Asking questions key to 911 dispatcher job

Personal tragedies strike the citizens of our community daily. Due to the sensitive nature of these events, it is out of respect for those experiencing these tragedies that I typically refrain from commenting on them publicly.

However, a letter to the editor in the Sunday edition of the Southern Standard regarding a call to 911 suggests that because of a computer database issue, the caller was forced to make multiple calls to 911 in order to obtain emergency medical care for a family member and that 911 services were delayed, denied or withheld. Respectfully, this is not the case. In fact, the initial call to 911 resulted in the dispatching of emergency medical services to the appropriate address.

Dispatchers are trained from day one to ask the key questions of who, what, when, where, and why, irrespective of the telemetry displayed on their computer screens. If the dispatcher feels he or she is receiving incomplete data either from the caller or the 911 system, there are several ways available to confirm the location of a 911 caller.

Technology is utilized to enhance, not replace, the basics of 911 dispatching. With respect to 911 databases, considerable time and dedication is devoted to the integrity of this database. The 911 database contains in excess of 36,000 records. The phone companies provide this data to 911, it is then inspected, loaded, and verified for accuracy on a daily basis by 911 center personnel.

Maintaining such a database is an ongoing effort on the part of many people, and, in the rare occasion that inaccuracies are discovered, they are addressed immediately. It is with this in mind that we will continue to utilize the tried-and-true process of verifying information through whatever means available to us. The safety of our citizens will never rest solely in the hands of a Pentium 4 processor.

Sincerely,

Chuck Haston Jr.

Director Warren County 911

Bridge Builders Road

McMinnville