911:: State APCO Meetings (Very long!)

[Guest guest]

Just got back from the fall VA APCO conference in Roanoke. If

your state conference(s) are anything like ours, don't miss

them. If they aren't, maybe it's time for you to become

more proactive.

I'll be up front with you. Folks have asked me personally and

others asked on the list about the value of APCO membership.

I vote 'yes' -- we all ought to join and support APCO. Here

are my reasons in lenghthly detail. (This will look best in

a fixed width font like FIXEDSYS if you use a Microsoft

e-mail client.)

CONTENTS:

~~~~~~~~

1. Tree's thoughts on the subject

2. The VA APCO Fall Conference

a. Tue, Oct 2

- Region 32 700MHz meeting (for freq coordinators)

- VA APCO/NENA Board Meeting

- VA APCO Executive Board Meeting

- Hospitality room til 2300 (i.e., free booze)

b. Wed, Oct 3

- 0800-0900 - Registration & Continental Breakfast

- 0900-0930 - Welcome/Introductions

- 0930-1030 - Comm Cen Design - A Tale of Two Centers

- 1030-1045 - Break (vendor sponsored refreshments)

- 1045-1145 - Pentagon - An American Tragedy

(This hour was originally to be 'Backup Center Preparation.'

Because I know many are interested, I'll make it a separate

post because it's also a bit long.)

- 1145-1300 - Lunch (buffet special in the hotel)

- 1300-1400 - 9-1-1 Center Disaster & Recovery

(Note that this topic was selected six months ago, not in

reaction to the 9-11 events... but was VERY timely!)

- 1400-1700+ - Vendors (w/ refreshments)

- 1800-2100 - MANAPCO

- 2100-2300 - Hospitality room (aka free booze)

c. Thu, Oct 4

- 0800-0830 - Registration & Continental Breakfast

- 0830-0845 - General Session

(At this point, the conference splits. Directors, freq

coordinators, techs, etc have an agenda separate from the

dispatch. Since this is a Dispatch list, I'll only give

the dispatcher's breakout.)

- 0845-0945 - Creative Call Taking

- 0945-1000 - Break (w/ refreshments)

- 1000-1200 - 'Life is too short and the day is too

long to work like this' - Practical

tips for ending workplace wars

- 1200-1300 - Lunch buffet in the courtyard

- 1300-1400 - Open Roundtable Discussion

- 1400-1415 - Break (more refreshments)

- 1415-1700 - Critical Incident Stress Management

(Again, this was on the agenda six months ago. Timely.)

d. Fri, Oct 5

- 0800-0900 - Buffet Breakfast hosted by VA APCO

- 0900-1100 - Business Meeting

Installation of 2002 Officers

3. Thoughts on the importance of meetings before, during, and

after the meetings.

My Thoughts on

State APCO Meetings

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For twelve years, Falls Church has paid me to talk on telephones

and radios on their behalf. In my first few years, I thought I

received adequate training and could do the job. I did it. Not

too bad. Frustrated, at times. I did the mandatory VCIN recert

and got along fine. More training? Me? Why?

It's 's fault. Entirely. He facilitated my CTO class. I

can't and won't say he 'taught' it because he was so good at

getting us to talk -- and think -- telling each other what was

wrong (geez, big centers have a lot of the same problems as my

itty bitty one), getting us thinking that we can and should make

things better no matter how good we think that we have it right

now... and we could all make positive changes whether we got

everything that we wanted or needed. At the end of his class,

he gave lots of places to obtain resources and help. One was

'The 9-1-1 Console.' Been here ever since.

I also joined APCO. $60 sounded like a lot for a magazine but

I could brown-bag it once a week or something. Then I started

getting lots of 'junk mail' - brochures, training announcements,

meeting announcements, inviations to participate in committees,

and, well, lots of stuff. NOT _just_ a magazine. Manpower

shortages and budget kept me from participating very often but

every announcement comes with names, addresses, phone numbers,

in other words, resouces. I knew that APCO did other things,

frequency coordination, for example, but now I saw things

that made a difference to me and my partners. And they even

had meetings -- with 'dispatcher break-outs.'

The Virginia Chapter of APCO recognized that the majority of

their member were, are, and will be dispatchers. Elephants

(the big guys in the private offices) may appear before the

congressional committees and make the rounds in Richmond,

but the bread-and-butter is at the console where it all

happens. Well, the bull elephants are taking care of the

herd. Meetings in off-season, nice hotels at reasonable

(low) rates, and an agenda that includes lots for

everyone.

WARNING! DANGER - DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! Do _NOT_ attend

an APCO meeting if you are overweight, have high blood

pressure, or a ... Oh, wait! There'd only be two people

