Re: 911:: Opinions needed

[Guest guest]

She was getting ready to dispatch a burglary in

progress and was following that line of questioning. <

Why? I don't think you have enough informtion to make this a

burglary in progress...

And that is why I said she was following that line of questioning (she

was asking all the appropriate questions but the lady would not answer them)

she had not yet dispatched the call, she was trying to get further

information from the lady before making the decision to send it as a

burglary in progress, the Sgt. did not even know this happened until later

because the burglary in progress call was never sent across the air. In

light of other information we were getting we changed the type of call.

Like I also said earlier this was a new dispatcher she had a hard time

getting control of the caller to answer her questions. I listened to the

call on call back and firmly believe that nothing would of worked in getting

this lady to answer the questions, she wouldn't pay attention to the phone,

she was busy checking her kids for injuries. She was answering but not the

questions that were asked. The dispatcher said, " Where is the person now? "

Answer, " The kids are alright they were playing in the back porch. " Again

" Where is the person now? " Answer " We are standing in the hallway where the

phone is "

> >Now

> we realized we had misunderstood the lady reporting this when she said

> someone ran in my back door we thought she meant a person not a car.<

>

> You probably needed to ask a few more questions of the caller...

>

> Calm down... what's going on there?.... Is there an accident???

We had no reason to beleive there was an accident, she said someone ran in

my back door. (Not a car hit my back door, or someone hit my house) Nothing

to make us believe there was an accident. So why ask that question when you

have no reason to believe that there was an accident. It was a

misunderstanding but I don't think on the dispatchers part so much, like I

said I probably would of thought person also. (Listening to the call the way

she says it, some of the other verbal clues, noise in the background all led

me to beleive she had an intruder) But as the call progressed the dispatcher

figured out that something else was going on just not exactly what happened.

When the woman started saying she smelled smoke inside the house the

dispatcher concentrated on that area and getting everyone out of the house.

Remember these calls happened within seconds of each other. The other

dispatcher was concentrating on her call and had no idea I had a similiar

call in the same area involving a woman passed out in a car. However since

her call came in first I knew some of the details of her call.

>

> >And

> when I questioned the caller I had all they said was the woman was passed

> out and never mentioned that the car had hit the house.<

>

> A question needed to be asked here...

>

> Is there an accident there?

> And like I said before in retrospect I would of asked that question. But

the circumstances I had I was more concerned with the location. I spent a

full minute of the call trying to narrow down the location. Orginal location

given was in an alley across from Bert & Ernies. Knowing the area well I

knew this wasn't good enough there are about 6 or 7 alleys near Bert &

Ernies. They finally give me an address which is the same as the 9-1-1 call.

Then I checked status of breathing, unknown because the car was locked. At

this point I stopped questioning and sent a police officer (this is in a

small village) he was there within a minute. (had to stop questioning so I

could talk on the radio) Then I started toning the volunteer department

sending the full assignment because the other dispatcher informed me that

they smelled smoke in the house. By the time I was finished with the toning

procedures the officer was on the scene informing us it was an accident. I

knew at the point breathing was unconfirmed that I needed a quick response

the more time I spend talking to them on the phone equals time taken away

from the response.

> True... " with the information you had " .. you sent appropriate equipment.

>

> But, it doesn't really sound like you had a good understanding of the

> call before you sent the equipment. ( Just my opinion )

And you are right we really did not have a good understanding of the call

but I would rather have the equipment on the way for the woman that might

not be breathing in the locked car than still be questioning the caller

about what exactly happened. And police and fire on the way for the smell

of smoke inside the house rather than trying to figure out how is came about

that there was a smell of smoke in the house. I had enough information to

know what I needed to send, whether the Sgt. thinks I did or not is my whole

point, it doesn't matter that I never figured out this was an accident. I

had 2 pieces of key information, #1 there is a smell of smoke inside a house

(don't need a whole lot more to decide a full fire assignment is needed). #2

A woman is passed out in a car next to the house, car is locked, nobody

knows if she is breathing. (send a squad and police officer) Of course I did

not tell you this was a small town in the orignal post. The officer is at

most 2 minutes from anywhere in the village, the fire department is

volunteer but this paticular day they were all on station and had a 1 minute

response. Instead of wasting time in finding out what exactly happened I

opted for the send because they are very close. Had this call been in the

county or another area, we probably would of had the time to figure out what

happened after we dispatched the call. But by the time the dispatch was

done on the radio the officer was on the scene and there was no need for

further questioning.

>

> You did end up needing the equipment & personnel... but with a few more

> questions... a little more time... it might have went a little smoother...

Yep you are right but possibly at the cost of a quicker response.

> I guess I'm " second guessing " your call.... but when you ask for

opinions..

> that's all I can do...

No problem I asked for opinions, looked at those opinions and explained my

point of view. In the original post it is hard to get the big picture from

the information. I went to the side of caution with more equipment but I

beleive based on pretty decent information #1 smoke in house #2 woman passed

out unconfirmed breathing. Obviously the first 911 call threw us totally off

what was going on due to the misunderstanding at the beginning. I know

while it is good to get as much information as possible in this circumstance

I found it more important to get something (anything) started to find out

what the heck was going on. We obviously weren't finding out from the people

on the phone. And I felt that it was more important to get something started

than figure it all out, obviously I am not going to put out a fire or start

breathing for the woman in the locked car while questioning the caller.

Just my opinion on the situation and the reason I made the decisions I did.

Sara

[Guest guest]

Does anyone else have a problem with response time? Seems like if a call is

a lower priority, there are certain officers that take their sweet ole time

movin' out.

Lyn

magik@...

....You can always turn them around quicker than you can start

> them...if ya know what I mean !!

>

>

> Kristy Rohm

> Supervisor, Clayton Co 911

> boro, Ga.

> NitePrey2@...

[Guest guest]

Sara,

In our department, all those units would have been sent out anyways for an

injury

accident, so.....I can't see where you " overreacted " at all.

Freida

Sara & Winfield wrote:

<<snip>>

When the officer marked on the scene he told us that this was an injury

accident, a

car had hit the house and there was a strong smell of gas in the area.

<<snip>>