Pretty big deal when a rescue bird goes down.

Can you walk us through that story?

We get a 911 call.

I get bad feeling.

I end up pulling up the AFF system, and I was like, they're not there.

A couple minutes goes by, and it automatically reverted to me.

So I pick up the 911.

This guy goes, hey, yeah, I think your helicopter just crashed.

And my world froze.

There was no wreckage.

There was no sign.

There was no broken trees.

There was nothing.

You're off the grid right now.

Gone.

Just gone.

Valerie, it's going to be a good one because you have worked some of the most mentally draining jobs a human can probably work.

I'm sure there's some others on the list.

But you grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, which is beautiful.

One of the most beautiful places.

You're both.

Your parents were EMTs growing up.

Yep.

So you grew up in this world of watching first responders.

I'm sure they had other friends that were involved with this, both your parents being in it.

You were probably just consumed.

One of the first books that I saw was my mom's EMT book.

Okay.

Look at the pictures.

It's in your blood.

So you end up becoming a firefighter.

Emt.

Correct.

In Jackson, Wyoming, which is.

I'm sure there's some really hilarious things that have come out of there.

Yep.

You did that for about 10 years.

Yes.

Before trans.

Nope.

They're at the same time.

Oh, okay.

Then you ended up okay.

At the same time taking on going and working Dispatch.

Yes.

For 911 calls.

Which to me, I. I want to say women, because I feel like I've never not had a woman and.

But I'm sure there's.

The males are absolute saints of human beings.

Because of.

Your job is dealing with somebody's absolute nightmare in the worst, lowest point of their life.

That's what you're dealing with almost every single day your whole entire shift.

Yeah.

And nobody talks about this.

I don't feel this category of work is even brought to light.

So that's the whole point of this podcast, in this conversation is because I've always wanted to talk to a dispatch operator.

Because God bless y'.

All.

So we're going to get there before we get started.

We got a fresh loaf of bread downstairs waiting for you from the sour Bee.

Try to send all of our guests home.

The girls, we do it as a homeschool project.

They started their own business, and it's been a lot of fun, and they've learned incredible skills doing it.

I hope every Homeschool parent helps their kids start something.

Probably won't make it home.

A lot of them don't.

A lot of them don't.

Especially a guests that are traveling.

They.

They're like, dude, kids.

Kids didn't get a bite.

Then they were gonna say, you hope.

I got a ladies wild chaos tea.

And I feel like your adventurous life.

You're kind of a hat woman.

Absolutely.

At points, I could just guess that and use it.

You're a snowmobile backcountry adrenaline junkie off of your social media looking after you.

Rock the hat.

So send you home with one of the rare OG hats.

So, Val, Valerie, welcome to the Wildcast podcast.

Let's do this.

Thanks for having me.

Where you from?

Jackson, Wyoming.

How was that growing?

Born and raised.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Grew up there.

Really?

Before money ruined it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So it was.

It was great.

We did everything from riding four wheelers in the backyard to snowmobiling to camping and hunting and, like, the dream.

The Wyoming dream.

Wyoming dream.

Yep.

Yeah.

No, it was really great.

My.

Like you had mentioned, my parents were both EMTs growing up, so things were a little bit crazy there because my mom would have to leave at the drop of, you know, the call.

So we kind of learned early on to which jump pack she needed.

And I'd be helping her.

I'd have the jump pack for her and hand it to her as she's running out the door.

Um, so I watched that from really early age because she was EMT my whole life.

No kidding.

What did your dad do?

So he decided that that schedule wasn't conducive for two parents of three children to keep.

So he was a mechanic by trade, so he ended up opening his own shop.

For the longest time, he owned his own companies, mechanics.

He got into the tow truck world there a little bit too.

So that's a chaotic life, too.

It was stories there too.

If there's a tow truck driver that would.

That has got the stories, please, I would love to sit down and have a conversation with those guys.

I almost killed a tow truck driver once.

Oh, yeah.

He was right off and on, off ramp, and he stepped off the back of his truck and tripped.

And I had already given him room, and he fell, like, halfway into lane where I already was.

It was one of those where you just, like, clench and prepare.

I have no idea how I missed them.

Oh, yeah.

I'll never forget.

Rained in my brain that I thought he was dead for sure.

Yeah, that'd be a rush.

Yeah.

And it wasn't I mean, I probably would have gotten blamed for it, but yeah, it was.

He tripped and fell off.

Like, the bed was at an angle and he stepped off anyways.

So where would high school.

How was high school up there?

How big of a class did you graduate?

I had 120 in my class.

That's bigger than I thought, but, I mean, it's not huge.

Yeah, it wasn't too big.

We were the smallest of the preceding 12 years and the 12 years after us.

Why'd you hate high school?

So?

So many people with money moving there, you know, like, they're just.

Yeah, the.

The kids that went there was very groupy, okay.

Type.

I guess I never really found my niche.

So my last two years of high school, I actually worked anywhere from 20 to 40 hours at a local hardware store.

I was able to.

I had enough credits to graduate, so all that I needed, I had.

I think I took, like, they were random, like, chunk classes that I could take that gave me credits for like a work to school or school to work program, whatever.

So I worked the hardware store.

Hardware store, out of all things.

It was great.

I would recommend that for a teenager.

All day or what.

Yeah, you know, you get.

They give you a little department and you get to own it.

I got to learn all sorts of stuff.

Stuff like electricity, you know, electricians, small, like, you know, home plumber related.

I guess you probably pick up a lot of skills working at a hardware store.

If you want to, you can learn a lot.

So after that, did you go off to college or what?

Did you just start the adventure life?

I never wanted to go to college.

I never really knew what I wanted to do.

Okay, so graduated high school, stuck with the hardware store.

Still loved working there.

They treated me great.

All in.

I was there for seven years.

No kidding.

In 2006 is when I decided to join the fire department.

So it was a volunteer department.

They had recently merged.

Prior to this, they were separate.

Fire, ems.

The EMS department was through the hospital, and that was where my mom was working full time.

And then shortly before I had joined EMS and fire became one, which was for the county.

So they pulled EMS from the hospital, turned me into county, combining fire and mess, because that's what was happening all over the country.

So, you know, staying progressive.

And I remember telling my mom, I said, I want to be an emt.

And I decided, I want to be an emt.

She goes, well, you're gonna have to be a firefighter too.

I was like, well, that was easy.

I guess I'm gonna Be an emt, firefighter.

No kidding.

That's how it happened, huh?

That's how it happened.

It's very short and sweet.

We shouldn't try to talk me out of it.

I was worried she was going to try to talk me out of it.

Yeah.

But I mean.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

Living a life of that, that is a career, is a really taxing.

And I'd already seen her come home, you know, like we had the times where she'd be home and my dad would say, leave your mom alone.

She had a hard night for sure.

So stuff like that.

So I figured she would try to talk me out of it.

She didn't.

So I joined.

We were essentially stationed at different stations.

There were seven stations total in Jackson.

I was at our large home base station, Station one, which was right in town.

But her being full time, she did work ambulance shifts out of my station because that's where our primary ambulance was for the county.

So as I joined, she tried to stay out of it.

We didn't want people, you know, thinking that I got to where I got because she got me there.

So, I mean, obviously we talked and she was a great resource for me.

But all in all, we tried to not have that favoritism.

And if anything, she was harder on me than she was on anybody else.

I feel like that's how it should be.

Yeah, 100%.

You're.

You're.

Oh, I'm with her on that.

Yeah.

Because you give it to your kids and they don't represent you correctly.

But, you know, you put them through the trenches, then it's just the respect that comes with it.

Yeah.

Everybody knows, like, you know, what they're.

Capable of, you know, how much to push them.

So that was kind of cool.

How was the academy, the fire academy for you?

What was.

What was that like?

Yeah, so they did.

They did most everything in house.

So again, I still have my full time job.

While doing this, we had, I think it was two nights a week was when we did classes, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and then we would have station training on Wednesdays.

