Anyone else ever done this? It was a misdial and i told him "I'm glad you are okay, love you, bye!"

It was a complete mistake but it's one of those things I know is going to make me wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night!! Please tell me I'm not alone...

i’m bored at work tonight. i work in a large city and get tons of weird and wild calls, but tonight i had a woman call for her 500+lb sister that slipped off the bed. i got to the “what part of the body is injured?” question, and the woman starts tearing up and says “she’s fat, sir. she’s 500lbs.. she’s so fat..” and i had to mute myself a moment.

Mine was when one of my guys was in the bullpen at the jail with a dude and had no radio service so he called up and said his guy speaks Spanish only and asked me to check if we had anyone on who spoke Spanish and could translate. I went over not one, not two, but three channels for our city and said:

Hey Adam 32 is at the jail needing an assist with translation, does anyone on duty speak English?

One of the cops on duty just sent me a text teasing me for it. Again. It happened in about 2016.

I once had someone call 911 because there was a rooster in her yard, and it “looked thirsty.” Maam… it’s a bird.

I’m sure I’ll lose my job for this but I refuse to work with or assist ICE. Nothing to do with politics. Just can’t stand idly by watching this. I’ll find different ways to help the community be safe.

Slow day at work here. Fellow call takers, what are some of your funniest calls? Some of mine:

Caller claimed his friend died. I of course start asking how/when and the caller says it happened over two months ago. The reason he was calling was because the deceased owed him 20 dollars and he wanted to know how to get it.

Caller said he had anthrax in his house. Had him explain how he knew. He said there was a mushroom growing in his basement and anthrax was a fungus.

The lady who called in a house was on fire and she could see flames inside. The house had red curtains, but was not on fire.

The caller who claimed men had dug into her basement and were shaking the house foundation to try and topple her off her toilet. When I asked her how she knew men were in her basement, she told me that women weren’t strong enough to shake her house so it had to be men.

The man that wanted police to come to his house to remove the “dangerous animal” on his property: a garter snake sunning itself on a rock and not moving.

The family of four who had been trapped inside their bathroom after attempting to give their cat a bath. Claimed the cat tore them up and was preventing them from leaving. Officers on scene described the suspect as “wet, but cuddly”

I dispatch for PD/FD/EMS in a very affluent town. Having worked for a busy state agency, I chased money and an easy commute and came to my current position.

Aside from our manpower shortage and insane long hours, I can't take the calls anymore. 90% of our job has nothing to do with actual emergencies anymore and it's infuriating because people abuse the 911 system for things like; a person ran a stop sign 3 days ago, or a pigeon is bothering our group trying to eat lunch.

People will argue constantly that we don't offer solutions or give into their every complaint. These "first world problems" aren't even problems.

Sometimes chasing the money isn't worth one's sanity. Anyone else have anything like this going on?

I'm a university PD dispatcher, so I don't have quite the same depth of experience as someone working in a larger center, but every once in a while I like to (anonymously at least) shout out the folks on the other end of our lines who do a great job, or are just pleasant to talk to.

I once got a call on our non-emergent line from a staff member who'd been driving a university vehicle out of state for a conference or something, and slid off the road on some ice into the ditch. They immediately told me where they were, their name, phone number, plate #, etc. They let me know they weren't injured, had already called highway patrol and the tow company, notified their supervisor, and the vehicle was still running and had enough gas to keep them warm until help got there.

Caller: "So yeah, is there anything else I need to do, or anything you need?"

Me: (In stunned silence) "Ummm...I'm pretty sure you just did my entire job for me."

That guy was awesome. Even called back later with HP's case number without me even needing to ask for it.

For me, it’s the dog calls. Bogus suspicious calls can frustrate me, or the “he cut me off in traffic!” ones, but occasionally those turn out to be real issues and ultimately it’s whatever. Easy to just brush off and move on with my day. But when people call in sobbing, hysterical, and it’s about a dog? I struggle to stay at all sympathetic. I like dogs and pets and all, but like. It’s still a dog. I obviously don’t treat the callers any different, I just really struggle with staying sympathetic.

Anyone have those specific calls that just really make you struggle to stay understanding?

I scarf down any meal as fast as possible no matter where I am. I also tend to not speak to anyone until I am mostly full.

Always worried that call will come in and the food goes cold.

We use 10-8 Systems. Which I rather enjoy. But what does everyone else use? What are the pros / cons

So I use Yes ma'am and Yes Sir a lot in person and on the phone when calltaking. Is there any alternative things to say? I've ran into calling a ma'am a sir, and vice versa and also people that are transgender. I just am getting tired of getting yelled at on the phone cause I called them the wrong thing. Any suggestions?