there: Ron Wade, who looks like a starving refugee in a

suit (did he EVER loosen his tie?) and that little girl

from the Virginia/North Carolina border with the size 2

jeans hugging her size 4 ... Ah, never mind.

There is always LOTS to eat. And it's good, too. The

vendors paid for all the break refreshments and continental

breakfasts... and the bar-b-que and fixin's at MANAPCO

night. No vendor wants to be outdone by the competition.

Believe me, you couldn't go hungry at a VA APCO meeting.

For a $25 registration fee and $64 a night motel room, I

ate at least $200 in food. The hours of credible instruc-

tion and the value of the rest of the agenda were worth

several hundred more to both me and my department. Know

what? I get a lot for my $60 a year membership.

VIRGINIA APCO FALL CONFERENCE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. Tuesday was elephant day. A few directors came down just

to fight for a piece of the 700 MHz pie. I heard that the

meeting was short. Me? Driving.. in daylight... after

graveyards. Fortunately, Virginia Dept of Transportation

provides 'rumble strips' on both sides of the roadway to

wake me up every time I nodded off. Once checked into the

motel, guess what? My body thought it was time to go to

work. Toss, turn, turn on the free HBO.

Wednesday started with lots of powder sugar donuts for us

wearing navy or black pants. Those in khakis or whites got

the chocolate sprinkles. We all sat down wearing some

of our breakfast, glued on by spilled coffee. Lots of

coffee down where it belongs kept my eyes propped open.

'Comm Center Design - A Tale of Two Centers' was a condensed

version of VECCs presentation at National APCO in SLC. You

can check them out at http://www.vecc9-1-1.com . One of the

architects and a contractor were from Virginia and loved the

opportinity to show off unique design features -- like the

non-parallel walls for noise abatement. Dang, something that

would work even in our itty bitty center that's about to be

redone. Instead of a box in the corner for cables, taper the

wall since there are fewer and fewer cables to be accomodated

farther back. They're tearing out that wall anyway. Low

cost, high payoff, entirely practical, and we are in exactly

the right stage to make it work.

'The Pentagon - An American Tragedy' was my first time since

9-11 to see Arlington's folks. That hour deserves and gets

a separate post.

'9-1-1 Center Disaster and Recovery' was an eye opener. The

panel was made up of propeller headed techno-geeks from

Verizon, the former GTE now Verizon, and Sprint. That this

was on the agenda was pure serendipity since it was planned

months ago, not added because of 9-11 events... but the

contents _DID_ change. They went through the standard bits

about 'dual tandem' circuits, key transfer switch wiring,

and FESTAs (Flexible Emergency Services Transfer Agreements)

with the advantages and disadvantages of each. Elephant

stuff, right? Yep. The bull elephants make those decisions

and we just need to know whether to throw a switch or make

a call or punch a button, when and how. But there's more!

Pacific Bell had some problems where 9-1-1 calls 'rang into

an empty closet,' resulting in law suits and lots of very

bad publicity. They introduced a vendor who supposedly has

a solution but couldn't provide costs, time lines, etc.

Ho hum, on to the next subject.

Did anyone on the list try to call NYC or Northern VA/DC

on 9-11? Did you get through? Or did you get a 'fast busy'?

Guess what? Emergency services personnel got the same 'fast

busy' signal and the techno-geeks explained, in terms

simple enough that I could understand (but I'm an old geek),

how telephone switching equipment goes into 'call gapping'

mode to protect itself from completely crashing when it's

overloaded. It happens all over the country every Mother's

Day. 9-1-1 calls are excluded... to a point. But when the

switches become saturated with so many 9-1-1 calls that the

switch is in danger of crashing from overload, even 9-1-1

calls can suffer the same call gapping mode since all of

the calls come thru the same switches. In our area, the

703/434/202 area codes were 'call gapped' on 9-11 and the

following day.

So everyone is calling 9-1-1 or trying to call 9-1-1 while

the whole world is trying to find out if their loved ones

were hurt or killed or all right, all at the same time. You

and your people NEED to make emergency calls, outgoing calls

to get needed resources, to alert personnel, to coordinate,

and all of the other things that we use the telephone for

in an emergency... and we get a 'fast busy,' too. Now what?

I had never heard of GETS - the Government Emergency Telephone

Service. See http://gets.ncs.gov for some info (I checked to

see that the URL works but haven't read the site yet). With