So as a probationary firefighter EMT with the Jacksonville Fire ems, you weren't allowed to miss anything.

So you couldn't miss the trainings.

You couldn't miss the, you know, any of the classes.

Sometimes there were Saturdays.

Saturdays were a lot for the practicals.

Yep.

Your hands on training, stuff like that.

I think all in all, to get my firefighter one is about three months before I was able to call myself a firefighter.

Okay.

And that's when the real probation started, because you get a ride on the trucks now, and, you know, you might get to hold a tool while you watch somebody else actually work, you know, so they kind of ease you into it.

The volunteer.

I feel like the volunteer part of it is different than what you would see, you know, on a paid department is, like, it wasn't as aggressive.

I think that people are a little bit more protective.

Like, hey, we.

We only get a couple structure fires a year.

Like you.

You don't get to go inside.

I've been here 10 years.

I'm going in, you know.

So, like, you had to email her on this.

On the.

The crew, there were quite a few.

It was a small percentage, but there were quite a few.

Okay, that's good.

Out of 160, there were 160 firefighters total at the time that I had joined for the county.

Yep.

Spread out between the seven stations.

I bet females made up probably 20%.

That's okay.

That was a lot bigger than I thought, especially for being up there.

Yeah, there was a fair amount.

Most of them, if I remember correctly, were EMTs that wanted to remain EMTs that decided, okay, I'll go ahead and I'll go through fire training.

And some of them discovered that they loved fire more than ems.

Oh, for sure.

So all that was pretty cool.

EMS training took about six months before I could get my EMT basic certification.

That was a good one to get.

So by the time I just kept pushing, I wanted to be more trained.

I wanted to do better.

I want to be better.

Like, I was addicted.

I was in it.

Good for you.

So I pushed.

I became an EMT intermediate.

At the time, in the state of Wyoming, that was just one step below a paramedic.

Because paramedics can administer drugs.

EMTs can.

What's the basics?

Don't necessarily.

Yeah, I mean, they consider oxygen to be a drug.

So basics can administer oxygen.

Paramedics could give your narcotics, your painkillers, your steroids for, you know, like, really bad allergic reaction, like, situation, stuff like that.

Paramedics could.

They can, you know, Crike, iOS, IVs, that sort of thing.

Depending on the state, a basic might be able to start an iv, but a paramedic has to put in the IO where they're drilling your bones, stuff like that.

So at the time, EMT intermediate, The only thing that you couldn't do as an intermediate, that you could do as a paramedics, there were three drugs that you couldn't give.

Everything else an intermediate could Do.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

It's very intimidating.

And that's what you went to next.

Like, they're.

They just told me I can do all of this.

Yeah.

I don't know if I'm capable of doing all of this, but I'm able to do it.

I'm volunteering my time.

I hope I do this right, you know?

Oh, I wasn't paid.

And all this is volunteer.

All this is volunteer.

That's terrifying.

Loved it.

Yeah.

Yep.

You got the.

You got the rush from it.

Yep.

What did you enjoy most about being an emt?

Helping anything.

And I learned through it that I loved firefighting more than I did being an emt, but I loved.

I love the aspect of helping people.

You show up and you get that.

Thank you.

And they look you in the eyes, and it's sincere, you know, and it's.

You just walk away, and you're like, I just made their shitty day better.

Like, I just.

They might remember this for the rest of their life and be like, there was one person.

They were nice to me.

They helped me.

You know, they got me through that.

Yeah.

So it's rewarding.

I would 100%, especially, I guess, if you just.

You have that mindset where it's.

Because I feel a lot of EMTs get the fatigue.

Absolutely.

Of caring.

I don't know there's a term for it, but you just.

You just become numb, you know, and you.

Or you're just in.

In that zone of doing your job.

You're not thinking about the family and the other things that are around or the children and things like that.

And so you just kind of get in the mindset, or there's just guys that just go through the motions.

It's easy to overlook the big picture.

Oh, for sure.

It's a big world, you know?

And just because you're upset because something happened at home doesn't mean you can bring that onto that call, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So you're.

Now you're in.

Do you remember your very first call you got to go on?

It was a fire alarm.

Really super stoked.

Got there, and I was like, this is gonna be something it wasn't.

I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna change the world.

That's how it is.

Huh?

Showed up, and we were like, oh, go back to the station.

It was like, I just left dinner on the table, and guess I'm gonna go back and eat it cold.

Okay.

So as a volunteer, do they have, like, all pagers?

Be like, is there a big Site because I grew up where I grew up in upstate New York.

It's all.

It's a giant siren goes off, and then all the guys put the little blue lights on and they go racing because they're all volunteers.

Is that pretty much how it worked?

We had.

We had pagers.

Okay, we had all pagers.

They had a couple different settings on them.

So you could put it to only your station, or if you were a nerd, you could put it so you could hear all stations.

You put it on all stations?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Sometimes I slept like that.

Like, I was like, oh, station seven got a call.

This turns into something.

We're next.

Because the goal was to get to the station first.

So your first truck out that way, you're on the engine.

Because once you have enough people to fill that truck, it's gone.

It's first come, first serve.

As long as you have a driver and you've got somebody who can sit in the right seat and run the call, everybody get in.

Like, you can work.

You can work.

You can work.

Get in.

Let's roll.

You're out.

It doesn't matter who walks in.

After that, you're like, snooze, you lose.

Is that the rush?

It's.

Yeah, it's part of it.

It was fun.

I like to win.

For sure.

I won a lot.

You were ready, huh?

You live for that?

Lived a couple blocks away from the firehouse on purpose, so I had not.

No, it just kind of worked out.

Yeah.

So I was like, oh, this is a good spot.

Mine, like, that's where I'm.

You got on a lot of calls then?

A lot.

So you got a lot of experience really quick.

And I pushed it and I, you know, I didn't.

I didn't have a family.

I didn't have kids.

I didn't.

Like, I had a dog.

But she was super easy to take care of, so I could go and I didn't have to worry about her.

I had family that could check on her.

If it was a, you know, longer call, where we were out on a structure fire for 12 or 14 hours, for sure.

Because you never know when you're gonna be home.

And in some cases, you don't know if you're gonna make it home, depending on what happens.

That's a valid way to put it, huh?

Yeah.

So it was.

I always kept shoes by the door or boots that I could slip on, depending on the season.

I always had an outfit that was easy to assemble to run out the door if it was the middle of the night when the tones dropped, like, I did not drink very much in my early 20s because I wanted to be able to respond.

Good for you.

That's incredible.

It paid off.

You learned.

You probably got, you know, years of experience within the first year.

I mean, alone, if you're hitting.

How many calls would you say you were hitting a week?

Are you hitting every one of them?

Like, what was your miss?

Oh, my percentage is very high.

So you're going out on almost every call from that station?

If I could, yep.

If I was at work and I couldn't get out of work for some reason and I missed a call.

Other than that, maybe if I went to maybe a friend's house, and it was, you know, over the hill in, like, Victor, Idaho, is going to be 45 minutes to an hour to get over to the station, that sort of thing.

I want to bring my pager for stuff like that.

I tried to find that balance a little bit.

Okay, I tried.

It doesn't sound like it, but I tried.

Yeah, no kidding.

Good for you.

Well, how was your crew?

What was the life like?

Like, the atmosphere with the guys that you're working with at the time?

Station was great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hear there.

It could go either way.

Yep.

I was really worried prior to the merger.

It was a.

It was a good old boys club.

It was a old school.

Had to know somebody.

To know somebody.

Come on in, guy, you know, they did not have women or welcome women to be firefighters, which I get.

So when I went in, I was like, I kind of head down.

I was like, I'm gonna prove to them I belong here.

Yeah.

I didn't go in there going, but I'm female.

You have to let me in.

Like, we can do the same job.

You know, I was.

I was respectful, and I think with that, I ended up earning a lot of respect from all of them.

I worked very well with just about everybody there.

I. I can't think of one person that I showed up and we were like, oh, we can't sit on the same truck, you know, so it was great.

