At 2 a.m. on an already busy night at the dispatch center, a woman calls. Through her coughs, she says, “There is a fire in my house. My room is full of smoke. I can't get out….”

The dispatcher verifies the address, tells the caller to stay calm and sends the appropriate assignment. The dispatcher then begins to solicit additional off-the-cuff information based on previous experience. During this interrogation, the caller pleads with the dispatcher, “Please help me, I can't breathe. What can I do?”

Will the dispatcher know what to say? Will the advice be appropriate for the situation? Will the instructions be judged in a court of law as reasonable? Will the instructions be appropriate and in line with local and national standards of care and best practices?

Chiefs around the country complain about a lack of interoperability, poor communication or lack of communications, and the need for funding to improve those things. How many chiefs have said they needed funding for dispatcher training?

But almost every emergency begins with a call for help. How much time and money do agencies invest in the first responders to those incidents — the 911 dispatchers who answer the calls for help?

Chiefs should look at dispatch policies, procedures and training as prevention measures against poor communication, interoperability, apparatus accidents, and lights-and-siren responses. All too often departments miss a problem's starting point — and that means they miss the opportunity to prevent injuries and deaths.

The on-the-job training in many dispatch centers follows this pattern: A new dispatcher sits next to a seasoned dispatcher and listens for a week, then she answers the phone and types for a week. Next she moves over into the call-taker's seat with the seasoned dispatcher sitting next to her for another week before being cut loose.

Dispatchers are best described as the first people on the scene of every crime, fire or medical emergency. The questions they ask, the decisions they make and the actions they take affect the speed and safety of the response, the quality of the response and an agency's exposure to liability. Dispatchers must be trained in crisis communication techniques because they directly affect the outcome of an emergency. Departments need to provide dispatchers with proven methods of gathering the most pertinent information in the least amount of time and teach them how to deliver appropriate pre-arrival instructions. Dispatchers should be trained in:

Legal issues

Call-takers should understand how legal concepts like standards of care, negligence and abandonment directly affect them, and what they can do to protect themselves and their agencies from liability exposure.

Information-gathering

Dispatchers must know how to obtain and verify the location of an incident properly, while maintaining contact with the caller, dispatching the appropriate units, keeping the caller calm, maintaining control of the conversation and determining if emergency care instructions are required.

Effective communication

With today's language barriers, cultural diversity and the sheer number of calls coming into call centers, dispatchers need to learn how to use active listening skills to effectively communicate with callers.

Fire call process

There is no room for freelancing on the fireground, nor should there be at dispatch centers. Dispatchers must learn what information they should get before dispatching and what information is pertinent to the overall fire operations.

Fire behavior

Dispatchers should understand flashover, backdraft and other significant fire events so signs of impeding danger can be used to keep victims, bystanders and firefighters safe.

ICS/NIMS

Federal mandates require dispatchers to have this necessary training.

Disaster management

Dispatchers must know how a disaster is going to affect the communications center. They need to understand how departments manage specialized teams, extremely high call volumes and staffing issues. Dispatchers may be required to work extended hours without seeing their families or surveying the damage to their own houses. They should understand the complexity of disasters and what takes place during the recovery phase. Only then can they become involved in the planning process and prepare to deal with unusual conditions ahead of time.

Critical incident stress

CIS is present in call centers, just as it is in the field. Dispatchers need to know what CIS is and how to protect themselves against its long-lasting effects.

When dispatchers answer a call for service, they should go through a standard questioning and information-gathering process, the same basic set of questions delivered in the same order each time. Dispatchers by nature will try to help a caller in need. They will fall back on their experience or knowledge and give the caller informal pre-arrival instructions. This is simply off-the-cuff advice that might not be appropriate and might do more harm than good. This situation exposes the operator and the agency to the highest level of liability possible.

All dispatchers should have a fire protocol reference guide with them at all times. This reference guide provides a standardized set of questions and PAIs based on incident type. This will ensure that instructions aren't improvised and that they adhere to recognized and established procedures.

Protocol-based fire service dispatch is very similar to emergency medical dispatch. Dispatchers are trained to take every call in a systematic way. It starts with gathering the primary information, consisting of the where, what, who, why and how, plus information on any weapons, hazards or injuries. After gathering the primary information, the dispatcher needs to immediately identify life-safety emergencies and send the appropriate resources in the appropriate response mode.

After dispatching the appropriate resources, the call-taker must gather secondary, call-specific information. After relaying secondary information, the dispatcher begins PAIs, if necessary. PAIs are part of the standard of care when helping an emergency victim. Dispatchers need to know what instructions to give for a specific emergency and the order in which they must be given.

Dispatchers are more than the gate-keepers to the emergency system; they are a vital and integral part of the entire system. Appropriate training can help an agency decrease accidents, reduce liability exposure, retain employees and provide a healthier work environment by reducing stress and positively influencing incident outcomes.

---

P.J. Norwood Jr. has been involved in firefighting and EMS since 1988. He began his career with the East Haven (Conn.) Volunteer Company 3, where he served as a firefighter/EMT. In 1995, Norwood became a firefighter/paramedic for the East Haven Fire Department, where he currently serves as battalion chief. He also serves as the town's community emergency response team program manager. Norwood is the lead instructor for Advanced Fire Service Dispatch.