Calm In A Crisis- First of the First Responders
“Never seen but always heard!” Jump headfirst into the high-stakes world of 911 dispatch with Marlis X who navigates rapid-fire decisions and vital communications. Discover the daily work of emergency dispatch, where multitasking and calm coexist. Marlis talks about the mental gymnastics required to balance incoming calls, coordinate with first responders, and provide life-saving instructions, all while maintaining an island of tranquility in the storm of emergency situations.
Listen to the gripping story of a teenage boy thrown into the role of hero, performing CPR on his mother while guided by a dispatcher’s steady voice. This is so much more than an urgent fight for survival, it is a life changing event inspiring medical innovations that shape the future. Marlis shares how her experience hosting international students adds depth and perspective to her demanding job, offering a refreshing glimpse into the cultural richness that complements the intense nature of her work.
This episode underscores the profound impact 911 dispatchers have on our everyday safety, when people are at their worst and minutes can mean life or death, these unseen heroes behind the headsets hold the line between chaos and calm, guiding us back to safety.
Podcast Transcript
Pat
Filled to capacity where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.
Pat
Hi, I am Pat Benincasa, and welcome to Fill To Capacity today's episode, “Calm in A Crisis: First of the First Responders.” My guest is Marlis X. Marlis is a 9 1 1 dispatcher, and she has asked me not to use her last name because 9 1 1 dispatchers are sometimes subject to death threats.
So a little background about what they do in the United States, there are about 95,000 police, fire and ambulance dispatchers. That's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They handle around 240 million calls in the US every year. 77.8% of all 9 1 1 dispatchers are women. So working at a “public safety answering point” a PSAP can be very difficult. 9 1 1. Dispatchers have to remain calm when taking a call. They are listening to someone else's absolute worst day, and they are the first first responders. And just so you know, folks, dispatchers have to juggle situation assessment and collect the caller address, give it to police, fire, or EMTs, but first responders rely on them to ensure their safety. With all that said, welcome Marla. So nice to have you here.
Marlis
Thank you. And nice to be here as well. And I have to confess, I am not used to being face-to-face with anybody I'm talking to, so this is a little strange for me. You know, I wear a headset and I'm looking at computer monitors, not another face.
Pat
Okay. Listeners, now you heard that caveat. We are doing a Zoom prerecord and we can see each other, but this will be an audio podcast. So we're just going to jump right in. Marlis, what do you do as a dispatcher and what does a typical day look like for you?
Marlis
What I do as a dispatcher is I do multiple jobs, a lot of PSAP’S or primary service answering points. Sometimes it's just one person, sometimes it's hundreds. It really depends on the jurisdiction that they're in. So if it's just like one or five people, they're answering the phones and talking on the radio at the exact same time. Whereas in my PSAP, we have call takers who are not talking on the radio. We have others that are dispatchers that are talking on the radio to the various responders out there. And we also have another desk that we call data, and they do a completely different set of things. They talk on both phone, on the radio somewhat simultaneously. So it all depends on what my assignment for that day is. Generally speaking, I'm doing half call, taking half dispatching, or half call taking half data. Sometimes it's all one, sometimes it's all the other. It just kind of depends. And in our PSAP we also take non-emergency calls. So I never ever know what's coming in next. It could be a parking complaint, it could be a vehicle that's been overturned and caught on fire with people trapped inside. And the next call could be somebody's dog is barking down the road and it's driving 'em crazy or, and then the next call could be an airplane crashing at our local airport, or you just never know.
Pat
So describe your physical work area. Like do you have TV monitors, radio equipment, phones, computer screens? What, what does your world look like when you go to work?
Marlis
Well, I actually, I can show you if, and so we're gonna gauge Pat's reaction based on this photo that comes up.
Pat
Whoa. Okay. Listeners, you are not gonna believe what I'm looking at. There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 monitors, and on top of that there's a huge monitor. And this is your work area.
Marlis
All of our desks pretty much look like this. So we have six to eight monitors depending on what ki what desk we're sitting at. Typically there's six or seven. This is like a semi-circular desk. It's divided in half front and back so that we can raise and lower the front and the back of the desk according to what we need. We can stand, we can sit, we can adjust them to, to make it a comfortable for us. Okay. Um, and then what you also can't see listeners is that there are two keyboards. There are four mice. There's a separate keypad for the phone underneath the desk. There are foot pedals for controlling the radio and coming off the left side of the desk, curly Q cord coming off, that, uh, is plugged into the desk and goes, goes to my headset. Plus there's two lights, um, above.
Marlis
And then in front of the keyboard that's half hidden by my multiple drink glasses up. There are four speakers as well. So if I do happen to be talking on the phone and the radio at the same time, which can happen if I'm on the phone, the radio sound is gonna come outta the speakers in front of my face. So I listen to the phone with one ear and I listen to the speakers with my other ear. Uh, and I listen to the room in general with my open ear as well. So we're always, always listening. But yeah, we're always looking at all of these monitors.
