This Time, Dispatchers Need Our Help

If you're wondering why there's a National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, Tampa Police Department dispatcher LeAnn McCann can tell you about the time she took a call from a man who discovered his wife after she had committed suicide.

“She was hanging in the bathroom,” McCann said, “and in the meantime you're staying on the line to tell the officers how to get there. And fire rescue's trying to give him CPR instructions, telling him to cut her down. And you're trying to give this man instructions and he doesn't want to listen to you. And then the officers arrive, and you have to hang up.”

For the people who answer when we call 9-1-1, and tell the cops, firefighters and paramedics where to go when there's an emergency, the job offers a unique kind of stress.

“It's like reading the first six chapters of a book,” said McCann, “and then you have to put it down, and not finish it.”

This is why there's a National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, which was officially recognized by Congress in 1991 and designated for the second week of April. But now the people who help us need our help.

“Due to citywide budgetary constraints,” McCann has written in a press release, “we have held several 'in house' fund-raisers to help off set the costs of food and prizes, however, it's not enough for the 140 employees that work all shifts.”

At the City of Tampa Communications Center, where McCann works, managers have traditionally honored their employees during the NPST week with a variety of perks, including themed costume days, raffled prizes, and catered food. But McCann said “It's been a long time,” since the city has been able to pick up the whole tab.

“We are reaching out to our community and local businesses,” McCann wrote in her release, “to help in our effort to make this a great and memorable week. In the past our community partners have stepped forward and helped make this week that much more special for us. Any donations, whether food, door prizes, letters of appreciation, etc. would be greatly appreciated.”

But while the stress, and turnover rate, of emergency dispatchers can be high, McCann said the job at times, “can be very funny, and it can be very weird.” She said she's received calls from people complaining about getting the wrong drive-thru order at McDonald's, asking how to get a divorce, or reporting that someone cussed at them.

Anyone wanting to help make NPST Week better for the workers at the City of Tampa Communications Center can e-mail LeAnn McCann at leann.mccann@tampagov.net.