a 'GETS card' (circuit card for your telephone circuits),

you are supposed to be able to get thru 'call gapping' by

using a PIN code to show that the circuit is needed for a

true emergency ougoing call. I know I don't have PIN codes

for GETS in my center. Do you? Get GETS.

Oh, and Arlington had GETS... and it failed on 9-11. The

techno-geeks are checking to find out why. Is it supposed to

override 9-1-1 calls? If there are so many emergency calls

that they, alone, overload the switches, is there a way to

prioritize within GETS? They're looking into it with the

NCS (National Communications Service) techno-geeks.

Danged glad I sent in my $60 membership and conference fee.

tells 'working the vendor' stories better and has more

experience and expertise. I still filled two bags and won't

have to buy a pen before next year.

MANAPCO NIGHT IN DOWNTOWN ROANOKE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, food. Lots and lots of pulled pork bar-b-que and bbq

chicken with slaw, potato salad, macaroni, buns, bread,

veggies, and desserts and... Seconds. A D.J. played a

nice mix. Lots of good conversation with lots of people

from all over the state. It was all held in the historic

'Market Square' in the center of old downtown Roanoke.

The highlight was a tour of Fire Station 1, built around the

turn of the century, and the longest continuously used fire

station in the U.S. The Battalion Chief showed us that the

current kitchen began life as the hay loft to feed the

horses that drew the steam-powered pumpers. Some of the

horse-drawn and early motor powered equipment has been

restored or is undergoing or awaiting restoration at the

Virginia Transportation Museam (another must-visit if you

ever get to Roanoke VA). We got to see the on-duty crews

demonstrate pole sliding (they still use most of the old

brass poles; no stairs for those guys!).

THURSDAY DISPATCHER BREAK-OUT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Creative Call Taking' was definitely interesting.

started out with a minute on Arlington, describing all the

hugs passed around after 9-11. I made the mistake -- well,

it wasn't really a mistake -- of saying that I didn't get

any hugs and felt left out. For the rest of the conference,

I got my share of hugs... and then some.

Do you remember the abducted rape victim that was allowed to

use a cellphone to call her girl friend? But dialed 9-1-1?

The start of the tape could have been anyone on the list,

using our little, comfortable 'box' of a) Where? What?

c) Who? d) Call-back number. StClair, of Arlington,

moved us out of that box.

The caller/victim couldn't give her name (because she

was supposedly calling a girl friend to join the two guys

who kidnapped and raped her so they could have a four-some

and continue the party). She didn't know the cellphone

number and wouldn't have a reasonable reason to give it

with her abductors in the front seat of the van. And the

van was moving even though she was able to read off an

occasional street sign and give the names of stores she

was near. Initially, the call taker got irritated by

the caller's refusal to answer the 'box' questions. He

finally got it... a lot quicker than I would have gotten

it (would I have ever gotten it? For the rest of my

days as a dispatcher, I'll remember that tape when I

get an uncooperative caller.). A second, female

dispatcher even plugged into the call in case one of

the kidnapper/rapists took the phone. Good outcome;

victim rescued and both kidnapper/rapists convicted and

serving life.

said she brought four sample calls but only had

time for two. The second was completely different, an

EMD where the caller and victim were actually in Falls

Church. A hysterical 12-year-old boy dialed 9-1-1

after finding his mother unconscious. He is so freaked

that he initially refuses to go back into the same room

that she's in and has to be coaxed extensively to even

open the airway. The calltaker judged that the victim

was almost certainly deceased and thought more of the

caller as the new victim who needed to know that he did

what he could do for his mother. (I knew the address

well from police calls. Mom threatened and attempted

suicide many times in the past as well as man other

incidents of hysteria, domestic 'situation' short of

physical violence, etc. I zoned onto the history I

knew and missed some things that came up in the

meetings after the meetings at the end of this post.)

'Life is too short and the day is too long to work like

this - Practical Tips for Ending Workplace Wars' was

presented by Mullen. I missed his bona fides but

kept the hand-out with his formulas for constructive

confrontations. I'm going to try them, starting with

deciding exactly what outcome I want before the

confrontation. Oh, and I'm a Fox (according to his

charts, at least).

