Editor’s note: To foster the next generation of public safety communications professionals, APCO held an essay contest, sponsored by PlantCML, an EADS North America Company, for high school students. The theme for the 2010 contest was “Why the public needs professionals in public safety communications.” Below is the winning essay.

The life of a communications professional is both trying and stressful. Not only do we get to know the law enforcement professionals on the other end of the radios and phones, but a bond is born as well. Not only do we laugh and joke on the phone, but at times yell at each other, making sure the radios are not keyed and the phone is hung up all the way. As a dispatcher or calltaker, we are the frontline of information. It is our job to provide each and every officer all the information we can about each call they are going to and, at times, to multiple officers going to multiple calls. Then the dreaded happens. You hear an officer you have been messaging back and forth with on the computer talking about what you are doing in the much needed days off to come, when you hear them call for emergency traffic due to a man with a gun. You scramble frantically to find the closest backup officer and say a silent prayer they will get back on the radio telling you everything is ok. At the same time, the deranged man’s wife is on the phone in your other ear begging and pleading for help.

At that moment, you are a lifeline to a colleague and a savior to another. You have to juggle the emotions running through your mind that are trying to tell you to curse the caller because she knew her husband was crazy and allowed him to have guns and never get him help, but you can’t. You have to remain professional. After all, people don’t call when things are going good, only when they need you. Two minutes go by, then three, then five, then 10, still nothing. You know your friend is a professional and the two of you have been through this before. Finally, a voice breaks the silence telling you everything is OK. He clears the call. You breathe a sigh of relief, but you know the next call is right around the corner.

Though we may not be on the street taking the calls and seeing both the horrors and the reliefs face to face to the persons who call for help, we are their only lifeline. From trying to calm down a mother and tell her over the phone how to perform CPR on her child who just fell in the pool, to trying to convince a deranged, depressed young man from committing suicide, the communications personnel have tremendous contact and responsibilities when it comes to tasks both with the public, as well as with the officers we work and live with.

Times in law enforcement have certainly changed. There was a time when communications did not exist. Towns were smaller and there were only one or two officers on duty at a time. Then the times came when officers used pay phones and call boxes to call into the station to speak with a single clerk or dispatcher that was on duty. As times change, so do the people. This is inevitable.

Civilization as a whole has gotten bigger, and more people flock to towns and cities, and with the persons come both the good and the bad. As the crime inevitably goes up, so does the need for law enforcement personnel. With the influx of persons and crime, the influx of calls for service also goes up. It is no longer possible for one operator sitting behind a single phone to manage all the calls coming in. Nor is it possible for that single person to be able to keep track of all the police officers which are answering the calls he or she provides, but also the officers who are calling in calls because they find crime and assist the public.

Therefore, departments have, and rightfully so, spent an enormous amount of time and money to hire and train communications personnel and provide state of the art communications command centers. These communications centers are always buzzing with activity, the phones never stop ringing and the law enforcement officers never stop finding things on their own. As the crime goes up and the population grows the need for well trained and well staffed communications centers will never cease.

Without well trained communications personnel the public would have no one to turn to. We are their guiding light in their time of need. We do as much without ever seeing a citizen as the officer that answers their call. There is nothing more gratifying than that of the officer who just went through the most trying experience of their career calling you to see if you are okay and thanking you for your professionalism.

Whether it be a knock down drag out fight where you were unable to reach them and knew they needed help, or a shooting where the neighbors are calling saying they hear a gun battle going on in the house and knowing the deputy you sent there is alright and will walk away from it, is always in the back of your mind. But when they call you and ask if you are OK, it makes your heart drop. You know that man or woman just went through hell and back, and their first thought is of you knowing that you weren’t breathing for those five minutes waiting on them to be OK.

Yes, communications personnel all have a major impact on the civilians we speak with every night, and rightfully so. With the emergencies we help them through; sometimes they have no one else to call. However, I feel communications has the biggest impact on the police officers we deal with on a daily basis, for these are the people that we have grown the friendships with. Sometimes our children, friends, wives, and husbands are those people we want to be there to help the most when we know the world is going bad. The hardest part of communications is sitting miles away, behind a computer or phone and knowing there is nothing we can do.

We come back night after night not because we have to, but because the people we spoke with the night before appreciate everything we did for them and this means the world to us. It takes a special person to answer that phone or get on that radio and check on all the people we are assigned to that night. It takes strength, not physical, but emotional. When a deputy or officer keys up the radio and you hear in their voice that their world has just gone down the toilet, we have to be their guiding light. Strong, assuring and emotionally unattached when all you want to do is yell, run, get away and make yourself safe. It is our job to send people into harm’s way and we do this with the knowledge that one day we may not get an answer when we check, 10-4, 10-6.

It is our decision because we know, as do the officers we serve with, that we take the brunt of it all. We are there to make them safe, neither for recognition nor appreciation, both of which are sometimes hard to find. But just that one call from an officer saying,” Thank you for saving my butt,” makes it all worthwhile. Or the mother whose child is alive because of the calm, cool headed nature you had while giving her the CPR instructions and the compassion you showed when she breathed a sigh of relief that the officer you dispatched had arrived because you took a moment and asked her three times for her address.

It is safe to say that the professional training of the public safety communications operators is the essential foundation to every call for help.

About the Author
Amanda Krutilla of Riverdale High School in Lehigh Acres, Fla., was the winner of APCO International’s 2010 high school essay contest.