DeSoto County`s emergency dispatchers honored for heroic duties

April 15--The elderly lady who called 911 to get help getting her lawn mower started. The 4-year-old boy who, unknown to his dad, dialed and dialed dispatch because he was hungry and wanted some breakfast. The recall brings smiles at the telecommunications dispatch center at Southaven Police headquarters.

Then there are the "bad calls." So many more calls -- fires that gut homes, domestic violence, vehicle crashes with injuries, loved ones who have stopped breathing, the suicidal, the distraught parents reporting a missing child.

"Whatever it is, you handle it, then you leave it and go on," said Southaven Police dispatch manager Deborah Rosenberg. However humorous, however heart-rending.

Rosenberg doesn't consider Southaven a high-crime or dangerous area. But in 2013, she estimates, her center with 17 dispatchers received at least 90,000 calls for service, with hundreds of thousands of radio log entries for other phone calls. Says Rosenberg: "911 is 24/7. We have at least three dispatchers here around the clock."

That sort of dedication dialed up praise for DeSoto County's dispatch community -- at least 80 strong -- as the county and its Emergency 911 District recognized them at a luncheon Tuesday at district headquarters near Nesbit to mark National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, established by Congress in 1991.

"They're the unsung heroes. They're the ones on the front lines when someone's in trouble, the first calm voice that's heard," said Debby Dunnaway, 911 district director. "They're the lifeline that sends help, whatever is needed."

"Those men and women behind those desks are the heart and soul of all law enforcement, ambulance service and firefighting," said Bobby Storey, DeSoto Emergency Services director and 911 district commissioner.

"They're the vital link between the community and our force" of 110 sworn officers, said Southhaven Police Deputy Chief Steve Pirtle.

"Without that link in the chain, there'd be no chain," said Jerry McCarson, 911 district commissioner and former Walls fire chief.

Of 911 duty, "you have to be able to multitask," said dispatcher Susan Booth with the DeSoto Sheriff's Department. "That means keeping calm, keeping track of all that's happening, being able to answer the phone and radio at the same time."

Said the commission chairman, Bill Dahl: "It amazes me how they can handle so much at the same time, then go back to handle a follow-up to an earlier dispatch. It's more than just time in service and training -- it's a calling."

It's a calling that doesn't bend to bureaucracy or borders.

When the damaging straight-line winds of "Hurricane Elvis" struck the Memphis area in July 2003, "we all just came in," recalled Southaven Police dispatch shift supervisor Joy Hitt. "We knew we were needed."

"The room was full," said Rosenberg.

Hitt, a dispatcher for 30 years, says she's "pre-911 and pre-computer. I remember when it was just pen and paper." But a human touch still goes with the tap of computer keys, interconnected departments and constantly updated, layered online maps.

"When you get a call from a mom whose little girl is missing, she's so upset she's hardly breathing," says Hitt. "I have to control that call, and calm mom down and get her to focus, so I can get all the information and send help. Then in three minutes, the girl's found in a closet playing with Barbie dolls."

If all goes well. And well or not, many times the dispatcher never knows an outcome.

It adds to the stress. "When I get to heaven," said Hitt, "I'd like to see all the people I really helped. I guess I won't know until I get there."

No call for help is dismissed. Children in genuine want of a meal who call Southaven dispatch might just get a Happy Meal dropped off by an officer or other help. And that lady who needed a lawn mower startup?

"We referred her to Sears," said Rosenberg. "But if she needed an officer, we'd have sent one."

Copyright 2014 - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.