There are some things I take for granted. One of those is that if, God forbid, I should ever have to call 911, there will be someone on the other end to help. I never thought much beyond that, other than that somehow my information would be conveyed and an ambulance or fire truck would magically appear at my doorstep. Thanks to the very kind invitation of Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department, last week I got to see firsthand what actually happens at the LAFD dispatch center.
Upon arriving at City Hall and taking the elevator four floors underground, Brian met me and showed me around. His phone kept ringing with various news stations looking for blood and guts to feature during sweeps week. He showed me that his phone has buttons with direct access to various local and national media, the governor and the White House. As the LAFD spokesman, he is a regular guest on television and radio news programs, and I see him quoted in the local papers all the time.
From his desk, Brian has access to information on all of the current incidents that the LAFD is responding to around the city. He looked up my address and found a medical emergency happening not too far from my house. He also showed me all of the information stored in the computer system about my house — things like the cross streets, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the year it was built, where the nearest hydrant is (which he said was a really strong one).
I had the opportunity to go out onto the dispatch floor, where a dozen highly trained men and women handle the emergency calls that come in. All 911 calls initially go through the LA Police Department, and as soon as they determine it is a fire or medical emergency, they direct it to the LAFD’s dispatch center. I got to sit with one of the dispatchers and listen in on some of the calls that came through. While they all have experience out in the field and know how to handle any emergency situation that comes up, they have to follow a specific protocol for how they ask questions and respond to the callers. Once they establish what type of emergency it is, they flip to the appropriate section in their guide and ask a series of questions to which the only answers can be ‘yes,’ ‘no’ or ‘I don’t know.’ This makes sure that there is a certain level of quality control and that nothing is missed.
This attention to collecting detailed information, however, does not delay the arrival of assistance. As soon as the dispatcher has the address and nature of the emergency, the nearest fire station is notified and a fire truck or ambulance is sent out within a minute or two of the receipt of the call. In the meantime, the dispatcher stays on the line with the caller and provides instructions and reassurance until the crew arrives on the scene.
I heard some interesting calls. One was a woman who spoke only Spanish, whose 3-month old baby kept turning blue. She had the baby lying on his stomach while she made the call, and when the dispatcher had her pick up and hold the baby upright, his color improved. As the dispatcher said to me afterward, it’s kind of hard to breathe when you are lying on your stomach. During that call, I was also half-listening to the dispatcher on the other side of me trying to calm down a woman whose child had gone into convulsions.
Another call came in from the LAPD, who had received a report from a woman somewhere on the East Coast that a man in LA was suffering from a drug overdose. When the dispatcher called the number she provided, the man answered, sounded perfectly fine, and became distraught when he found out the police and paramedics were on their way. Turns out he had told his mother he was going to swallow a bottle of aspirin, and she believed him, though he told us he did not actually do it. I’m sure that will be the last time he makes that threat.
Other calls included a report of shots fired and possible victims, a suspect under arrest who had scraped up his elbow in the process, and a person with AIDS who needed medical attention (though they are not allowed to note the presence of the disease to the responding paramedics due to privacy issues). Also, upon looking at the list of current incidents, I noticed a familiar address, which was my old high school. Apparently a student there had a seizure and was being treated. Drama is one thing not in short supply in that room.
I was so impressed with the calm and competent way the dispatchers handled the calls. What for the people on the other end of the phone was (hopefully) a once in a lifetime major emergency, was just another call to be dealt with efficiently and effectively so that the dispatcher could move on to the next caller who needed him. It must be incredibly draining to do that type of work. If there is ever a major emergency, the dispatch center can instantly double in capacity by bringing in the people on the next shift who are not on duty but are always available onsite.
Over lunch in the communal dining room (sweetly made to order for me while the other guys ate massive burgers), Brian told me a wonderful story about how he had decided to become a firefighter. When he was a young boy, his father brought him to work with him one day in Van Nuys (a part of LA in the San Fernando Valley). It turned out that the local fire station had an open house that day, and so they went and got a tour. The firefighter who showed them around made such an impression on Brian that he decided that he wanted to be a fireman. He obsessed about it for a while, but ended up moving on to other typical childhood career aspirations. When he got older, he decided that he actually did want to be a firefighter and eventually was accepted into the LAFD’s training program — what he felt was the best department in the country. On the day he found out to which of the more than 100 neighborhood fire stations in the city he would be posted, he was told that he would be at the very same fire station in Van Nuys that he had visited as a boy. Not only that, but he would be working alongside the same firefighter who had given him the tour twenty years earlier. Wow – love that story!
Brian’s enthusiasm for the department has certainly not waned since that time. I am struck by the pride he and the others I met have in the LAFD, and, as he often reminds me, it is MY fire department as well. He typifies the ethos — so often missing in public agencies — that the department exists to serve, and belongs to, the citizens of Los Angeles.
Sadly, that means that the department is woefully underfunded and is not able to do much beyond the core services such as firefighting, emergency medical services and rescue operations. Brian’s blogging and social media activities are not officially funded, and he must fit them in as he can around his other duties. He is grateful to have received gifts from the local blogging community to help him in his work, including some podcasting equipment and a training manual. The lack of funding and the lean staff of three positions doing media outreach and public relations also means that the department is not able to do much proactive public education around prevention. I wonder whether there are foundations or federal/state agencies that fund grants to local fire departments for social marketing campaigns around safety, fire prevention or disaster preparedness. Any takers out there?
Not too long ago, I wrote about the importance of the “face” of your organization — the frontline staff with whom the public interacts and forms the basis of its opinion about you. With Brian and the emergency dispatchers as its public face, the LAFD is looking very good indeed.
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
Thank you for sharing this wonderful story about LAFD and their dispatch and media relations personnel. They do an awesome job!
Just statistically speaking…..The LAPD has 900 dispatchers, the LAFD has less than 100. The LAPD has 50 people handling Public/Media Relations, the LAFD has 5.
The LAFD Dispatchers are all Firefighters and/or Paramedics with tons of field experience. If you go to the recent post at http://lafd.org/audio/beverlyfire.wav you can listen to the actual radio traffic during the Brush Fire on the border of Beverly Hills and LAFD. (It takes a while to load but is worth it.)
The Command staff at the dispatch center and the PSO (Brian, Ron, and d’Lisa) must listen to this and decipher what is happening on scene and pass on the proper information to the Media and Staff.
Cool story!