Pat
Hey listeners, I will include this image in the show notes.
Marlis
Usually when people walk in they say, it looks like you're driving a spaceship and that's probably pretty accurate. Um, yes.
Pat
This looks like something I would see out of NASA.
Marlis
Yeah, well, if we are taking a phone call, call, that's the monitor on the left. If we're taking a phone call in, and the next monitor you see over is the map. So we're looking at a map to see where they're located based on what the person's phone is telling us. Okay, sorry, everybody Hollywood thinks that we can just go find you. That doesn't happen like that.
Your phone tells us where you're at if you have a good phone. And so we're looking at that to see where you're mapping. And that's always an approximate location. It's not, not always accurate. And then the next couple monitors are where I'm putting in the phone call and I'm looking at other calls that might be nearby that might be related or not related. Okay. I'm looking at the units and so forth. And then, oh, I have two monitors over on the right hand side that are giving me audio from two different radio systems. And I have another monitor there where I can access records, I can access the internet, I can access my email, and I'm literally using all of those computer monitors at the same time, depending on what it information I need. My eyes are constantly moving.
Pat
Okay. Wow, that was really good. Thank you. What kind of training does a person have to go through to become a dispatcher?
Marlis
It's really honestly independent of each PSAP. So let's talk about the state of Florida. First of all, they have a state mandated academy that all dispatchers have to go through and they have a certain number of classes or radio records, you name it, call taking everything.
Other states, it's the first day you start, you sit down with a, a person that's been in there for a while and you're listening for a little bit, but eventually you start talking really quick. Other places it's a little bit longer. So for instance, with my agency, you are in an academy for about a month, maybe five weeks, give or take. And in there you go through all the medical protocols. You get certified in that. You go through all the fire protocols and get certified in that. You go through police call taking and you get certified in that.
Marlis
And then you go through the data certification, which is running plates and people putting in missing or stolen items. Everything from a car to a cat. Yes, we can list cats or animals as missing or stolen, to a trombone to taking, missing people back out or submitting stuff through what's called the “Triple I” or through the FBI. Or we can even send stuff if we have to through Interpol, which is really weird that that's part of the “Triple I” system and you know, so many other things. So you get certified in that as well. We also do practice call taking on a training system with the CAD or computer aided dispatch. So you're learning how to use that. On top of that, you're learning how to use the phone because there's so many things on there. And that's all just in the academy. And then you come to the live communications floor with a certified training officer or CTO, we use a lot of acronyms.
Marlis
Yeah, lot of acronyms. So you come to the floor with a CTO, like myself and you just start taking live calls. Now, the first few calls you take, you kind of feel like a puppet. 'cause I'm saying as a CTO, I'm saying say this, do this, click that, push that button over there so you feel a little bit like a puppet. But after about six to 12 weeks, it de it depends. Some people take a little longer, some people don't take as long, but the average is about six to eight weeks. And after that, you go through stages of the call taking training and eventually you're signed off. And for the next two weeks after that, you are what we call not in the count, meaning you're taking live calls, but you're not considered part of the seating schedule or how many minimum maximum people we're supposed to have on the floor.
Marlis
And that's just to kinda give you a time to breathe, be a part of the floor before you start getting ordered for overtime or being part of the seating count and expected to be at a certain spot or whatever. Based on averages we have, we know how many people we need minimum to be on the floor at any certain time of the day or night, at any day of the week. So most people find fascinating is that Tuesday is typically our busiest day. Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday. Yeah. Because well people, I mean, weekends can be busy, but Monday everybody's recovering and getting back into work. Tuesday is when they start calling again. That's kinda way we think of it. And we know that during, from 6:30 AM to 2:30 PM on a Tuesday, we should probably have 15 people there. And on Monday we should have maybe 14, 13 or 14.
Marlis
You know, it just kind of depends. We do staff up for different things. So we are a unified dispatch center, meaning we dispatch for all of the agencies within our county or a combined dispatch center. Depends on where you're from, from, we either say unified or combined. We have over 20 police departments, over 20 fire departments. And I think it's like 18 EMS departments, something like that. I take phone calls for and dispatch for. We also coordinate with what we call outside agencies, such as the electrical company or the water companies or streets and lights or the, we also have two interstates going through our county. So we coordinate with the state patrol. We have the state capitol in our jurisdiction. So we deal with the Capitol police. And we have a major university in our jurisdiction. So they have their own police department and we take calls for all of them.
Marlis
And if we have a dignitary coming in, such as, you know, vice President Kamala Harris, who gave us short notice one day, um, that she was arriving. Typically, it's several days’ notice. So we've had the president of the United States, so the vice President of the United States, we've had the Dalai Lama of course, concerts, those types of dignitaries or other dignitaries that come in. We're always involved in that. And I think people are amazed to hear that. Like, why do you need to be involved in the president of the United States coming in to visit your city? Okay, yeah. The president has the Secret Service and all the other people that follow the president around, you know, the, the people have people. So you think they'd be able to coordinate all that at the same time. But the Secret Service doesn't know our jurisdiction. We know our jurisdiction.