Our station was awesome.

I think we had about 30 people there.

Men, women.

I had a couple of friends that I had met just going through the fire academy.

We all became pretty close.

So when we responded together, that was always a great time.

Just being able to learn together and be, you know, feed off of each other on different ideas of how we were going to approach things or handle a call or who was going to do what.

Damn, dude, That's a pretty good setup.

Especially live right down the street from that.

With that.

Yeah.

So how many years did you go on as a volunteer?

The whole time.

10 years.

As a volunteer?

Yep.

There was one point where I did a short stint where I was partially paid.

Okay.

So I could only pull so many shifts as an emt.

And then I didn't like that because it limited me on what I could respond on because I was a partial employee I wasn't allowed to make.

Yeah.

I was limited on hours.

So I'd be like, well, I can't.

I can't go on this call.

I'm out of hours.

You're losing your mind doing that.

So I went back to volunteer.

It was better for me that way.

I did pursue trying to go full time, but Teton county had a nepotism law, and because my mom was a captain on the department, I was not allowed to be a full time paid employee there.

Interesting.

So because of that, I pursued 911 dispatch.

Now that makes sense.

I don't want to jump in the dispatch yet.

What is some of the crazy stuff that goes on in Jackson, Wyoming that you got called out on?

Oh, man.

Who's your favorite frequent flyer?

Oh, so every cop, every paramedic, every firefighter has a frequent flyer.

Who is yours?

She was a woman who went to school with my dad.

Okay.

She.

Super sad story.

She ended up being an alcoholic to the point where she was mentally just not good.

She wasn't.

She wasn't necessarily actively trying to kill herself, but she wasn't doing anything to help herself.

She didn't have any family, so she'd call 911 because she fell.

Or, you know, we'd go out on a welfare check.

Or she'd be screaming and the cops would get called and they'd be like, this is medical.

We need an ambulance here.

Kind of.

But we'd go pick her up.

And a lot.

Everybody knew that address.

They knew the name.

And we show up one time, and I was actually running on ambulance with my mom, and there was a third member on our ambo.

And we get there, and the third member, he looks at my mom and he goes, this is all you.

Like, you're the psych person.

My mom loves the psych calls.

Oh, yeah.

She was great at talking to the loopy ones.

Okay.

We have that.

She's amazing at that.

So I learned a lot from her on that one too.

So she goes in and this.

This woman starts yelling at her, and she's like, get out.

You're not welcome here.

I want to talk to you.

And then she says my mom's name, and my mom.

My mom's who she's talking to.

So my mom walks out and she goes, she wants you.

I was like, oh, boy.

So I go in, and she goes, there you are.

And she completely flips the switch, turns happy, and I'm like, let's get you in the ambulance.

So we start going to the ambulance, or we get her in the ambulance, we start riding my mom and our third member, they're sitting up front.

Usually we'd have two EMTs in the back, but every time that we tried that, she just lose it.

So it was just me.

And she starts telling stories about.

I guess I should have told the part that she was in love with my dad still.

She was.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, the thing is, she was, like, reliving her past, and she starts telling me stories about how much she's in love with him and wants to be with him.

Does she know this is your dad?

She doesn't even know who I am.

She's telling you about this man that she's in love with, and it's your dad.

Oh, yes.

All the way to the hospital.

You're like, mom, she's.

I mean, she's driving.

She could hear the whole thing.

And I hear her cracking up.

I'm trying to keep my composure, head to the hospital.

Because she's laughing about this.

Like, you.

You put me in this position.

Thanks, mother.

She thought it was great.

Oh.

What are the chances of that happening?

It was a small town.

I mean, I'd say they're pretty good.

Are they pretty.

The fact that your mom's driving the ambulance, you're at the back of.

This woman's just talking about this man she loves, and it happens to be my dad.

Your dad.

Your mom's current.

Your mom's.

Listen.

That's hilarious.

Yes.

I'm so glad I asked that question.

That was a good one.

Yeah, well, because, like, I have so many buddies that are like, oh, God, this guy.

You hear these stories, and everybody's got a frequent fly, it seems like.

So I don't know.

Yeah, that's.

That's funny.

Yep.

Good for her.

One of the things that fascinates me, and I don't know if you had to deal with it very much, and I have this huge fascination with it, and I want to get a specialist on to have a conversation about it, are hoarders.

Did you ever deal with any of those?

Not often, no.

I heard more stories.

Okay.

But I don't.

I don't think I responded to one hoarder incident.

Oh, man, those ones get me.

Like, I obsess over them.

What about large people?

It fascinates me.

Talking on the emt.

Guys have to cut holes in houses to get people out.

You've had to do that.

Mm.

Do you remember the person?

Mm.

Who was it?

So he.

I think he had, like, a heart condition or something like that.

Ended up calling, had to widen the door and then pull him out on, like, a door, as opposed to being able to put him on the gurney.

You put him on a door and you're doing.

This is like you're using forklift or what?

What.

Like, what is.

How did you get him out on a door?

Put the door, like, on the gurney in order to be able to roll them out so that you had enough space.

Floor surface.

Surface area.

How big was this guy?

Good size?

I would say he's pushing 500.

He's a shorter guy, so he's wide.

Dang.

So it does happen.

Yeah.

There's some logistics.

Like, that is where, like, EMTs will call for a lift assist, and a lot of times they'll call the fire department and have an engine respond instead of using, you know, four or five cops, because the cops are obviously doing other things.

So it was just logistically better to call a fire department to help.

What was one of the weirdest calls that you guys responded to.

On the fire truck?

I would say my weirdest.

Probably a structure fire.

We heard somebody was inside.

I was at work, and that was kind of stipulation.

If it's important, you can go.

So I ran to my boss, and I said, we got a structure fire.

Somebody's inside.

And he goes, get out of here.

So get to the station.

Get on scene.

They had just pulled a body out.

He was still breathing, and then ended up dying shortly before I had gotten there.

And everything went defensive on that fire, so nobody went back inside.

We didn't have any reason to come to find out what had happened was this man had killed his wife a couple weeks prior, put her body on ice in the bathtub and kept her there, and then decided to light his house on fire by putting a bunch of gas cans all over the house.

And then he, like, poured gasoline everywhere, lit his house on fire, shot himself, but did not kill himself.

So he ultimately ended up dying from smoke inhalation.

And he was the body that they had pulled out shortly before I got there.

Damn.

That was probably the weirdest one.

And I say that was the weirdest one.

Just Because a.

The story surrounding everything, that was a lot to digest.

Oh, for sure.

And then when I had gotten there and we had gone defensive, I kept smelling something.

I was like, is this.

Is this the house?

Like, what.

What is burning?

And then I realized that I was sitting right next to the body that was charred.

It had to tarp over it.

And nobody told me.

And you're just chilling.

And I'm just chilling.

Literally, right.

Right next to me.

And that's a very.

Like.

Well, that's the smell.

That's a very.

I haven't forgotten it.

Yeah.

Rest your life.

Ever cross that path again, you know.

Immediately, probably 15 years ago now, and I can still smell it.

Was that the only charred body that you ever really got to see or deal with?

Yep.

Because I feel like it's not very often where you're dealing with, like you see in the movies, like the Crispy Critter kind of deal.

Like how.

I mean, you did it for 10 years.

How many did you see?

No, not many.

And Jackson, we were lucky that we didn't have a lot of those really bad calls.

Maybe a couple structure fires a year.

Most of the time, people weren't home, you know, was caused by electrical issue or construction or something like that.

You guys deal with a lot of car flips, I feel like, end up in the rivers in wintertime.

What's that?

I've never talked to anybody.

I guess that's never really been brought up.

Or the.

The winter accidents and dealing with that as an EMT firefighter.

Yeah, Car accidents are gnarly.

So we covered Teton county is about 4,000 square miles coverage area.

Teton County.

So that's the county that Jackson sits in.

Right.

So about 4,000 square miles.

There are three highways.

You got South Highway 89.

You got North Highway 89.

You have Highway 22.

