# Dispatchers/Comms



## LE-EMT (Jun 16, 2008)

I think this is the right area to post this thread..... If not, I am sure it will get relocated to the appropriate area....thanks admin

This is kind of a poll....  How many Dispatchers do we have on EMT LIFE??  I am sure at some point everyone has seen a comm center but I am talking about the men and women who actually make a living dispatching.   Please sound off I am curious to see.  EMS/Fire/PD who ever just curious.  Oh and this is definitely *NOT*  a thread to post your negative opinions about Dispatch..


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## LucidResq (Jun 16, 2008)

Hm... I know this doesn't count but there is a very very strong possibility I will be working dispatch in the near future. It's a great college job... get paid really well and have plenty of free time to do HW while working.


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## LE-EMT (Jun 16, 2008)

lol well if you do welcome to the dark side and trust me I do mean the dark side........


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## Hastings (Jun 16, 2008)

Paramedics here do dispatch occasionally. Nice break from field work, actually. They're always eating pizza and watching films like Rambo when I walk in.

And I have nothing bad to say about my dispatchers. They actually give above average dispatch information.


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## NJN (Jun 16, 2008)

I am a sort-of kinda dispatcher-ish person. Meaning that during concerts, fireworks, Large events, I sit in the mobile comm center and dispatch all EMS units for that event (Bikes, FR units, BLS, ALS), assuming that the event is in my jurisdiction. And this happens a lot now a days so i'm in the middle between full time dispatchers and get pulled off the truck for a day dispatchers.


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## ffemt8978 (Jun 16, 2008)

Former 911 Dispatcher/Jailer (small county, we dispatched everything with only one dispatcher and one jailer on duty at any one time.)


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## flywnc (Jun 17, 2008)

*Dispatchers*

I work at the primary PSAP in my County. We take all 911 calls, dispatch fire and EMS and then transfer Law Enforcement calls to the Sheriff's Office.


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## mycrofft (Jun 17, 2008)

*Shortly and long ago*



LE-EMT said:


> I think this is the right area to post this thread..... If not, I am sure it will get relocated to the appropriate area....thanks admin
> 
> This is kind of a poll....  How many Dispatchers do we have on EMT LIFE??  I am sure at some point everyone has seen a comm center but I am talking about the men and women who actually make a living dispatching.   Please sound off I am curious to see.  EMS/Fire/PD who ever just curious.  Oh and this is definitely *NOT*  a thread to post your negative opinions about Dispatch..



I was a dispatcher at Offutt AFB FD in 1976-77. No computers, abouy 35 hardwired fire phones, hardwired alarm systems (some dating back to the 1940's and using clockwork mechanical signal senders), two radio frequencies, and a huge reel-to-reel recorder covering radio, incoming emergency lines, and crash phone. One rescue vehicle which mostly ran errands for the Chief. Crash crews, structural crews, and no tone generators but BELLS to wake you up.


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## LE-EMT (Jun 17, 2008)

mycrofft are we talking about when christ was still alive???? OMG dude I can't imagine dispatching with out a computer I would seriously crawl under my desk and start crying.


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## mycrofft (Jun 17, 2008)

*Dispatching Alley Oop*

LE, it was a smpler time then, and working on a military base has its advantages (achingly accurate maps and such, strict fire inspections, and the service members are mostly pretty physiclly fit, so EMS is reduced). You have the potential to be facing class D fires with methy-ethyl-badstuff, but mostly pretty quiet. We did, however, have a shift rotation that was two days, three swings, three mids, three off; two swings, three mids, two off, and no Kelly day. Ruined our circadian rythms, one guy got a section 8 discharge.  :wacko:


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## Jon (Jun 17, 2008)

No day for Kelly... how did she feel?

I guess that was in the Stoned age, right?


Anyway... for me... my first dispatching experience was "having the phones" on the overnight shift at a Mom and Pop ambulance Co... we had an ALS rig up at night, and a wheelchair van on call for voluntary psych runs. We would transfer the base phones to a cell phone, then go somewhere and sleep. If the phone rang, I'd answer it... we'd go do the run, then go back to bed. If we got busy, we'd call in the van driver to take care of some of the psych transfers (we had the contract with one of the psych units). It wasn't a lot of work, and I got a $25 stipend for doing it... easy money, and it also meant that there wasn't any missed info between the crew and dispatch.


After that, I worked security for 3.5 years... As I advanced and grew into the job... I became one of the primary dispatchers, and wrote the training manual for our command center. It wasn't a bad job. Management and some of my coworkers sometimes made mountains out of molehills... but it wasn't bad.

I now work 911 EMS... and one of my old co-workers at the security job (he worked there part time) is a full time dispatcher for the county... so now he dispatches me.


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## mycrofft (Jun 17, 2008)

*Jon, Alley Oop was my wingman at night!*

When I was dispatching I once spent the night shift with a Secret Service agent, but that's another story...no, he wasn't guarding Lincoln.

One of our alarm room operators, as we were called, was on tape responding to a report from two county deputies seeing what they deemed as a UFO:
"Are you sh*#@ing me??!!".

And, no, these were not manifestations of Bellevue Ditchweed.