Marlis
They don't dispatch our police officers for the motorcade. They don't pre-plan two ambulances or three ambulances, however many of the Secret Service tells they want as a backup. Because whenever a dignitary is in town, an ambulance has to follow 'em around at least one clearing roads, blocking roads. That all has to come in through us. That means we also have to notify the metro busing department. We have to notify the taxi companies. These roads are blocked for this, that, or the other thing. We deal with the public calling in and saying, why are the roads blocked? I can't get through to my work. Well, you're gonna have to go around. I don't like going that way. Well, I'm sorry. So we deal with all of that.
Pat
I gotta stop you here because after that litany of all of these departments, people Yeah. Public personalities, politicians, I gotta ask you, what makes a good dispatcher?
Marlis
What makes a good dispatcher? Somebody who has an enormous amount of patience. The ability to be what we call the “calm in the storm.” You have to just understand that you can only do one thing at a time. Okay. Okay. Well, we do 16 things at a time.
Pat
Yeah, I was just gonna say, you just told us Marlis that you do 5, 10, 15 things at one time,
Marlis
But it's only for one person at a time. Okay. Do you understand that? So yeah. Okay. Yeah, if, okay, okay. I'm dealing with 16, 17, 23 different things for one call. So it's one call at a time, but it may involve many others. The coordination of those or working with those to get things done. Even tow companies, I mean, we work with everybody. We communicate with them all the time. You just have to be able to multitask really, really well. And that's part of the testing process that happens before you even get hired is can you multitask? There's testing for that. And because the way we train, we start with one thing and then we add it and then we add another and we add another and we add another. And pretty soon, even through the academy and through live call taking with a CTO, you learned to multitask by default because we layered on in a way, in such a way that it just becomes second nature.
Pat
So I have to ask you, you get a call that's really life or death and, you're responding to it. What do you do to keep your calm? I mean, some of these calls must scare the living daylights out of you in terms of, of life or death issue. How do you stay absolutely calm?
Marlis
You have to, the one thing you have to remember, I mean, on the inside, sometimes we're screaming or yelling right along with our callers. Sometimes you're crying with them, like tears are running down your face. They can be really heart wrenching or terrifying, but you have to be the calm for them. They are having the absolute worst moment of their life. And everybody's perception of an emergency is different. You can't judge a person. Just because it's not an emergency to you doesn't mean it's not an emergency to them. So I'm going to treat everybody with the same level of calm because I need to be that calm because they can't at that moment. And knowing that I have so many tasks to do also keeps me grounded. I, I have to do this, I have to do that. I have to click here, I have to go over here, I have to do this, I have to say this, I have to write this.
Marlis
And all the time I'm getting information from them. And I'm doing what we call our line of questioning, which any dispatcher is gonna know what that means. It's basically a, I wouldn't say scripted questions, but a line of questions that we use depending on the situation. It just depends, you know, what's going on. But you just gotta be calm. And sometimes that's what that person needs. It doesn't matter how, how many names they're calling you. It doesn't matter how much they're screaming. It doesn't matter how much they're saying. Just get the cops here. Like, if I could push a button and Star trek them there, I would. I can't, we aren't at that level of technology yet. They got, they gotta drive there, but we get it. One minute to you and me is nothing. But when your brain is in full emergency mode, one minute feels like 10 hours.
Pat
Oh, absolutely. So that brings me to my next question. How on earth do you balance the need for quick decision making with the pressure to get all the details right?
Marlis
How do I answer that one? That is a tough one. I think it comes down to the training. It really is the training and also knowing you cannot know everything. It's not possible. I've been doing this for over 14 years. Every day I'm learning something new and I have to rely on my teammates. My teammates, remember I have a headset, it's just one ear that my headset is covered in one ear and my other ear is open to the room, to radios, you know, multiple radios in the room to people talking on the phone to other coworkers asking me questions about maybe the call that I'm on or the officers that I'm dispatching. If I happen to be dispatching at that point, I'm always listening with two ears to multiple conversations. And I have to rely on my teammates in order to balance all of that together, to get all the information that's needed.
Marlis
I may be taking this caller that is ramped up to the point of no return. And all I need to know is the shirt color of the person that just assaulted them. And they're just literally blithering. And I have the dispatcher saying, I need a shirt color, I need a shirt color. The cops are rolling up, who's the suspect, who's the victim? And I'm trying, I'm really trying to get that information, but they are completely hysterical. And the caller can hear me say that, which can often either really 'em off or it takes them outta that blathering state into some comprehension, you know, and we use what we call repetitive persistence. So Pat, if you're all wound up about something, um, just got assaulted by this person you didn't even know. They like come into your yard if you're mowing your grass and they decide to beat you with a baseball bat and take off running, like, and yes, that does happen.