Those are your only ways in and out.

You have tourists up in North 89.

They're staring at the Tetons, not paying attention.

It doesn't take much to overcorrect, flip your car, you know, going to the other lane.

So there were.

There were a lot of car accidents, more so in the summer because the tourist population would roll in.

Oh, yeah.

Trailers not knowing how to tow trailers.

The weight difference, I guess that's probably a nightmare.

Or just not paying attention.

Or you've got, you know, motorcycles who.

Maybe they rented a bike and they don't know how to drive through a canyon, and they get scared and hit the wrong brake or, you know, or you just have negligent drive with people on their cell phones.

You know, it's wildlife that have never been around wildlife before.

Correct?

Yep.

So a lot of car accidents.

I would say probably one of our.

One of the biggest ones that sticks with me is we had a car that flipped off the road.

It was middle of the night in the winter.

It was icy corner, and he went in too fast and ended up going off the road and rolling.

They were probably 40ft off the road down a super steep embankment.

And the only reason why they stopped where they did was because of trees held him back.

So there were two occupants and a dog in the car.

By the time we got there, it was probably a good 45 minutes after they had crashed because they were so far outside of town.

So we get there, of course they're freezing.

We've got one patient who had a significant head injury and we weren't sure if he was going to survive.

And then the other patient, all she had was a broken leg.

She the driver?

Nope, she was a passenger.

And she actually got tossed into the back.

It was a small SUV and she got tossed in the back and she was fine.

She.

I mean, obviously that was a bad day for her, but physically she had a broken leg.

The other patient, he ended up dying.

Really.

And that was one I specifically remember.

I talked to him.

I was trying to bring him back or something, I don't know.

But I just kept talking to him.

I said, you gotta pull through.

You need to pull through this.

People love you.

And I just.

The entire time.

We had a whole rope system set up, so we threw him on a gurney so we could bring him back up to the road.

That takes time to set that up.

I was at the head calling the shots on this one.

And that was the first time I had been involved in that type of a situation.

Okay.

So I just kept talking to him and I was.

I'd hoped that it would help, but ultimately he ended up being called brain dead and died.

Oh, no.

You guys probably.

People don't realize you probably have to train for water rescues, Cliff ravine recoveries.

On top of the fire, on top of everything like that.

A normal, I guess, fire department helicopter operations.

Are you doing.

Did you guys deal with a lot of smokejumpers and stuff in the summertime?

Are you guys coordinating with those and helping them out?

That's.

You also never know.

You need to land a hilo for a car crash victim.

How often?

Oh, yeah.

Huh.

Happens quite a bit because we're.

Jackson does not have a trauma center.

So where are they flying everybody to.

Either Air Mac Nano Falls, or they.

Or they'd bring in a fixed wing and get a helicopter, meet with a fixed wing, and fly them down to Salt Lake.

Damn, you're screwed out there.

So it's a big.

It's a bigger operation.

If you're having a big day or a really bad day, there's a lot of people involved that are helping.

What was the favorite.

What was your favorite part about being a firefighter?

Emt.

Oh, selfishly, the rush.

When the tones drop, there's nothing like it.

I respect that.

You're like, I'm on my way.

I got you, boo.

I'm heading in.

I'll be there in a minute.

You know what is one of your most memorable stories, like, fun ones, from being an emt.

Hmm.

EMT days?

We.

You know, I think it's just the people I worked with.

Like, one of the first.

First stories that comes to mind is the time we ran ambulance through the garage door.

You ran an ambulance through a garage door?

How'd that happen?

So good friend of mine that I was working with, we decided to pull a extra shift.

We always staffed, like, high school football games, so we decided to do that together.

So we go to grab the spare ambulance, and we hit the garage door button.

I was driving, and I hear it stop.

I didn't think to look, and I was like, okay, cool.

We're good.

You good.

Throw it in.

Drive went.

Instantly stopped us.

Oh, it started to come back down?

No, it just stopped.

It, like, malfunctioned.

It just didn't go all the way up.

All I had to do is lean forward and looked up and I would have seen it, but nope, ran right through it.

Yeah.

How old were you for that?

What year was this?

That was pretty early on.

I must have been 22 or 23.

What are the.

What's 4th of July like in Jackson, Wyoming?

Are you dealing with a lot of fire and fireworks?

Everybody's.

Well, no.

Most people are pretty responsible.

Okay.

Because they see that fire dangers high or something like that.

And usually you've got those seasons where the valley's just filled with smoke and nobody wants to contribute to that.

But it's super hectic.

It's one of the busiest weekends of the year by far.

So many people in town, you know, everything's booked 100% out.

It's.

It's a very different, I think, different thing working in a tourist town versus just a city where you might have passer, you know, people passing by, coming through.

Jackson was the destination you know, it's.

People saved up for years to come to Jackson.

Yeah, it was a bucket list trip.

So everybody comes there excited, and they're all over the place, and nobody's, you know, looking left or right.

And a lot of accidents happen.

Oh, God, I couldn't even imagine those.

The spike in those weekends.

So what made you want to transfer from firefighter to 911 dispatch?

Yeah.

So about four years in, I realized I wasn't going to be able to go full time EMT because of the nepotism law.

Okay.

So wasn't retired anytime soon.

She just retired two years ago.

Okay.

I think two years ago, there were a couple of girls who worked a 91 dispatch that were also on the fire department volunteers with me.

And I ended up talking to one of them, and she was like, you.

You would be really good.

And then I went to my mom and I asked her opinion, and she's like, you actually, you probably would do good.

So I thought on it for a little while.

Finally decided.

I was like, you know, I don't know if I want to work at a hardware store the rest of my life.

I may as well throw my application in, see what happens.

So I threw my application in, and I remember the day that they brought me in.

You know, you go through all the testing, there's the application, and then they run a background check on you.

Once that's complete, they put you through a polygraph.

You've got to do typing test, vision, hearing test, all those.

And then the end of it is the interview process, of course.

And I get there for the interview, and I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting until it's my time to go in.

My mom calls.

I'm like, oh, she's calling to say good luck.

That's nice, you know, And I pick up the phone and she goes, I just want to let you know your grandma just died as you're walking into.

Your final interview for this job.

Mm, perfect timing.

I said, okay, thank you for letting me know.

And close to your grandma.

No.

Okay.

No, not really.

But I was still like, wow.

Like, that was heavy news.

So I walk in, you know, I kind of shake it off, and I'm like, this.

This is my test.

Can I do this?

You know, So I walk in, I go through everything, and at the end, one of the women who interviewed me knew my mom.

She was like, so how's your mom?

You know, after all the formal part was done, how's your mom?

And I was like, well, she's not so Good.

So my grandma just died.

I was like.

I called the call right before I walked in, and they were like, you just went through this interview.

Are you okay?

I said, I'm okay.

Thanks for asking.

A couple weeks later, they called me, and they were like, you were our number one pick.

We'd like to offer you a job.

Talk about trial by fire.

I mean, you walked to get the news that your grandma just died as you're walking in for an interview that you're probably gonna need to show that you're cool and collective under shitty situations.

That probably nailed it for you.

Probably.

It probably helped.

Yeah.

So once you go through the process of becoming a 911 dispatch, what type of training are you doing?

Because you.

I feel like there's so much the process, an order, who you're calling, who you're dispatching, who you're connecting people to.

Is that all?

Like, you just sit down and start going?

Or are you, like, shadowing people?

How does this work?

Yeah, so the first two weeks, you kind of just shadow people.

And Salvi set up this specific training.

First two weeks to shadow people, you kind of see what.

What they do for the job.

You know, how they answer phones or how they respond to radios.

There's a whole manual so that you can learn jurisdictions, all the departments that you're about to dispatch for all the systems that are available to you.

And you have to learn all of those.

Obviously, you go on ride alongs, ride alongs on the ambulance, ride alongs with deputies and officers and visit.

We worked closely with Grand Teton national park dispatch.

So, you know, you'd go up there, see their dispatch center.

