11/29/2024
The holidays are knocking on our door. But we can not let the holidays come and go without realizing the darkness that comes with the holidays. Emergencies will not stop because of your holiday plans. This time of year is the hardest time to be a 9-1-1 operator.
The people sitting behind these screens will give up their holiday traditions. They will give up time with their family and friends. Many of them will miss the first Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities with their babies.
The people sitting behind these screens are planning their holiday traditions for the weekend before or the weekend after.
The people sitting behind these screens are prepared to work every day of the holiday week because it is their chance at a “holiday bonus” they would not receive otherwise.
They are ready. They are prepared.
They are ready to take the phone call from the man who feels alone on Christmas. The line goes dead. Responders arrive and key up on the radio “dispatch have EMS roll for a self inflicted GSW to the head”.
Only to have a confirmed signal 7 ( dead person ) come through their ears. They will play that call over and over again in between calls wondering if there was anything they could have done better.
They are ready to take the call for the traffic homicide, a family with gifts in their car on their way to a family Christmas gathering. A gathering they will not make it to.
They are ready for the Christmas tree that didn’t get enough water. A short circuit wire causing a family to lose everything in a house fire on Christmas Eve.
They are ready for the elderly female who has found her husband of 50 years unconscious and not breathing on the bed on Christmas morning.
They are ready for the woman with her husband on the way to the hospital to deliver their baby. Stuck in traffic, the baby decides to come now. Insructions given for child birth on the side of an interstate on a snowy Christmas Eve night becoming the first baby born on Christmas Day.
They are ready for it all.
Because they have to be.
Emergencies don’t stop because of the holidays, and they don’t stop working.
They can’t, because they are the voices of 9-1-1.
Credit to the original author: Chris Englehart! Image by Dansun Photos. Thank you for sharing your meaningful work with all of us! đź’›