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## MMiz (Jun 23, 2008)

Where I worked, dispatchers were at the top of the pay scale.  Most were EMT-Paramedics, and spent a few months as call takers first.


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## mikeylikesit (Jun 23, 2008)

MMiz said:


> Where I worked, dispatchers were at the top of the pay scale. Most were EMT-Paramedics, and spent a few months as call takers first.


that sounds like a good idea for patient care before you can even touch the patient first hand, as well as get a good idea of the nature of the calls/call volume.


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## gcfd_rez31 (Jun 24, 2008)

I also dispatched out of a smaller private ambulance company.
It had 2 lines, and we had 3, 8 hour shifts. 
(9a-5p; 5p-1am; 1a-9pm)

It worked out alright... 
Didn't get paid alot, but it was ok................
Dispatch was in the same building as crew, so if there were questions or anything, we just popped our head out & talked to 'em!  haha =]

But finally got rid of the in-house(ish) dispatching and bunked in with AMR dispatch in Spokane (2 hrs from station).  Now get paged out with Numeric-pagers... still getting used to 'em.

Anyone else use the Numeric-pagers?!?!
Your input....???


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## MMiz (Jun 24, 2008)

ems_rocks_91 said:


> I also dispatched out of a smaller private ambulance company.
> It had 2 lines, and we had 3, 8 hour shifts.
> (9a-5p; 5p-1am; 1a-9pm)
> 
> ...


We were dispatched out by a private service about an hour away from us.  They had dispatchers dedicated to our area, and sent those dispatchers out for a few ride-alongs so they could see the area.  It worked out great.

We used alphanumeric pagers and it wasn't too shabby.  I honestly don't get how the industry gets away with charging us for pagers though.  We were charged $6 a month.


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## Arkymedic (Jun 24, 2008)

LE-EMT said:


> I think this is the right area to post this thread..... If not, I am sure it will get relocated to the appropriate area....thanks admin
> 
> This is kind of a poll.... How many Dispatchers do we have on EMT LIFE?? I am sure at some point everyone has seen a comm center but I am talking about the men and women who actually make a living dispatching. Please sound off I am curious to see. EMS/Fire/PD who ever just curious. Oh and this is definitely *NOT* a thread to post your negative opinions about Dispatch..


 
I use to dispatch EMS and county as well as being a dispatch/detention officer at one point before moving up.


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## Jon (Jun 25, 2008)

At the 911 job, we carry both alphanumeric pagers and voice pagers... the alphanumeric are supposedly a "secondary" alerting, per the county. We use them for the address and other initial call info.

Many transport co's use text pagers - it reduces errors and saves the dispatchers LOTS of time... no need to repeat Pt. name, room, To/From locations, etc... it is all on the pager. If it is garbled, radio dispatch and confirm. At the transport Co. I work at... they use Nextels, and send text pages to the Nextels with call info. The company I started off with started off with nextels and text pagers, then moved to in-truck radios and text pagers... that way they didn't need to pay for Nextel, but could still get ahold of the crews if we were out of the vehicle.


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## LE-EMT (Jun 26, 2008)

we use obviously the standard radios but we also alphanumeric pagers, mdt, and text messaging via cell phones.   

There is really no way that we can't get a hold of crews enless they are trying not to be reached.  which means its there butts on the line because we are on recording dispatching them and paging them.

I would like to bring something else up in this thread.  Is it common practice to duck calls and then respond to radio traffic with an attitude.  
Is it also common practice amongst field employees to completely hate dispatch??? 

I think it should be a requirement that all field employees should spend like a month in dispatch.  feel our pain for a while.  
I am sorry if you are dispatched to a crappy call, if you are dispatched further then you think that you need to be going, if you don't understand me when I read traffic.  If you sat in dispatch for long enough you would realize its not easy and it can be crazy.


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## Jon (Jun 26, 2008)

I think some of the Dispatch/Street interaction is that one side dosen't know what the other side is doing.... street crews think you sit around all day eating cheetos and *****ing at field crews, and resent that you have a flush toilet a few feet from you. Dispatchers think street crews duck calls and BS them with being "stuck in traffic". Dispatchers don't have to lift and move patients... but I can speak from experience (working security)... there will be times when the dispatcher can't even get out of the chair, for hours, and might not actually be able to leave the room at all for the whole shift. On the flipside, though, Dispatch can walk over to the fridge and reheat their dinner... the field crew gets balwed out if they "dissapear" for 10 minutes to pick up crappy fast food so they have SOME food on a 12-hour shift.

I think that too many priviate EMS companies have a disconnect between the communications side and the operations side... and that if Dispatchers are EMT's... they should be pulling street shifts, and working on educating the field providers about what dispatch does.


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## LE-EMT (Jun 26, 2008)

you see thats the point I am trying to make.  Honestly if you notify me where you are going I am more then fine with it.  I understand that you people don't get to eat a hot meal.  Generally speaking  that if you say hey we are gonna grab some chow I will say cool.  not to mention when you are posted or in quarters it is completely acceptable to get some chow hell even sleep.  Just so long as you as you respond to tones.  I would love to sit around all day and eat cheetos.  only if they are the crunchy kind.


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## BossyCow (Jun 26, 2008)

We have been using the numeric pagers for our SAR unit. But are in the process of moving to cell phone notification for call outs.


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