'The Roundtable Discussion' did go round-and-round,

starting with improving retirement for dispatchers.

The bull elephants, represented by Terry Hall, took the

hits for the board deciding that 'the timing wasn't

right' when the VA chapter last dropped the issue. The

timing is NEVER going to be perfect.

Until that point, I managed to mostly listen but ended up

talking about communications and quickly rallying lots of

support from all the members when an important issue comes

up before the legislature. Let's see. By the end of that

hour, I had volunteered as webmaster for VA APCO's long

neglected web site and to set up two mailing lists; one, a

mini-Console type discussion list and two, an official VA

APCO list. (They've been sending out info by e-mail for

a year with 12 pages of addresses and a paragraph of info

rather than using a mailing list where you don't see all

the other addresses. Terry said that the board had just

voted to close the web site because it was hopelessly out-

of-date and they didn't want to spend the $2,000 the old,

'professional' webmaster wanted to do an update. They had

already decided to try to find a volunteer. These are jobs

I am qualified to and can do--giving back a bit, I guess.

Not sure when I'll actually take the site but it should be

interesting.)

'Critical Incident Stress Management' ended our dispatcher

break-out. If you're looking for a dynamic speaker who's

been there, done that, you can't do better than

Meador. A serendipitous choice of subjects. This is a

'for credit' class, too.

used the Arlington Dispatcher's as an example of some

less-thought-of stressers. Guess I'll wait for the Pentagon

update to go into that one. 's subtle. I got it,

probably because I was right behind the bulk of the Arlington

group. The Arlington group, six of them, didn't immediately

notice her example but those up close saw it. I suspect it

will sink in for others sometime later on. Maybe not.

is usually ahead of the stock lesson plans with new

statistics. This time was no exception. Why do we need

stress management? Well, we're like police officers forced

to function with only our voice and sense of hearing. In

2000, 150 law enforcement officers dies in the line of duty

(according to NLEOM; some other organizations use less

stringent criteria and numbers from 152 to 160). But 418

law enforcement officers are documented as having taken

their own lives during 2000 and the number is probably

higher because there is no mandate or system to ensure the

accurate reporting of officer suicides.

delt with 'the healing power of humor,' staying

healthy so we can cope, and coping. She ended with 'The

Resilience Concept - Victim -> Survivor -> Thriver.

It'll take some time to read, digest, and reread her

handouts. Included are two excellent articles:

You go, We go - CISM & Today's Communicators, by

Meador

Police Dispatchers: Undertrained & Underappreciated,

by Dennis M Payne, Michigan State U. (retired Michigan

State Police Lieutenant Colonel)

You can contact at valecism@... or

_Meador@...

THE CONFERENCE ENDS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Might as well stay for breakfast on Friday (as if I hadn't

eaten enough!) to see the officers elected by acclaimation

since all were unopposed. Who would volunteer for that

much work for zero pay? But I'm glad that they do. And

now I've volunteered even though I'm part of the herd. Go

figure.

MEETINGS BEFORE, BETWEEN, AND AFTER MEETINGS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. Know what? I learn as much before, between and after the

conference sessions as I do during the sessions. Logically,

wouldn't folks want a break from talking shop? But dispatch

is what we do, what we are. And nearly every minute is filled

with information, some useless but most valuable.

Wore my Console polo for the Tuesday night hospitality and

then on Wednesday morning. The yellow hasn't faded a bit, Ken.

That made me the Console magnet. I met Hirschel (did I spell

it right?), , Krista, and Kerri for the first time to

put a face with a screen name. Did I miss anybody? Probably.

And others asked about it. Maybe a couple more members will

sign up this weekend. And what did we talk about? Our

centers. How big. Shifts. Staffing. Get a feel for what

it is like in another place.

Aren't we all keyed to pick up on what's important? In each

specific instance. After the VECC description, I piked up on

just one point that I know will help my little box. You

would probably have picked up something else. But out in the

hallway, fresh coffee in hand, you learn more. A radiant

heater under the console. Sheila would like that. She says

I keep the booth at the same temperature as the average meat

locker. Task lighting when it wasn't built in. Damping the