That way you could get an idea for how they operate as well.

So the cop ride alongs, is that so you just know how they function.

So you're not just giving them demands or requests or asking them things when you're like, yeah, that's not how this works.

Is that so you can learn how their flow is?

And so that way it makes it easier on you.

Okay, all right, that makes sense.

You get to feel like, you know, when they do a traffic stop, how long is it realistically before you should status check them?

Do you want to do it immediately?

You know, that sort of thing?

So the officer can kind of just explain never thought their side of it, so that you.

I. I think it's fabulous because you.

You really get the opportunity to learn what's going on out there so that you can get ahead of what everybody else needs before they ask for it.

Like what?

Like if somebody needs backup, a lot of the times I could hear a voice deflection and I was like, they need another unit and I'd send somebody their way.

Or is that normal for dispatchers?

I mean, so these cops.

Okay, I guess this is a question.

Who are you dispatching to?

Is it just one department or are you connected across a huge region and you're piecing and matching as things unfold?

How does it work for you?

So our dispatch center, we were the only dispatch center in the county employed by Teton County Sheriff's Department.

So obviously we dispatch sheriff's department, but then we would also dispatch for the police department.

Okay.

Jackson Hole Fire, ems, Search and rescue, Teton County Search and Rescue, the Elk refuge, they actually have their own law enforcement, law enforcement section.

So we would dispatch for them as well.

We would work closely with higher patrol.

So you'd get a lot of the higher patrol guys that would come in.

I mean, their dispatch is in Cheyenne, seven hours away.

So we were pretty close with them.

We'd learn how to work with them.

We'd listen to their radio so that if they needed something, we'd be able to dispatch one of our guys to go and be their backup.

So you're dispatching seven, eight different.

As well as working close with surrounding counties.

How does your mind pro.

I mean, how do you.

I'm trying to figure out like, is there a giant board?

Like how do you pen the paper?

This.

When people are calling in, are you learning their voices and like getting to know these people?

Yeah.

And they'd come in to dispatch and say hi.

And you know, some of them outside of work, you'd go hang out, go on a hike or I snowmobiled with the guys.

Sheriff's department.

And we had.

So I think that we had a couple troopers, state troopers that rode with us and cops.

Really?

Firefighters?

Yeah.

Okay.

It was cool.

Everybody, you know, there wasn't any.

There wasn't any headbutting between departments.

Everybody meshed very, very well and it was a lot of fun.

Damn.

How long does that take?

I mean, are you okay?

So once you do your ride alongs and you got your kind of the groove of things, are you just headset on and ready to rock and roll and taking calls?

Kind of what we got a trial by fire a little bit.

I feel like that's the only way you're going to learn a job like that.

And it's just like, there you go, there you go.

Good luck.

Let us know you have questions.

Yeah.

You don't remember Your first call?

No, it was the training part was all blurry.

You know, they've got everything broken up into sections where you train on phones.

So they teach you what questions to ask when you know how to handle a 9:1 call versus a non emergency call that comes in.

Okay.

They would have different ringtones, so you always knew which was which.

Obviously 91 always took priority.

The admin line could ring and ring and ring.

If you had an emergency going on nine one one's first, you know, you'd have a section where you trained on radios.

And at that point, I mean we had.

I think we had something insane, like 128 different radio channels that we could use if we needed.

It's just wild and books for this.

Stuff to be able to look through.

And so like say if you're talking to fire rescue out of the forest Service, but they need the fire department, the Valley.

Like you're could be on the radio and know you have like all their frequencies and everything.

Yeah.

With a click of a button you would switch.

So like you get a fire call that comes in, you'd be able to open mic on the fire channel, say what you need to say and then at the same time you might be hearing an officer run a traffic stop.

So you'd switch over and say go ahead with your location and you go ahead and throw their location in.

While you're managing whatever's going on the fire channel.

It's all happening at the same time.

I'm trying to process this, like how that when you switch a screen, does it show you a completely different look or you just.

Is it just names like I want.

I guess I have to see this because.

Yeah.

So the radio itself would have.

It has like a bunch of buttons and it's all on a computer screen.

So you would.

It would be set up, you know, everybody's were set up the same.

You would have, you know, your main channel that law enforcement would all use.

The police department, the sheriff's department both operated on the same main channel.

We had a couple backups that we could kick people to if we had like an emergent call and they needed that channel for safety reasons or something.

So you would have backup channels.

And they're all kind of situated, I thought very.

In a very organized manner.

So it was easy to get to all of them.

You would choose which channel's your priority.

So.

So if you had something crazy happening with the fire service and you needed that channel only in your ear and you could cut like law enforcement radios over to a different dispatcher.

They would have that law enforcement channel in their ear and that would be their priority.

But then at the same time, you've also got a speaker in front of you where you're hearing all of the radio traffic from every other channel.

And I'm talking search and rescue.

I'm talking highway patrol channels.

I'm talking.

How do you process this?

This might sound pretty cold, but you're.

You're either made for it or you're not 100.

Doing that isn't something that you can learn.

It's a.

So it's a skill set you have.

That's why I'm sitting here and you're telling.

I'm.

I'm trying to wreck.

I love figuring out processes and, like, how to streamline things.

And that's.

I think a lot of this comes down to, like, wanting to have this conversation is because I have.

That's one thing I cannot.

Like, I couldn't sit there and figure out, okay, how do we streamline that?

This is.

There's so much chaos because you're talking to so many different people.

You can have a cop chasing a dude.

You could have a fire rescue lifting a body out of a canyon.

You could have a flipped car in a field that the firefighter.

And you're talking to all these people.

All while 911 calls are ringing.

And on top of the old lady that slipped and fell and the drunk dude downtown almost got hit by a car.

And you're dispatching police so that the.

Woman who's calling because her neighbor's dog barked Even though it's 8pm and you can't do anything about it yet because it's not against ordinance.

Okay.

All of it, same time.

Has anybody ever called in to 911 and you picked it up and you were just like, immediately.

No, they frowned on that.

But yes, I did that.

Yes.

I'm too busy for this.

Okay.

I'm glad you're honest.

Because I feel like anybody.

If you didn't.

If you said no.

I took everyone to say, I'm sure there was a point where you had a million.

And someone's like, my cat's in it.

You're like, shut it.

Not today.

Okay.

You remember what that call was or.

No.

I bet it happened a lot.

Really?

It happened a lot.

People call 911 for the dumbest.

Like, what?

They want to know if roads are open.

They're calling 91 1.

They called 911 old people.

No, not necessarily.

It's all.

All over.

I feel like That's a grandparent.

Is Highway 22 open?

You have online resources to look this up.

You literally called me on the phone that has Internet and it took you longer.

Sometimes if we were in a good mood, we would, we would entertain them and be like, listen, you can't call the 91 1-line for this.

You need to call our non emergency line.

You know, and we'd have the slow conversation with them and talk to them.

Other times we'd say, you need to call the non emergent line for this.

And we'd hang up.

Good for you.

And if it was busy, we'd say, this is a 911 line.

It's not appropriate for you to call this line for that information.

Clicked how?

Okay, so how often are people calling in for non emergencies?

All the time.

And you know, playing devil's advocate here, some people think that's an emergency.

It's an emergency to them.

They need to get home because their dog needs let out.

They need to get home because their kid just got off school.

Where are they?

They need that, you know.

So in Jack Tdon Pass is a 2000 foot, like.

Yeah.

It separates the Wyoming Idaho line.

On the other side is like Victor, Idaho.

A lot of people commute because they can't afford to live in Jackson.

So that road closes down a lot in the winter.

You can't see anything.

It's unsafe to plow.

They can't even get the plow drivers up there.

It's too slick.

And there's already crashes all over the place.

And it's just not safe to send anybody else up there.

So they'd shut it down.

It's shut down all the time.

And these people who are.

They're essentially locals, right.

They live over in Idaho, but they work in Jackson and they would call 911 all the time.

Is the pass open?

You're like, you know where to find this information?

That's gotta drive you nuts.

