LifeLine 911

Send us Fan Mail In an emergency situation, people know that they can call for help using the 9-1-1 phone number in the United States and they will be connected with an operator for help. But what happens when the emergency call center has an issue of its own which causes the lines to not be answered? These events, while uncommon, do happen throughout the country. How do emergency call centers get...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most prevalent questions that people considering a career in the emergency telecommunications field is "what if I know the caller?" This can be a challenging and almost nightmare scenario for people to contemplate: how to provide emergency services to a loved-one. Aside from the emotional toll it can take on you, there are also the ethical and moral questions...

Send us Fan Mail The first few moments of an emergency 9-1-1 call set the tone and success of the entire incident. Knowing how to control a call from the beginning to be able to ask questions and receive information quickly is critically important to obtaining a positive outcome to emergency calls. But how do the telecommunicators do that when there is so much riding on the line? Join your host Er...

Send us Fan Mail Look, up in the sky. It's a man. It's a bird. It's a... telecommunicator doing exactly what they were trained to do. Dispatchers and 9-1-1 operators are called upon to work difficult situations on a not infrequent basis. These men and women who don the headsets and answer the phones are trained to do their jobs to high standards, but sometimes these standards can sl...

Send us Fan Mail Each day, 9-1-1 operators work to help their communities by answering emergency calls placed to their centers. Most of these calls are typical burglar alarms, noise complaints, and other day-to-day incidents, but once in awhile they get a profound call which tests their abilities, knowledge, and even endurance. Nastacia Johnson was working an overtime assignment one day and had th...

Send us Fan Mail Throughout history, the division of language has created problems with communicating between two people their needs, wants, desires, and sometimes their emergencies. In today's world, where there are so many languages spoken, how can an emergency call center operate when there are callers who don't speak English needing assistance? Many 9-1-1 centers have turned to using...

Send us Fan Mail You dial 9-1-1 and are connected with an operator. You explain your situation and are informed help will be on the way. The minutes tick by and no police, fire, or EMS arrive on scene; have you been shortchanged? Did you call get cancelled accidentally? The most likely scenario is that your call was determined to be not as emergent as another call going on in the city. But why has...

Send us Fan Mail We all know that working in the field as a police officer, firefighter, or medic is an extremely challenging career that is entirely different than most other jobs; getting time off is hard, there are unexpected calls which force you to work passed you off duty time, holidays and celebrations are going to be missed. But even more challenging than this is to be married to someone w...

Send us Fan Mail Along the Gulf Coast, there is a county in Texas named Calhoun which recently went through a PSAP consolidation, joining the police department with the sheriff's office for 9-1-1 response. Patrick Schubert was tasked with heading-up these efforts and guiding his fledging PSAP through the gulf hurricane and inclement weather that the coast can experience. Patrick was also awar...

Send us Fan Mail In the last dozen years, law enforcement has had to contend with a new type of incident: Swatting. These types of calls involve someone making a false call to 9-1-1 in order to have police respond in force to fictitious events to either scare, harass, or sometimes even kill an unsuspecting victim. While it is illegal, and it does at the very least waste law enforcement resources w...

Send us Fan Mail In all professions and aspects of life, there are rules which are unwritten in any manual but they are known to all. These are enforced by the collective unspoken agreements between coworkers on how many matters are to be handled: is there a lot of talking between co-workers, or is it quiet; are there potlucks every third Monday of the month; do you get to work right on the dot, o...

Send us Fan Mail A critical part of ensuring that your team of emergency operators is capable of succeeding no matter the event which occurs is to take the time to perform period quality assurance on them. The goal is not only to find the faults with the call takers and dispatchers so that small errors and bad habits can be rectified, but also to find praiseworthy moments and highlight them. Join...

Send us Fan Mail Complaints on any job are commonplace across all industries, but they can be especially difficult to deal with in the world of emergency telecommunications. Oftentimes, those making the complaints can have suffered traumatic events which make them react differently to conversations than they normally would and to get irate more easily. However, it is the job of a public servant to...

Send us Fan Mail For emergency telecommunicators, the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) offers a training called Center Management Certification Program (CMCP), which is designed for agency management. This training is a week long and involves lecture, roleplay, and hands-on training to inform students about the fundamentals of running their own organization. Recently, Erica had the opp...

Send us Fan Mail Working remotely, or out of the office and at home, has become a popular benefit offered by many industries in the 2020s, with almost a quarter of the U.S. workforce participating in it. This new option to stay home from an office, avoid the drive into work, and the freedom that gives has proven to be very popular with many millions of people, but is that something that is feasibl...

Send us Fan Mail The men and women who serve in the ambulances that rush to aid those in need of critical care have to deal with a plethora of split-second decisions which can mean the difference between life and death. Yet in some parts of the country, EMS personnel are not even considered to be first responders, making it difficult to hire, train and retain those capable of providing the life-sa...

Send us Fan Mail In the world of first responders, the most pernicious affliction is that of the slow build-up of trauma over the course of a career. There are many times where those in this profession not only don't get the help they need for it, but in many cases don't even realize they have a growing disease. This trauma can manifest itself in ruined relationships with family and frie...

Send us Fan Mail When a major disaster strikes it can put a terrible burden on Emergency Communication centers affected by it, especially if the employees and building are put offline. But never fear! There are groups of telecommunicators who are prepared to leave their home jurisdictions and respond to disaster areas to aid and assist their fellow 9-1-1 operators to keep the center running and th...

Send us Fan Mail In the United States, law enforcement areas of responsibility are often layered upon one another, providing for the occasional issue when it comes to deciding who will deal with a particular case. There is the federal level, the state level, the county level, and sometimes the municipality level of law enforcement all working in (hopefully) tandem with one another, but what happen...

Send us Fan Mail Standard Operating Procedures, SOPs, for a police department are generally established, or at least blessed off on, by the agency's upper echelon of command. They operate as the rules for all of the employees to follow, but sometimes there can be disagreements in how those SOPs are applied.  When this happens, telecommunicators can often find themselves in the middle of this...

Send us Fan Mail The Covid-19 pandemic which struck the world in 2020 was a devastating blow to people around the world on so many levels. Lives were upended, norms were modified everyday on the fly, and the workforce for every industry was thrown into chaos. This was also the case for emergency services, where many PSAPs across the world faced unprecedented staffing issues as droves of people lef...

Send us Fan Mail In February of 2021, Winter Storm Uri descended upon the state of Texas, unleashing bitter cold in the subzero range as well as heavy amounts of snowfall. These issues brought the infrastructure of the state to the breaking point, leaving millions without power for an extended period of time as well as making many roadways impassable. This is that story told from the perspective o...

Send us Fan Mail Conversations around friends and family can often be joyful and filled with laughter, but there are usually topics which are avoided most times to help keep the peace; politics, religion, and sometimes even law enforcement. But, when you work as a first responder, and in law enforcement in particular, how can you best approach these subjects when they are brought up? Join your hos...

Send us Fan Mail They say in life that no one can serve two masters, but at the North Texas Emergency Communications Center (NTECC), they support four separate agencies, each with their own wants and needs, policies and protocols. How can you survive when pulled in so many different directions at once? We have asked on Shantelle Oliver who serves as NTECC's Support Services Manager and was a...

Send us Fan Mail Oftentimes in life, people will pick up and move to other cities; this could be for a myriad of reasons that range from the profound to the miniscule. When an emergency telecommunicator does this, and they wish to stay within the profession, how many of their skills and knowledges will transfer to other agencies? Sure, each department will have its own policies and procedures, but...