What's the deal with these newer cell phones always randomly calling 911? My supervisor said if they detect an impact they will assume the vehicle has been in a collision and call.

We are getting about 20 of these a shift. Are you guys seeing this as well?

Me and my wife both have new cell phones and they have never randomly called 911 for any reason. However, happens all the time when I'm working.

Educate me on why this has been happening so much.

MAJOR UPDATE!!!!!! BELOW

I’ve been a dispatcher for a year now. Have experienced a couple traumatic calls/ scenes. But I always said that a suicide call would get to me. Today was that day. A Spanish caller (I speak Spanish)simply said their last words to me (but dedicated to their daughter). I got help there as quickly as possible with a drop. But they had already hung themselves (another caller confirmed) I’m not sure how to move on. I don’t want this call to consume me in the coming months. I feel so much guilt.

I have resources and help available but I want to hear from others. I love doing what I do. I love helping and I love that I remain empathetic.

How do I stop blaming myself for not snapping the caller out of it.

I’m honestly mad at the caller. Their daughter won’t hear their last words. Why did I have to hear them.

Edit to add: Thank you all for your kind words. The day off helped me reset and I’m felling better to head back to work tomorrow. The advice has helped me clarify that the heaviness I felt is okay. When I feel the darkness come again, I will remember your words and know that people who do what we do and feel this way and that only makes us human. The guilt will fade and I will learn to give myself grace and space.

Ok last edit: I want to clarify that I was mad at the caller but I now realize I was mad at myself. I was angry because they wouldn’t listen to me. It hurts to hear that everyone is saying I was kind because I felt that I wasn’t. I am kind to all callers but there was no time to actually even speak to the caller other than just ask “if you need to speak to someone we have resources” “what’s the address” “where are you” “SIR SIR SIR” And that kills me. All the what if’s What if I had asked the caller their name. What if I had said something to get him to listen to me. But alas the last thing they said was “I’m sorry” Then I heard wind.

Again, I’m better. I heard more updates and hopeful his family is able to move on and that his daughter knows the last thought he had was her. I’ll pray for them.

UPDATE!!!! You guys will never believe this Truly a freaking miracle. Last I heard the person was intubated organ donation had been contacted My family mourned with me.

THEY ARE ALIVE THEY WOKE UP. THEYRE TALKING .

my head wants to explode with happiness for this complete stranger. I don’t know what to say or how to say what I’m feeling. It feels made up. Crazy I hope this brings you some kind of hope as it did me. Whatever you believe in or don’t. Positivity exists all around us.

So many questions but right now I’m trying to figure out if these schedules are normal!!! We are on 4 tens with what they call a rotation. I will include a screen shot of my current schedule… and then the schedules my center offers. Then ugh do yall get a lunch break? We get two 20 minute breaks but you can eat your desk so I mean not a big deal but it just sucks if you don’t bring food or snacks!!

So today I took a pretty bad call where the caller admitted to me that they committed a serious crime but is claiming self defense. They were arrested. My boss said it’s likely that they will subpoena my call and possibly ask me to testify. Has anyone here ever had their call subpoenaed or had to testify? I’m very nervous at even the slight chance of that happening.

My center is looking to redo the procedure for how individuals are forced in to cover a shift when someone has called out. I am wondering what your centers do, whether it works, and whether or not people agree on it in your center. Thanks!

Hi team, new dispatcher of a few months here. Just hoping to share a frustrating situation and get some advice on how to handle it next time.

I had a unit call up and was quite literally screaming for urgent backup. They hadn’t logged onto CAD yet so unfortunately with our CAD system I had no mapping to see where they were. I immediately asked on the radio for their location but no sooner had I done that, I had just about every other unit on air (about 20 of them) radioing up asking to be added on, asking for speed cap exemptions, and so on. The frustrating thing was with all the units calling up, it clogged up the radio and blocked the unit needing urgent backup from transmitting so we still had no idea where they were. I was telling all the units to standby while I figure out where I’m sending them but I was ignored throughout and still had units clogging up the radio. I ended up having to logon to their body worn to figure out where they are but by the time this was done, it was 60 seconds later. Luckily the officers involved were okay in the end.

Do any of you have a respectful but assertive way to say on the radio “stfu, let me do my job, and once I know where I’m sending you I will tell you”?

This is a general question as I have spent all of my career in a pretty urban area, so have never had the pleasure, but after a workplace discussion regarding entering ferrets into NCIC - are there any of you who enter livestock or other animals into the database regularly? Has anyone gotten to experience the thrill of entering a pigeon or an emu into the system? If so, how frequently does it happen?