It was.

It'd be like, oh, roads closed.

And then shortly, immediately lines just start ringing.

Have you ever had anybody call in the 911 just to have a conversation?

Yeah, but usually it's not people who are mentally right.

Okay, so how do you approach that situation?

Kind of depends.

Depends on what they're saying, depends on how they sound.

You might entertain the conversation and just talk to them.

You might try to figure out their location and send an officer there to try to do a welfare check, kind of see what's going on with them.

See if it's.

See if it's BS or see if it's, you know, real.

See if it's harmless or if we have a problem here.

There's a couple different ways.

It all depends.

I feel like you.

You have to play that one softly, because if you just blow that person off, they could be, like, sitting on a bridge somewhere, right?

Correct.

I mean, is that how you're taking.

You can't let anything go in dispatch.

You can't.

You can't assume anything.

Oh, okay.

And you always assume that you're never getting the full picture.

Have you ever taken a call where somebody was being super vague and you could pick up on it, but that, like, you knew something was wrong and kind of fished?

I mean, it's not talking like nobody.

Ever called and asked for pizza, if that's what you're asking.

Well, I'm not talking like a hostage situation or there's somebody that's in, like, a scary or, like a.

An intense situation, but they can't tell what's really going on.

I mean, have you ever had anybody called it, like, kind of leave clues in a way?

Not really that I remember in that way.

I mean, the story that really comes to mind is there was a young boy that called.

He.

He wasn't answering my questions, but I could hear screaming in the background.

And I tried warming, like, getting him to warm up to me.

Like, you called me, my friend, like, let's have a conversation, you know?

It took me a little while to work him to the point where he actually told me, my dad is beating my mom up.

So he had called 911 because his mom was getting the shit beat out of her.

And that's what I was hearing in the background.

Once I finally figured that out, I tried asking him, what's your.

What's your address?

Where are you at?

And he couldn't tell me.

It was dark.

I mean, you've got.

You've got systems where you can kind of triangulate where they are.

He wasn't calling from a house phone.

He was calling from a cell phone.

So we didn't have an address tied to that.

So I was able to pin it down to a neighborhood.

And then I got officers in the area, and I asked him, I said, do you have any way to turn your light on and off?

And he was like, yeah.

And I had him do that.

And they were like, got him.

Cops went to the door immediately.

They were sitting right outside of the house, and they saw the light.

We were able to, you know, get confirmation.

They went up to the door.

They heard the woman screaming, they broke in and they arrested the guy.

What does that feel like?

Great.

I cried.

Damn.

Good for you.

Yep.

Like, that's what I'm talking about.

How does.

How does your mind process along with everything else that you've dealt with that day, to be able to walk the cops onto a kid?

That's.

It was cool, 100%.

It's got to feel incredible.

You know, it's.

It wasn't.

It's not about me for sure.

It's not my story for sure.

It's their story.

And I helped.

They called for help and I helped.

But it's a huge.

That kid will probably be.

I mean, it'd be cool if you ever got to meet the kid.

And I know, but that's something he'll remember his whole entire life, that horrible moment.

But you were able to walk that on?

Yep.

Damn.

Has there ever been a point where you had to triangulate, like, somebody that was on the phone and you could hear other things going on in the background?

I mean, how often does that happen, that people call and you could.

You're more listening than.

Than asking.

A fair amount.

Jackson has a lot of the.

A lot of the outdoors stuff happen.

You know, like you've got your hikers with the broken legs.

They don't know what trail they're on or exactly where they are.

And.

Okay, you know, how do you send people in the backcountry if you don't know where they're going for sure?

You know, as far as being able to hear in the background, I mean, every 911 hang up call is what we call them.

You'd always listen and see if it was a real call.

Somebody dialed 911 because they're in danger or if it's legit.

Somebody's phone in the back of their pocket and it accidentally dialed 91 1.

How often does that happen?

All the time.

You just listen to the conversations?

Yep.

How?

Well, okay, so sometimes they're funny.

So how long do you listen to a conversation before just hang knowing that it's.

It is a butt dial?

Is there a certain set protocol for that or is that your judgment?

It's judgment call.

You just got to listen, see if you hear anything.

If you don't, you hang up and you call that number back and hope that they answer.

That way you can verify they're okay.

Okay.

And inactive phones, phones that don't necessarily have service to them, even if they have a battery in them and they have battery life, they can still call 911 and a lot of people don't know that.

So they give their phones to their kid because they're like, oh, well, I don't have that hooked up to a service.

They can't call anybody.

They can still call 91 1.

So you'll hear kids on the other.

Line laughing and partying and just being kids.

And you're sitting there like, oh.

You're like, okay.

So I mean, it's fine as long as nothing else is going on.

But how often is that okay?

On a.

On a day shift?

I get not a day shift.

On just a shift.

As a 911 operator, what is your average calls like that you're receiving in.

Depending on the season?

Okay.

You know, we'd have the off season where you'd work a graveyard shift and the phone might ring twice.

And that was because Grand Teton dispatch was telling us they were signing off and then logging back on.

Like, that would be the night dead or the dead.

So slow.

Yeah, those are brutal.

Drag.

You'd have the other times where the phone just wouldn't stop.

And you get.

I mean, you get a big call.

You can get, I don't know, 30, 40, 50911 calls simultaneously if it's big enough, there's enough people around and they all hit it once.

Oh, yeah, Parades.

I mean, any.

Any town event.

Okay.

Do you see an influx in full moons?

Yes.

That's a thing.

Yep.

And freaky.

3:15.

The phone rings at 3:15 in the morning.

It's not going to be a good call.

It's gonna be bad.

It'll make a story.

It'll be bad.

Do you have a 315 story?

Yeah, I wasn't.

I wasn't working for this one.

Okay.

This is probably the worst one.

I was laying.

My pager went off because I was a nerd, right?

So I was working in dispatch at the time.

But this was like a night that I had off and I had my pager on and I hear the tones go off for two of the stations out on the West Bank.

And I was like, okay, well, this is big.

We're next.

Because we were always third station no matter where the call hit the county.

So I started listening in.

It was a.

It was a car accident where a couple of kids had gone through an intersection and rolled their car.

And they were pinned and they were drunk.

And it was the radio transmissions that the dispatcher was putting out made everybody who was listening cry because she was.

She did a phenomenal job, but she was talking to this kid until his Last breath.

And she was putting.

She was relaying some of this information to responders because as they were looking for them, they couldn't find the car because these kids didn't know where they were.

We knew the general area, but they keep on saying we.

It was nighttime.

They keep on saying, we see flashing lights.

We see flashing lights.

And she'd be like, turn around, they see your lights.

Turn around, they see your lights.

I need you guys to get there faster.

He's going downhill, you know, stuff like that.

So that was pretty.

That was a freaky 3:15 call.

As a 911 operator, what would you tell parents of teenage drivers?

There's something that we should be like, do you see a common occurrence in teenagers, young drivers?

I mean, you hear it all.

So as a dad, what would be something that as a 911 operator, you'd be like, hey, you should with your kids.

I think it's just teach them about the consequences, you know, I think a lot of young people, they don't.

They don't know that they're not exposed to that.

So what's, what's the consequence if you look down at your cell phone and you end up rear ending the vehicle in front of you.

You got to think of that.

That's why we tell you, don't be on your phone.

I think big thing is kids need to know how to drive in every single road condition out there.

Sun, rain, snow, ice, wind, all of it.

And also look for, like, anticipate what other drivers are doing.

Be defensive.

Defensive driving is what's going to keep you safe.

You see and you hear a lot of it.

You were involved in a 911 call that involved the person, two people that you knew in a helicopter crash.

Pretty big deal when a rescue bird goes down.

Yes.

Can you walk us through that story?

Yeah.

Okay, let's hear this.

Yeah.

So bluebird day in February.

Floor.

We get a 911 call up on Togady for snowmobiler who needed.

I think he.

It was a heart attack was how the call initially had come in.

He'd had a heart attack and hit a tree.