Marlis
Random stuff like that happens. And you are completely hysterical. You're in a lot of pain. You don't know what the just happened. And I'm like, pat, I need you to listen to me. Take a breath. Do you remember what color shirt they're wearing? Blather, blah blah Pat, I need you to listen to me. I need you to take a deep breath. Could do you remember what color shirt they're wearing? Pat, I need you to take a deep breath. I don't want you to listen to me. Do you remember what color shirt they're wearing? And you notice that my voice gets lower and lower and lower and lower. And what happens is, is I can get all the way down to a whisper. And what it does is it forces the other person's brain to just shut up and listen. Because now the brain's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what's going on?
Marlis
I didn't quite catch that. And it switches. So we learn a lot of psychology, I guess. Yeah. You know, in our training and in our classes. And that really helps as well. And you know, I'm talking, I'm typing at the same time. And we use what we call dispatcher speak, uh, in our notes. So a lot of people think we write these books, we don't. Pat, if you were in a car accident and you say, well, I, I say, tell me exactly what happened. Well, I was driving down the interstate. It's a beautiful day out here. And I'm like, oh, just tell me what happened. That's what's going through my head. Just tell me what happened. I'm driving down the interstate and the semi comes blowing by me really fast and it rocks my car. And the next thing I know, something flies off of the truck and it hits my car.
Marlis
And, and your brain realizes what just happened. And I'm like, what happened? Whatever it was that hit my car, it, it, it, it came clear through my windshield and, and it hit me in the face and there's blood everywhere and I think I wrecked my car. Well I just got that whole story, right? Yeah. What I type in the notes is now I know there's a car crash with injuries, right? I'm starting EMS, I'm starting my medical protocols. I had, it's a couple of clicks. I start the medical protocols and over here I'm like, okay, pat, I want you to take a big deep breath for me. I understand you've just been in a car crash and something came through your window. And in my medical protocols, I type single car crash, something came through the window, blood everywhere. That's all I've typed.
Marlis
I didn't need to type. She was driving down the interstate. It's a beautiful day. Whatever the unimportant information, right? Yeah. It may be important later in the call. So I have to keep that in my head. What I tell my trainees that “parking lot, park it in a spot.” You may need it later, but right now it's not needed. And it's learning to separate all of that. And I'll come back, I'll go through my medical protocols and I'll be like, okay Pat, I'm still with you. I'm still with you. I've got the ambulance coming your direction. I've got a firetruck coming your way. I've even got police officers. 'cause it's a car crash. Right? I said, now while we're waiting on those to get there, I want you to find a clean, dry cloth or towel. I don't care if it's napkins, I don't care if it's your shirt or jacket.
Marlis
Where are you bleeding from your forehead? You said maybe part of the protocols about the, I want you to press that on there and I want you to hold it down firmly and don't lift it up to look, we need to stop that bleeding. Oh. And while you're doing that, do you happen to remember the name of the name of the company that was on the, that semi that went by you so fast? Now that's come back around and it's amazing what people's brains pick up that they're not aware of. And they'll be like, well, I don't remember the name, but there was a big red apple on the side of the white trailer and the, the truck, I think the truck was blue and the trailer was white and it had the big red apple. Good enough for me. It's amazing. So I got you out of that somewhat confused mode through the panic mode when you realized what happened. So you started here, you went up, went up high, and you came back down below as through my line of questioning with my medical protocols, getting all this other information, giving you safety information, shut off your car if it's safe to do so, turn on your flashing hazard lights if it's safe to do so. All that other stuff.
Pat
Yeah.
Marlis
And you're listening to me and it's just all part of the training and I'm typing in there what's going on, even as I'm doing it, even as I'm asking you.
Pat
Wow. Yeah. Okay.
Marlis
I’m a court recorder.
Pat
That's what it sounds like. You know, the 14 years that you've been doing this, can you describe a call that just so reminded you why your job is so crucial in spite of the stress and why it's so important that you do it?
Marlis
So I'm gonna use an alias here. Yes. I'm just gonna call, I'm just gonna call her Angela. Not her real name. She's alive and well to this day. And if you met this woman, there's only one word that you're gonna be able to use to describe her. And that's the word. Vibrant. It's impossible to use any other word to describe this woman other than vibrant. And as I've come to know Angela through the years since I initially had contact with her via her son, the first go round is that she's always been like this. I don't think she knows the meaning of the word slow down unless she's sleeping, to be honest with you. So I get a call, absolute dead panic call. From what I learned later was her 17-year-old son Angela had been out grocery shopping and she was bringing groceries in.