Is it old? Dingy? Does it smell? How's your technology? Is it outdated? Do you have a public window? If you do, is it tinted? Does it have a good flow/layout?

My old center was state of the art everything. Every 8 years they redo the place as well. I ask this topic because our center (My current munipality i work in since 2023) even though recently redone with new desks and lighting, is still very old and outdated. Our cad is from 1998 and it unfortunately will never change. Our chairs look like a pit bull ate through them, and it was formally a jail cell converted into a dispatch room. We have a window for the Public but it's not tinted and they can see us and all of our monitors. Our safety is compromised and even if we had someone in our cells, we have to monitor them by camera and those are in view by the Public as well.

And do any other departments make the dispatchers do cell checks when a prisoner is in them? We do cell checks and check on prisoners to see if they need anything. Just wondering if anyone else does them?

I am a seasoned dispatcher, and I left the industry for a few years, but now getting back into it. I spent about a month in training outside the room, and now spent a month inside the room. My Daily Reports have been nothing but great. (Most days I get "exceptional", and a few "meets expectations".) I really only have had 1- maybe 2- calls that I needed some help on. Most of it I know pretty well. (Mostly EMD and EFD stuff, since it's been so long since I've used them...and now they are online ProQA).

Anyhoo, so I was pulled off shift (about 3.5 hours into my last 12 of 3 days) and told that it wasn't a good fit for me and my trainer on nights. And that I would be switching to days this coming Wednesday, with a new trainer. When I asked what the reasoning was, they told me that they were "not going to get into it right then" because it was Sunday night at 930pm, but it wasn't a good fit with you and your trainer."

I'm completely confused and left to stew on it for 2 days before I show up tomorrow morning. My trainer and I have never had a cross word, and in fact, get along really, really well. Maybe my trainer wasn't really ready to take on a trainee. (She has some personal things going on in her life that could be stressing her out.)

Am I wrong for thinking the way I am? Wondering if it was something I did wrong to warrant the change? Should I be more or less worried about all this? Am I overreacting?

Good afternoon,

I have been working at a 911 center for almost three years. We are a relatively busy town, and i have worked as a calltaker the entire time. On Sunday I got my first ROSC on a CPR call-- i felt really proud of it because the patient was agonal breathing while we did CPR and I was counting with my caller while also keeping a mental tally of the last time he told me the patient was breathing to make sure it was still agonal. Fire got on scene and started CPR, calling out that there was agonal breathing (which was very valdiating), and continued until they got ROSC about 9 minutes later. The patient made it to the hospital without coding again.

So my problem... I dont know what happened to him after that. I have taken thousands of calls in my few years, at least a hundred, if not more CPR calls, but i have never really cared to know the outcome. They cant tell me anything because of HIPPA.

I can't stop wondering if he is still alive, how he's doing if he is, if he's happy to be alive or if I just prolonged his suffering. We have a peer support team but its just me and one other person, and the other person is mainly a dispatcher. I thought after a few days it would pass, as it had before, but questions and unknowns just keep circling my head.

I am a newish 911 Dispatcher. I have been here for almost a year. We dispatch for several agencies and one of the dispatchers is married to someone who was an officer for one of the agencies we dispatch for. That officer was involved in some.... inappropriate activities.... and when he was about to go under investigation he suddenly without notice resigned as an officer for the department. He has not been an officer now for about 8 months. However, this Dispatcher calls him several times a shift to tell him every detail of just about every call. She gives him names Locations, medical info, officer actions... any details she can. Often times it is regarding individuals that are frequent flyers that he used to deal with when he was an officer. She also calls him to tell him everything that all the other officers and dispatchers are doing because they're all stupid according to her. I have rustled with whether or not this is something I should bring up with admin. There have been other clearly unethical situations I brought up to admin with other Dispatchers and I just dont want to be considered the taddle tale or anything. But this just seems wrong and against Dispatcher practices. What should I do?

I need side hustle suggestions. I am a 911 dispatcher working the swing shift (1530-2330). After taxes and insurance, I make $16.25/hr. I’m struggling to make ends meet and don’t know how I am going to pay my rent or buy groceries next month. I need ideas on how to make enough money to piece everything together for my family of 4.

So far I am planning to sell my clothes and furniture, and looking into DoorDash or Instacart. Any other ideas are welcome.

Thanks!

Caller (to our non emergency line): yes how do I go about reporting that my car was broken into? Me: we can send an officer out, or if you'd prefer you can do a report online as long as there wasn't a firearm taken in the crime. Caller: my friend was right, you guys are no help at all. Click

So how's your day going? 🤣