noise of dot matrix printers with a cover. Plastic top, not

glass... and when it 'buzzed', add a strip of stick-on

insulation. It went on until they herded us back in for the

next session. Got to stay on schedule.

Lunch and dinner with different groups each meal. I was the

only attendee from Falls Church. Beppie was the only

Chesterfield dispatcher and didn't hang with her dept's bull

elephants. Being alone is an advantage. If there were six

from the same dept, they tended to stick together in a group.

Me? " Mind if I join you? " Nobody minded the shine from my

bald spot. There were many more 'lone wolves' who moved from

pack to pack, learning from each one. We learned about pay,

cost of living, computers, and CADs. We learned about

schedules that worked, that didn't work, that worked when

fully staffed but didn't work when short, and lots of

alternatives. Dispatch Monthly's site is great for the

schedules but can't cover all of the impacts of commutes,

traffic, weather in the Blue Ridge Mountains versus weather

on the coast.

I won't bore you by listing every subject and every story.

Can't remember them anyway. So I'll pick one dinner

conversation as an example -- StClair's 'out of the

box' EMD example. " What did you think of that tape? She

didn't even confirm the address until he asked, 'Do you

even know where I am?' Our QA would have given me days

off. " And we're off...

Starting with the cards, differences between the standard

EMD packages, then to Operational Medical Director mod's,

then to discussion the advantages and disadvantages of

'hands-on' active OMDs and passive 'hands-off' OMDs who

prefer to leave the cards exactly as printed by someone

else. Why? Afraid of suits? They'll sue the company

that came up with the cards rather than the OMD?

Oh, but count the law suits. Four times as many for the

'failure to act' than for any perception of wrongful

instructions. I don't do EMD but I can and do 'talk' EMD.

I'm a CPR/BLS/AED Instructor Trainer since 1989. I can

imagine myself in court. " You teach people how to do

CPR, correct? " " Yes. " " And you teach instructors... BUT

you didn't tell this family, in dire need, with their

mother just collapsed to do anything to help her? " How much

would the jury award? Ah, but in Virginia, dispatchers are

specifically covered under the Good Sameritan Act.

Moving on to the techniques, Arlington's cards still use the

head-tilt, neck lift method of opening the airway. Research

shows that untrained people do the old, outdated method more

reliably than the current head-tilt, chin-lift method. But

that's untrained people, who may cup the chin, close the mouth,

put their hand too low and get into soft tissue so the airway

is actually closed. My question? Does anyone already have a

protocol for compression-only CPR for untrained callers?

I don't do EMD but I kept up with the American Heart Emergency

Cardiac Care conferences. I have hard-copy abstracts of many

of the studies, including lots on CPR. Why'd we go to a 2:15

ratio even for professional rescuers/responders? Well, it

works better. Proven. One study tried 1:5, 1:10, 2:10, 2:15,

2:25, 2:50 and 2:100 radtios on animals (The study was done in

a country without PETA where survival of human beings is more

important than the animals). Which had the best survival rate?

2:50. Next was 2:100 -> 2:25 -> 2:15 and so on. Our old

1:5 was dead last. Sometimes it worked. Why 2:15 if research

showed more compressions were better? Well, not part of the

EMD discussion but compression only CPR for completely untrained

callers should become common in areas with short response times.

But more research needs to be done on human beings, large trials

in big cities where half the medics try 2:25 and the other half

stay with 2:15 (which is unquestionably better than 1:5... any

medics remember " Hyperventilate him. 1 - 2 - 3 squeeze. " ? We

were killing 'em just like we used to kill 'em with bicarb.

By then, it was time for war stories, bizzare tales of saves and

non-saves. CPR on bloated, decomposing corpses. Then CPR on

animals and the Red Cross vetinary emergency course. Then to

the bad ones -- kids. We finally got back to 's tape and

decided, not knowing her protocols and such, that her decision

that the 12 year old's welfare was also important and that the

medics were, in fact, already on the way even though the verifi-

cation of the address was later than it should have been, that

it was a good call to illustrate 'outside the box.'

Gad, this one will be a digest by itself and I'm only half

way through the last 3 days... and 500 post behind on my

reading.

Always take good care of yourself and yours,

Calls occur randomly... all at the same time!

R J 'Tree' Greenwood

Falls Church & Catlett VA

doctree@... on The 911 Console

doctree@... on 911-Talk

rgreenwood@...