Marlis
And her son, uh, we'll call him Carl, was in the kitchen putting groceries away even as his mom was bringing 'em in and they were yacking with each other. And she was standing there telling him something. I don't remember what it was. And Carl's telling me all this information. 'cause he, his 17-year-old brain is completely outta whack. All of a sudden his mother collapses and starts to shake in front of him. So he calls in, I think my mom is having a seizure. Well, that was a reasonable assumption. She collapsed, she's shaking. Right? So I started off with our seizure protocol, our seizure medical protocol. Got the ambulance rolling, got the officers rolling. 'cause they go along with the ambulance and where they live. And all of a sudden I hear the most alarming noise that anybody can hear. And it's really hard to describe.
Marlis
And so listeners, any 9 1 1 dispatchers know right now, know exactly what I'm talking about. But any common person, if you ever hear something like a snort snore, like a, that is called agonal breathing. That person is actually not breathing. It is the person's brain trying to kick the lungs back and, and heart back into gear. Her heart had stopped and her brain was trying to fire. Your brain is still alive for quite a while, even as your heart is stuttering. So she was in, uh, what's called atrial fibrillation. Her heart was shaking like a bowl of jello. Her lungs weren't working correctly. Her brain was trying to fire that. I heard that noise. I was like, so Carl, is that your mom? He goes, yeah, yeah, she's breathing really funny. And I said, well, that's not real breathing. We need to do chest compressions on your mom.
Marlis
And he went from hysterical to beyond hysterical. He was already ramped up. 17-year-old brains don't process emergencies well at all. And I actually had to haul out what I call “mom voice.” I felt really bad afterwards, but I, I had to do it. He went so far up that I said, Carl, I need you to shut up. Stop and listen. I need you to take a big deep breath because if you pass out and neither you nor I are gonna be able to help your mom. Do you understand me? By that time, I had two coworkers looking at me like, geez, lady <laugh>. I'm like, oops. And he's like, okay, okay.
Marlis
Like he ran back up again. And I'm like, okay, that's what I'm here for, Carl. I will tell you how to do it. And he's like, okay, okay. And you hear him take a big deep breath. He's like, okay, tell me. We did chest compressions on his mother, I should say. He did chest compressions on his mom for six minutes. The nearest ambulance was already out on another call. The next nearest ambulance was also out on a call. We had to bring one in from further away. Six minutes. He did chest compressions on his mother just to keep her heart going and keep oxygen going back and forth between her brain and her heart Okay. To keep her alive. And the crews got there. Everything. Carl backed off quite a bit. He was still pretty ramped up. I kept him on the phone and I just kept telling him, Hey Carl, you did a really good job.
Marlis
Thank you for sticking with me. They're gonna do everything for your mama that they can. I want you to just keep going, keep breathing, keep breathing. And eventually I hung up. I found out later, she got shocked six times at the house because she's still in AFib. Right. They were not overly successful in getting her intubated. Angela is one of those, A toothpick is probably fat compared to her. So just one of these little tiny people. And they had a really hard time getting the intubation tube down her throat because she's so tiny. Yeah. And Carl was witnessing all of this. And it was further traumatizing. Him seeing his mother get shocked, seeing the struggle that they had getting her intubated. She got shocked in the ambulance. She got shocked again. When she got to the hospital, they were able to revitalize her. They took her into the cath lab.
Marlis
She never had a heart attack. So she had no blockages in any of her arteries or anything like that. So she didn't have a, my, uh, myocardial infarction or heart attack. She didn't have any electrical issues wrong with her heart either that they could find. So the heart has its own electrical system separate from the brain. They put in a pacemaker, pacemaker and defi just in case because they never did figure out what happened with her heart. But they wanted to make sure if it happened again, there was a device there to kick in faster. So this happened a couple weeks before Christmas. I got a call on Christmas Eve from my supervisor that said she survived. She's getting to go home today on Christmas Eve and talk about best Christmas present ever. Right? I met her at a survivor's banquet the following February. And I remember her husband grabbing me in a really tight bear hug.
Marlis
And what he says to me is, thank you for saving my life, not my wife. He goes, thank you for saving my life. She is my life. And that made me cry. I was already crying. That just actually just tipped me right over the edge of the bawling. Probably. Now, fast forward a few years, Carl has gone on to university. He has become a, a doctor, all because of everything that happened with his mother. And to top it all off, he and his good buddy that he became buddies with his person going through medical school and because of how tiny his mother was and how hard they had, had a hard time intubating her. Yeah. They invented and patented a magnetic device that will guide the intubation tube and the magnet will not interfere with any implanted devices in the person's body. He went and did all this.
Marlis
All because of what his mother went through, what he went through, and how I helped him save his mom. This is what we do. So it's kind of a long story, but it, it took forward over a few years. Now, fast forwarded a few more years and we go to our state senators and representatives to petition that all of my state's telecommunicators or dispatchers must be certified in telephone CPR because every agency kind of has their own policy on that. And not all dispatchers had been trained on how to do CPR over the phone. My agency happens to be very trained. We're we're what's called advanced EMDs, but not all agencies were trained to do CPR over the phone. It was passed and all because Angela was there to tell her story. I was there with her to tell the other side of the story. And it's passed now. All dispatchers, at least in my state, are required by this law or whatever you wanna call it, that they have to be certified and tell a CPR Wow. One person. One person.