So based on the weather, it was far better to send a helicopter up there.

Okay.

As opposed to ground, because it was going to take well over an hour to get an ambulance up there, whereas a helicopter, we could have them up there in, you know, 20 minutes or so.

So helicopter, they organize, they tell us who's on board.

And I know two of them, and then I know the pilot, and then I know the paramedic on board.

And then they had also had a search and rescue member on board.

So they head out, and we have a system called aff.

Air flight.

Air Flight follower.

Okay, where you could follow them.

So you got their tail number in there.

You can see where they are.

You can track them.

It'll update.

It'll give you color codes for, you know, good contact, bad contact, that sort of thing.

So they're heading up there, and we're just kind of doing our thing.

And they say, hey, we think that we see the party, we're gonna go ahead and touch down.

I was like, okay.

So they touch down, and then the next thing I know, I get bad feeling.

And I'm like, this is weird, you know?

And I kind of push it aside.

I'm like, everything's fine.

This is weird.

It's just a weird gut feeling.

It's just a weird gut feeling.

And I end up, you know, a couple minutes goes by, and I end up pulling up the AFF system.

And I was like, they're not there.

I was like, I don't like this.

So I tell my co worker, I said, you need to call search Rescue.

Tell them to get a ground crew, a ground crew moving.

I was like, I don't know what's going on, but I don't like this.

I don't see them.

We.

We need to get people headed up regardless.

I was like, they're an hour, hour and a half out.

Get them on the road.

She's like, based on what?

I was like, I don't know, but you need to do this.

So she calls him.

As she is on the phone with them, 911 rings.

And because she's on the phone, it automatically reverted to me.

So I pick up the 91 1.

This guy goes, hey, yeah, I think your helicopter just crashed.

And my world froze.

That's how this dude.

That's how it went.

It's exactly what he said.

And I got this feeling in my chest.

I was like, okay, this is what I do.

I got this, right?

So I said, how do you know it crashed?

Hoping he was wrong.

And he was like, well, it disappeared behind the ridge.

And I said, did it go into a tailspin?

Did you hear the engine wind down?

Did you hear it immediately stop?

Like, give me more details.

What are we up against here?

And he was like, I don't know.

I just.

I think he.

I think he crashed.

He kind of whipped to the side.

I think he crashed, said.

Got it.

So immediately I start.

I sound the alarm.

So I.

Our supervisor at the time, her previous experience, she was a air traffic controller at the airport.

So I text her.

She'd been in a meeting.

I said, sar heli just went down.

And she said, be right there.

So at this time, I'm trying to figure out, okay, how do I find them?

Where did the helicopter crash?

Who am I sending?

How do I get them there?

Obviously, I need search and rescue.

I need those guys to go in on snowmobiles.

You know, do I need ambulances right now?

Did they survive?

There's no.

What am I going to do about the snowmobiler now?

There's no mayday call.

Anything?

Nothing.

All radio silence.

And I don't have them on my system.

Like, I don't have them in their flight.

Just off.

They're all.

They're off the grid right now.

Gone, Just gone.

So now you have to try to find where the.

So, you know, do you know where the rescue party was or the.

The victim?

Right.

So are you sending people just in grids to that direction?

Well, we had a long time before we even got to that point.

We needed people to head north, and then we could figure that out.

The most important part was to get people going.

Yeah.

Details to come.

Okay.

You know, happen a lot out there because of the.

Just how large of a vast area that they're covering.

You just.

You start heading people out.

Yeah.

You got a bare minimum that you'll send out.

And then as you get more details, you start, you know, building onto that response.

So a little bit of time goes by, and still nothing.

I don't have their location.

We've got people still heading north.

Nobody's really up there yet.

We know their last location because they had told me where they were touching down, but I have no idea how far they went from there.

You know, I don't know what ridge they went over.

That guy, he was visiting, he couldn't tell me if it was north, south, east, west, nothing.

So we had basically a focal point, and from there, it was anybody's guest.

So we ended up getting.

I think that we had seven total fixed wings and other helicopters that ended up being in the area that could respond and help.

Look, nobody could see anything.

There was no wreckage.

There was no sign.

Nobody could tell.

There was no broken trees.

There was.

There was nothing.

Nobody could see anything.

Gone.

Gone.

So then I get a mayday call over the radio, and I said, I copy her.

Mayday.

What is your location?

Most important thing, what is your location?

And he came back and he said, I don't have my coordinates.

And I said, we're looking for you.

Do you see any planes or helicopters overhead?

And I tried, you know, I tried getting something.

He was like, well, somebody just flew over.

And this kind of goes back and forth for a very long time.

So what's a very long time?

It was hours.

It was.

It was dark.

It was just about dark before we had the first person over to our guys.

And what time did this start?

Oh, I want to say around 10am if memory serves me right, Grant, it's.

Winter time, so the sun's setting a little earlier.

So.

Yeah, since that's around 4.

So it's a long day.

It was a long day.

And nobody's eyes on this crashbird yet?

Nope.

Really?

So where they had crashed, it was in a group of trees, and the trees completely covered them.

They had gone through the trees.

The wreckage was right underneath the trees.

Nobody from overhead could see them.

No smoke.

Nothing.

Nothing.

There's nothing.

Damn, I felt so helpless.

And you're on for this whole entire shift.

This is what you're dealing with.

How many hours?

I think I ended up working 14 that day.

And then from there I went straight to the firehouse because we had a briefing.

One of the guys on the paramedic that was on was obviously on the fire department.

So everybody at the fire department came by for a briefing later that evening.

But how did they end up finding them?

We had.

So Toga Mountain Lodge has some fantastic guides that help any time it's asked.

They knew the situation.

They threw some guides out there.

And then randomly, one of our firefighters, who's also a nerd, he carried a radio with him, and he started seeing the planes flying.

He was out riding up there by himself, just on his own.

He.

He saw the planes, turned on his radio and sat there for a while, and then heard the radio transmission and figured it out that we had a helicopter down.

So he was like, I'm gonna find him.

And he did what?

It was in the dark.

He rolls up, he started circling, like, kind of the area that they were in.

He was able to, like, see where the planes are, listen to the radio traffic, see planes are listening to radio traffic, ended up finding him.

And as he rolled up, he looked at the paramedic that we had up there, and he was like, hey, what do you guys need?

Like, and he was just this, you know, he's the guy like, you want on a bad day because he's.

He's smart.

He always, you know, he never loses his shit.

He was resourceful like in the back country.

He's probably the biggest blessing you could ever clearly.

Yeah.

So he found him.

He rolled up and was like, what do you guys need?

So after that, he got them set up with a fire, started getting them warmed up and everything like that.

By this time, the search and rescue member had already died.

So he was helping the other two and trying to get them warm.

And he said, now I know where you guys are.

There's other people, like, looking for you.

I'm gonna go get them.

And he got them, ended up bringing everybody in.

The pilot ended up flying to the hospital in another helicopter in true pilot form.

And the paramedic refused again.

Another helicopter, and he rode back to the hospital in an ambulance that my mom was on.

Interesting.

With the other guy, end up passing from.

What did he get?

Crushed?

Internal injuries.

Yeah.

It was a hard hit.

He was alive.

And the paramedic stayed back, tried to save him, gave him fluids, did what.

He could, but never ended up making.

Huh.

Did you know him?

I did not know the search rescue member, the pilot.

I knew the pilot.

I knew the paramedic.

I carried a lot of guilt a long time because when I heard that it wasn't one of the two people I knew, I was like, oh, thank God.

Even though I was still upset that somebody died, that.

So I felt guilty.

Yeah.

At the same time, I feel it's human nature to be, you know, you hear your buddy.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

Like, my buddy's good because you just.

We don't have that personal connection to somebody.

But I get what you're saying for sure.

I mean, but at the same time, like, those that you're connected with these two guys, I'm sure you've been on hours on the radio with them and can pick their voice out of a thousand people type of deal.

So I grew up flying in helicopters with that pilot.

