The Voice in the Darkness

9-1-1 Caller: "Ma'am, it's bad. It's so bad. Please get somewhere here!"

Me: "We're getting help on the way. I need to get some more information from you, so please don't hang up."

Me, to my team: "Let's get 'em moving guys! We're going to have fatalities on this one."

My trainee: "Who do we send?"

Me: "Everybody. Start paging."

*911 and our administrative phones were ringing on every line. Fire pagers were going off. Police officers were being dispatched. The ambulance company was told to send multiple rigs. Our Southern Linc was beeping with instructions from road supervisors. Captains came running from their offices, wanting to know what was going on.*

It was bad. We've all seen and heard bad, but this was different. This one hit me in the gut. I sensed it immediately as the calls came pouring in.

Just One Second

Two cars were traveling in opposite directions on a major highway. One second they were just headed to their destination, going about their lives. The next, a deafening crash and an explosion of twisted metal left three people dead and families were destroyed.

The Buick left its lane, crossed the median, and collided head-on into an SUV. Both vehicles were going approximately 70 miles per hour at the moment of impact.

We got responders to the scene as fast as we possibly could. It didn't matter. Both women inside the vehicles died immediately. The woman in the Buick had a medical issue that caused her to pass out and swerve into oncoming traffic, which ended in tragedy.

There was a glimmer of hope as we got a call from one of the medics on scene. He was transporting a 15-month-old little boy from the accident and needed us to notify the ER.

We found out later that the baby died in mid-flight while being airlifted to another hospital. His injuries were just too severe for his little body to recover. We sat in silence, with only the radio traffic in the background.

When things calmed down a bit, I volunteered to go get food for us all. As I was driving, I pulled over, and cried so hard that my ribs hurt, my head hurt, my back hurt, my heart HURT. I managed to get it together before going back in and working to clear up the aftermath. That's my job.

A Voice of Hope

I am a 9-1-1 dispatcher. I handle emergencies every day. I hear people screaming, crying, pleading, cursing, bargaining, and dying on the other end of the phone regularly. That's my job.

I send police officers, firemen, paramedics, coroners, social workers, counselors, road teams, and utility workers to people on the worst day of their lives. That's my job.

I calmed down the mother who just pulled her lifeless child from their family pool, enough to walk her through CPR. The moment that her son spit out the water that filled his lungs, began breathing, and said "Mama", the relief was overwhelming. I cried with his mama. That's my job.

I asked the teenage boy what he had for supper that night. When he replied "fried fish and cheese grits", I went on and on about how cheese grits were my favorite. I asked him if he had ever had shrimp and grits.

This was to keep him talking while my officers located his house after he called in saying that he planned to kill himself. He wanted us to give a message to his mom after he died. He was able to talk through his pain and realize that he really didn't want to die, and he really wanted to try shrimp and grits. That's my job.

A woman called in and said that her veteran father was having flashbacks, which led him to believe that people were after him. He sat under his kitchen table with a shotgun and ordered his wife to stay behind him so that he could protect her. The daughter was on her way to their home but didn't know what to expect when she arrived. I pleaded with her not to go inside the house.

She went in anyway. I asked her if her dad would talk to me on the phone. He did. I explained to him who I was and that we had police officers on the way to help him fight off his "attackers". I asked him if he would let us help him. He agreed, but only if he could continue to protect his wife and daughter until we got there. I agreed and explained that when my officers arrived, I need him to hand the gun to his daughter so that she could put it away. He complied.

He kept saying, "thank you for believing me. No one else believed me". He was convinced that we had saved his family from certain death. This definitely could have had a different outcome had he not been so cooperative. I have no official psychological training, but it's my job.

I Almost Quit My Job

The night of the crash, after our shift, my team and I sat on the steps of the police station and cried for over an hour. We prayed for the families that just had their world turned upside down and the young souls that were lost. I went home and cried to my husband. He's a crime scene investigator, so he understands how calls get to you. I tried to sleep, but it didn't come for several nights. I still see that sweet little boy's face in my dreams all these years later.

For months afterward, I had so much doubt. Doubt in myself; did I do everything in my power to try to save those people? Doubt in God; how could He let this happen? Doubt in my job; why do I put myself through this every day?

I almost resigned, desperate to find a "normal" job, but first, I needed to answer the question: Why do I love my job so much when all I see is the bad stuff?

The answer was simple. My passion is helping people and I am good at it.

There are good moments. A citizen calls to thank you for your help or apologize when the stress of the situation caused them to be rude or aggressive. You hear the cries of a newborn baby after helping her parents give birth to her in their living room. The little boy who called 9-1-1 just to read us a poem on Valentine's Day because we were working and away from our Valentine's. The bonds that you make with your team; no one understands your life like they do.

There are good moments, but mostly I want to be the good. I want to help better the world, if but only a small piece of it. I know that no matter what I am going through, when I take that phone call, the person on the other end is going through worse. I need to help them through it. That's who I am. That's my job.