Pat
Whoa, what a story. Yeah. What a wonderful, I don't care how long that was. That was worth it. Thank you.
Marlis
I have her picture back here behind me on a shelf, right outside my bedroom door so that every time I am going into my room or whatever, I can see her picture. I have a card that she wrote me that I put in the frame that has the words that, you know, the thank you that she wrote me. It's all right there. I keep it as a, a constant reminder of what it is that I do every day at work.
Pat
Well that's wonderful. So how on earth do you decompress after a shift? I mean, my god, you either are Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, that you're in the workplace handling all this incredible stress, then it's time for you to stop. Well how do you do that?
Marlis
Okay. I am well known for breaking all of municipal laws with regards to noise and my car stereo. I listen to really super loud music on the way home. I am an eighties girl. I mean, I graduated in 1987, but I listen to really, really loud music. Not just eighties hairband music, but I listen to music from all over the world. And Indian Pakistan, let me tell you, they have some loud music. So I grew, I, you know, I groove along with all that as well. The other thing that I do to decompress is I am a volunteer with the high school exchange student program. And I host exchange students. It is the perfect antithesis to my job because I am volunteering with something that I believe in, which is world citizenship, right? Like having all these beautiful cultures living together and keeping those cultures we can be world citizens and still keep our cultures, our language, our traditions.
Marlis
And they get to learn about our culture here in the United States as well through me and through all of their experiences while they're here. And I get to help them do that. Plus I have this high schooler living in my house. I don't have kids of my own. People think I'm crazy for taking on teenagers in my house, especially teenagers from another country that I basically know nothing about. I think I'm insane. I'm like, of course I'm insane. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. But at the same time, it is tons of fun. Like it's really a lot of fun to, you know, a kid who wakes up in the morning and wants to say good morning and it comes out in their native language 'cause they're still half asleep. And I learned another language. I learned other words. I learned how to deal with, you know, oh my gosh, I can't believe that these kids at school, they are teasing this other kid. I can't take it anymore. What do I do? How do I help this kid that's being teased to, I can't believe that Americans think that a four hour drive is a short drive. Well, we do.
Pat
Yeah, we do.
Marlis
They we do. We think a four hour drive is nothing to us. Nothing. And they're further amazed by how we tell distance and time. We do think about it, pat, if it's under 30 miles, we're gonna tell you how many miles we're driving. But if it's more than 30 miles, we'll tell you how long it takes to get there.
Pat
That's right. Yeah.
Marlis And that volunteer job that I do actually helps me at my 9 1 1 job because I live in a very multicultural jurisdiction. And so learning about all these different cultures through working with these high school exchanges and whatever, also helped me in how people, different cultures, process emergencies as well and how I can talk to them and, and get information from them. So, you know, there's some cultures where if they're calling the police, well boy it's a big deal because they would typically never report it. So now I have to be very careful how I question or whatever. And I've learned all that, not only through my training at work, but working with the exchange students as well. So I decompress with super loud music. I decompress by getting me, I literally on my phone, I have songs in I think 17 or 18 languages the last I counted because of my exchange students. So it gets played really loud. Yeah.
Pat
So good for you. What a great way to, uh, maintain a balance for yourself that, that's awesome.
Marlis
It's it's fun. And what's even more fun is, you know, they come and visit me at work, right. And now all of my coworkers are talking to 'em and asking questions and they get to learn like my, my coworkers are learning just because this teenager's sitting in the room with us and I cook food from, you know, that I've learned from all these other cultures and whatever. And I bring it in and, and usually I end up taking in more food than what I'm gonna eat because otherwise I'm holding my hands around it and growling like a dog, keep people from sticking their own spoons in my food. I'm like, it's mine. Yeah, I warm up two bowls and I set one to the side for people to try and, you know, and other people are like, why would you bring a teenager from another country in to hear these calls?
Marlis
Isn't that traumatizing to them? No. because sometimes these kids come from cultures where our emergencies, uh, let's say it's a really nasty police call. Let's say it's a shooting. Yeah. Somebody, somebody gets shot for them, maybe for some of these cultures, seeing or hearing somebody get shot is a multiple times a day occurrence. It's not, it's not traumatizing to them at all. If it's something that I don't think they need to hear, I can unplug their headset so fast, their head will spin and I cover up my microphone really quick and I'm like, you don't need to hear this. And they're like, oh, okay. So I have the ability to control what it is that they hear, what they don't hear. You know, I, I play the two off of each other quite a bit because they, they help me both directions.
