; how could they let him go? My coach sent the officer a message, and he answered back that the “suspect” was her boyfriend, they had an argument, she had locked him out, and she said that “he would never hurt me.” What?!?! Had she been lying to me or was she really that scared, and what on earth just happened?! We learn the hard way how to start building that wall between ourselves and the callers for our own emotional safety.
After going through a 3-month academy and 6-months of on-the-job training just for calltaking, we hope and pray we are prepared to handle every call on our own. The safety net of the coach is gone, and we foray into the vast unknown of what each day will bring. Still many lessons to be learned.
On a sleepy Sunday morning (we don’t use the Q word in dispatch), there were not many of us on duty calltaking so I was sitting pretty much by myself, near the window expecting a fairly uneventful day. The now familiar beep hit my ear and a call dropped in. I immediately heard a lot of screaming and chaos in the background. As the neighborhood returned from church a few minutes before, they found the son of one of the parishioners hanging from a tree in the front yard. No one was sure if he was deceased or may still be alive.
After sending the call with basic information, I go through all of the questions related to his medical status. There was still debate at that time over whether it was better to cut down the patient or preserve evidence for police. I made that split second decision to tell them to get him down and do CPR. The neighbor was doing his best with the family screaming in the background. I could hear “why, why” over the line as I kept the neighbor focused on his task. Just as they almost got the rope cut to get him down, the ambulance and police arrived on scene. I thanked the caller, told him he did a great job, to follow the police instructions and let them take care of him from here.
Our mind’s eye creates the scene for us even though we are not there. I could see the kid hanging in my mind, and I could see the neighbors’ distraught faces. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears and thought everyone in the room must have heard that screaming, but when I turned around no one was looking my way or even appeared to notice that anything unusual was going on. I saw a call was holding so I took a deep breath and carried on.
Even though this was pre-Peer Support Team and CISM days, I had that thought that someone must have realized how bad that call was. I looked over at the dispatcher and they appeared un-phased. Business as usual. After taking a few more calls, I looked at the incident in the CAD and saw they transported the patient. I didn’t ask anyone to find out if he made it because I also knew that sometimes they transport for the welfare of the family and not the viability of the patient. I never knew if he made it; I just assumed he didn’t and made my peace with having helped as best I could. We learn the hard way that we can still hear the screams later even if no one else can.
All of the classroom lessons and simulations cannot fully prepare us. We learn enough to make sure that we can focus on the process and tasks at hand, getting faster and more effective over time, but the rest we learn the hard way. I have taken thousands of calls in my career, and most of them I do not remember. Both of these calls were taken over 20 years ago, and yet I still remember them vividly. Neither of these calls was particularly gruesome or traumatic, and yet I remember them. Not because of enduring trauma, but because of the hard lessons that I learned from each of them.
I don’t know if I have ever told my family these stories. They happened in my first three years on the job. I never really talked about the calls I took, except to my husband or co-workers. I always felt like I had to spend so much time trying to explain processes or abbreviations, the point of the conversation was lost. Also, I didn’t want them to be upset or have to re-live events with me. We learn the hard way that sharing isn’t always caring.
Part two coming soon…
Thank you, Wendy for sharing your valuable perspective! If you are interested in writing a blog, please email 911derWomen@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter on our homepage to stay up to date with 911der Women programming, exclusive content and blog updates. Click here and scroll to the bottom!