Pat
Yeah. I can see that. So with everything we've talked about, in what ways do you think the public may misunderstand the role of dispatchers? What would you want them to know?
Marlis
We're not operators. Ugh. We don't work for the phone company and we're not secretaries. We don't just take a message and pass it along to the fire department or the police or the EMTs. We, it's not like a pink slip where we fill out you, you were outta the office. There you go. No, we don't, we don't do that. We are highly trained police, fire, and medical personnel. We do all three of them, but we do it through a headset because we can't see anything that's going on. We're getting into the E 9 1 1 where we will soon be able to take in live video or photos that are taken or something like that. But people don't realize that's not really a thing now because it takes a lot of extra storage. It takes a lot of money, you know, to not only build the electronic storage facilities, but to maintain those records for a certain amount of time.
Marlis
And if a judge orders that, it has to be kept beyond however many days it, the delete date might be. It takes a lot. So, you know, we're not operators. We don't, please don't call us nine one one operators. We, we don't work for the phone company. We are dispatchers, we dispatch police, fire and EMS based on the information that the caller is giving us, which is not always entirely accurate. So the other thing is, is every time somebody says, can I ask you a hard question about being a dispatcher? Invariably the question is, is why do you ask us so many questions? Just get the cops here. Well, I'd like to get the cops there, but I need to update 'em as they're making their way to you. The reason I ask questions is to update the responders as they're making their way to you. And it's also to mitigate any safety circumstances that may not only for you, but for my responders.
Marlis
I can also help you stabilize an injury. Stop a bleed. Yeah. Restart somebody's heart. Tell the kid not to pull the stick outta their eye. Try to, you know, I can do all of those things, right? You got somebody breaking in your house. Where can you go to get away from 'em? That you can lock yourself away from them or the person's already made it into the room with them and is swinging a bat at 'em. And I'm hearing all this. I can help you stay away from that person. And if nothing else, I can record exactly what I'm hearing happening. Our headsets are super, super sensitive. I can hear stuff in the background, so I ask a lot of questions because I need to. I can't see you. How else am I gonna get that information right? I, I think that's the biggest thing.
Marlis
And the other thing that I want people to know is for love of everything, know where you are. There's the, um, misperception out there. Thanks Hollywood, that we know exactly where you are all the time because we can see you with satellites. We can't, we can't pull up ATM cameras right away and see live scenes. No, we can't. We can hit a button to have your phone tell us exactly where you are. No, that's not the truth. Your phone tells us where you are and it's always approximate. The best phones out there are the iPhones and they're still only good within 300 feet, 360 degrees. In my 14 years of doing this, it certainly got much more accurate. But again, it's an approximate location. So if you don't know where you are, I don't know where you are. And if your phone is showing me you're at mile marker 256, that's 'cause that's where your phone is saying where you are and you're not able to tell me where you are.
Marlis
I'm gonna start help to mile marker 256 and you might be at mile marker 240 16 miles away. Whoa. And now you're gonna get mad at me because I sent help to the wrong place. Well, I sent help to the wrong place because I was going, but you could just couldn't tell me where you were. And your phone was giving me an approximate location. You didn't know where you are. Please don't get mad at me. Yeah, I was doing the best I could with the information that I was being given. So please, please always pay attention to where you are. I can't see you. You can see where you're at. I cannot. So that's where, you know, it can get really frustrating for callers and I want them to just understand, know where you are. If you're on a long car trip every five or six minutes, take a look.
Marlis
Notice a mile marker. Notice a crossroad. Notice the name of a business. Please don't tell me I'm at the billboard that advertises this restaurant because thank you. Literally still don't know where you are after that comment. Um, I've actually gotten that multiple times to, while I'm at the stop sign next to you know, that great big dairy. You know, there's, there's a few states in the United States that are known for being dairy. Um, if you tell me that I'm at a big dairy in my state, Okay, that's one of those every two miles. So like, great, thank you. But let's say you're going down the interstate and you remember looking at mile marker 256. We'll go back to that one and it's been about 10 minutes, but you really don't know where you are. 'cause your car rolled over seven times, your brain's completely scrambled.
Marlis
Yeah. But at least you know you're on this interstate and you last remember seeing 2 56. The next question I'm gonna ask you is how fast were you driving? And you'll say, well, the speed limit 75. I said, no. How fast were you driving <laugh>? Well, I was doing 80. Well, I can gauge how many miles you went in 10 minutes at 80 miles an hour. And now I can figure out what mile market area you're really closest to because your phone's just not showing me anything at all. It's only showing me a tower location. It's not even giving me a GPS location.
Pat
You spend a lot of time being a detective. I mean, you're putting together clues and pieces of information.
Marlis
A lot of people are really surprised to learn that we're gonna ask a whole bunch of information about the crime, basic information before we help you with your injuries.
Marlis
And people are like, but my arm's broken. Well, I've already got the ambulance started, but I wanna know who broke your arm. If somebody called up and said, I just got shot. Other than asking where you are because you know, tell, hey, this is 9 1 1, what's the address of the emergency? I just got shot. Okay, what's, where are you <laugh>? What's the address of the emergency? Get that outta them. But I've heard them say they just got shot. I get their address. My next question is, is who did it tell me, tell me the name of the person who did it. Why am I asking the name of the person who did it? They just got shot. They might die even as I'm talking to them because they're by themselves. The person who shot 'em took off. They might die. But everything we do is recorded and if they name their killer, it's on the recording. So literally everything I do, even the keystrokes I make on the keyboard is recorded. I misspell something I backspace that's recorded. Like literally everything that is coming into my ear, everything that I'm saying, everything that I'm typing is recorded. Everything.
Pat
Yeah. Well that would make sense,
Marlis
But that's intimidating to other people. Yeah. Everything's being recorded while I'm doing this. Yes.
Pat
You know, uh, in my research for 9 1 1 dispatchers, the phrase that always came up was: “Never seen but always heard.”
Marlis
Yes.
Pat
I mean, that's you guys in a nutshell.
Marlis
Yes. And remember I said at the beginning of this, I'm not used to being on video even though whoever's listening to this can't see either one of us. But I'm seeing you and it's unnerving. Just a little. Yeah. We're always heard and never seen. Yeah. And when people are like, oh, this firefighter saved my life, or this EMT got my heart started again, or this police officer saved me from this bad person. The dispatchers are always forgotten.
Pat
And you are the first of the first responders. Right. You got them there.
Marlis
Yeah. And if we're doing our job right, it's good that we're forgotten.
Pat
It's not about you. It's about facilitating the emergency
Marlis
And getting the right help to the right place in the right amount of time
Pat
As we wind down. I'm just curious, Marlis, based on what you do and your volunteer work, and you've been doing this for 14 years, what life lessons could a 9 1 1 dispatcher give to people?
Marlis
Be compassionate with everything that's going on in this world with everything that you've encounter. Uh, if you'll pardon the language, there is bad shit everywhere.
Pat
Yes.
Marlis
Yeah. And if you're lucky, you never have to call 9 1 1 for anything, even if you're just helping somebody else out. Right. If, if you're lucky, you'll never have to call 9 1 1. But if you see something, you should say something that's called being compassionate. Don't walk by the homeless person who's bleeding out their face, laying on the sidewalk and just say, homeless person. Why are they bleeding outta their face? Yeah. Call 9 1 1. You know, for all we know, this person had a seizure, fell down and cracked their head open on the sidewalk. But they need medical attention. Compassion, be compassion, show compassion, live compassion. It doesn't matter how bad your day is, somebody else is having a much worse day. And if you do have to call nine one may you only have to call 9 1 1 once in your life. But your one call to nine one one I do tens of times a day.
Marlis
So in four hours, if it's really, really busy in four hours, I could take 60 to 80 phone calls, both non-emergency and nine one one. So your bad day, I do multiple times a day. Yeah. So I understand if you're cranky, you're angry, you're scared, you're terrified, you're hurt, and you call me all kinds of names and whatever. I, I don't care. I get it. But if you're being uncooperative because you're having an emergency and you're fighting me the whole way, you're only delaying help for yourself. Yeah. Have a little bit of compassion and help me help you. That's what I do. My job is to help you. I wouldn't do this job if I didn't want to help people. My coworkers wouldn't wanna do this job if they didn't want to help people. Try to give some of that compassion back show that compassion to your fellow living being Yeah. I I don't care if it's a free, a cat, a human if it's living show compassion.
Pat
I had no idea what a 9 1 1 dispatcher did. And listening to you, the one thing that comes through this whole conversation is your compassion and, and the fact that you can plug in to someone's worst day and be calm and guide them to get the help that they need. I have to tell you, Marlis, I have to say just big respect for you. Thank you. And for the 9 1 1 dispatchers, I mean, talk about a group of badass people who are on top of everything taking care and reaching out and people are upset and calling you names and you guys just steady on and that is remarkable. I just wanna thank you for coming on and sharing this. I, this is really an eye-opener. Thank you so much. It's
Marlis
You're very welcome. And that was, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm gonna encourage everybody that's listening to you call your local nine one one center and I want you to ask if they have a policy for allowing the public to come in and do what we call sit alongs or ridealongs, even our police fire and EMS, uh, folks that are new to the job, part of their training is they have to come up and sit with us so they hear the other side of the radio. The responders themselves are often unaware of how much we don't give to them because we're able to resolve the issue for the caller themselves. You know, do a ride along or sit along whatever they may call it because it will definitely be absolutely eye-opening.
Pat
Marla, thank you so much for coming on today. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this was awesome.
Marlis
Thank you. And you're welcome.
Pat
And, and listeners, I don't know about you, but that was an earful today and thank you for joining us and see you next time. Thank you. Bye.