He'd go on test runs, and him and my mom were good friends, so we got to go with him.

What ended up going wrong with the bird?

I never really read the report.

By the time it had come out and the investigation was over, I was like, I'm not there.

And then I just haven't ever gone back to read it.

But essentially, it went into a violent tailspin.

I think it was something to do with the rear rotor went into a violent tail.

Violent tailspin.

Ended up going down into some trees.

Ultimately, it's possible that going through the trees ended up saving.

Oh, buffered some.

The two.

Some impact speed, I would imagine.

Yep.

I couldn't imagine crap.

I lost a buddy in a helicopter crash.

He was one of the most talented pilots I think I've ever, ever experienced my life.

He got his pilot's license, like, 16 or 17.

He's flying birds.

Used to do big ranches and everything out on Texas and push cattle.

And, man, like, he.

He ended up, unfortunately, losing his life in a helicopter.

But, I mean, the guy went out doing exactly what he loved, so.

Yeah, but the impact.

People don't realize just that.

And then these guys are strapped in.

That's where a lot of internal injuries.

And correct me if I'm wrong, I'm sure the guys get tore up from the seat belts and stuff by getting whiplash, like, tossed around.

I've had.

We've had some vets that I've talked to that were strapped in, like, offspray crashes and things like that.

And the seat belts actually, like, just this.

Harnesses just destroy their insides because they're just ripped and flopped around as things are rolling and.

Yeah, Damn, that's a tough deal.

It was a bad one.

It took a long time for everything to kind of feel normal again.

That's one of those ones that hits a community.

Yes.

It's not just everybody knows when all you got to say is the helicopter crash and everybody knows.

Big deal.

I had the honors of doing the last call at the search and rescue members funeral.

How does that go down?

You just say their call number over the radio, and with no answer at the end of that, you know, you say end of watch.

How do you hold yourself together doing that?

I don't know how I did it.

I don't know how I composed myself to do it.

My voice didn't crack nothing.

It was.

It was.

That was surreal.

That'd be pretty tough to do.

Did you volunteer or they asked you to do that?

They asked.

They said you worked this call.

Do you want to do this?

Absolutely.

Is that a normal thing?

Is that kind of like.

Not.

I don't want to say pro.

Is that like, tradition in a way, for if something goes like that, they give that to the dispatch?

I think so, yeah.

Interesting.

What's the hardest part about being a dispatch operator?

Probably shutting.

Shutting your mind off from the last call and starting the new one with an open mind.

You can't carry that emotion from call to call.

So it doesn't matter how bad that last call was.

Whatever the next person's calling about, it has to be a fresh slate.

You have to treat them like they're number one.

It doesn't matter how their, you know, issue compares to the previous one.

That's probably the hardest thing because people would call in, you know, they'd be bitching and complaining about, I don't even know what, neighbor's dog barking, the road's not open.

And meantime you're dealing with, you know, I just got off the phone with somebody who just died, like on the phone, you know, and you can't, you can't take what they have personally and you can't take your emotions out on them.

That's probably the hardest part.

You got to compartmentalize it and then you got to find a way very quick, and then you got to find a way to get through those emotions when the time's appropriate.

So as what.

What is your.

What would be the technical tile?

Is a dispatch operator, 911 dispatch up?

I mean, what's your.

What did you go by?

I hear it.

I always said I'm a dispatcher.

Okay, dispatcher.

Sometimes when I say that, people are like, oh, so like trucks.

And I'm like, OK, 911 dispatcher.

So I don't know nobody.

There's really like, there's so many different titles, I guess, for that, I guess where you work.

But so as a 911 dispatch operator, you're dealing with the worst day that that person has ever dealt with in their life.

Usually.

How do you compartmentalize that and not bring it home?

I think sometimes it just doesn't, it just doesn't hit.

It's, you know, you're like, wow, they had a bad day and you go home and it's fine.

You don't think about it ever again.

Other times you're, you're going to take it home.

I mean, there's still calls I live with, there's still calls I have nightmares about to this day, and I've been out of it for 15 years.

Would you talk about any of those 10 years?

Oh, the helicopter crash is one.

Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure.

That's one of them.

Another one we've already discussed is the car accident victim.

That one still really bothers me.

I can't explain it.

I mean, I, I've had other car accidents where they were horrible and no bad thoughts.

Like.

Do you think that's normal?

Yeah.

For your breed of people, I would say 100%.

I would say out of a thousand people, I would love to know the statistic that would be mentally tough enough to be able to handle being a.

911 operator emotionally, skill set wise, how.

Do you take that as a woman, because the wife's up here now as a woman being very emotional and I'm not there.

I'm not judging where all the women attack me.

Women are known to be a little bit more of emotional.

How do you turn that off?

How do you.

Like, as a woman, you want to nurture and love and try to help, Then you're.

You just.

That call ends and that's it.

And you just go to the next one.

How does that not eat it?

You just call after call after call.

I mean, I don't know if I have an answer for that.

That's what I find fascinating.

Like how.

I think it's just.

I mean, for me specifically, like I said, it wasn't about me.

Like, how.

How can I help you?

Yeah.

What is your situation and how are we gonna get through this?

How do I make your day better?

I feel so you.

I'm not saying.

You're not saying it, but because a big question at the audience, a lot of them, what's the mental toll on 911 dispatch operators?

Like, horrible.

It's draining.

And it makes you.

It makes you lose trust in humanity.

You hear about some of the bad things that people do to each other.

You hear it firsthand.

You know, you're not hearing the after story.

You're hearing it on the phone, like the woman who is getting beat up.

You're listening to the screaming and you're like, I'm not gonna be that woman.

I will never let that happen.

You know, And I know that I put a guard up.

I put a really big guard up.

There's a lot of people that maybe I should have entertained or talked to or, you know, open up to, but didn't just because that I didn't trust them.

And it wasn't their fault.

It was probably related to something that I had heard or seen.

And I was just like, not today.

So in a way, I kind of turned into a little bit of a recluse.

I do a lot of solo.

I did a lot of solo hiking with my dog, trail running, stuff like that.

And that was kind of my.

How I would refresh and I'd feel okay after that recharge, process everything.

So by hearing the negatives and just the evil of.

With a lot of that that comes with it, that really pushed you away from just having like a social life because you just.

You're just dealing with the negative all day.

Absolutely.

And you're also under the microscope a little bit.

You can't associate with people that do drugs so weed is illegal.

You can't hang out with anybody who does weed.

You can't, you know, because if you get caught and you're in the vicinity of them doing weed, you're under investigation.

No.

See, stuff like that.

So there are definitely some people where I was like, I can't hang out with them that setting because if anybody finds out, I'm gonna get in trouble.

So you kind of segregate yourself.

And I do think that that's how it was a little bit easier being on the fire department because I was working 24 7.

I was working whether I was getting paid for it or not.

I'd run a 12 hour shift in dispatch, and then I'd go run a 12 hour shift on ambulance.

God bless.

Like, over and over and over.

That didn't wear on you?

I was obsessed.

I mean, I didn't think it did.

At the time, at least.

Yeah.

Mm.

It was a young.

It was a young kid's sport.

I couldn't do that now.

Oh, for sure.

God.

Was there ever a call that you broke character on?

Oh, probably, Man.

We'd try not to.

I mean, I kind of go back to the helicopter crash.

I. I was crying behind the scenes.

I never let it sound in my voice, but, you know that I felt like I never wanted to be that person that would, you know, break emotionally, break at work.

Like, I could always hold my composure until after everything was over.

No one ever.

No.

No call ever broke you?

Except for the helicopter.

I mean, probably.

That was.

That was the worst.

I got a bunch of questions.

I want to make sure we get through these because there's some good ones.

What's the most frustrating part about being powerless behind a mic and trying to help somebody?

Yeah, I think it sucks when you can't trust the responders that you're sending in.

So if you know who's going and you're like, man, they're not the ones who deal with psych patients very well, you know, and you're like, I could do that better.

Or, you know, like, I know that I could talk to them, that sort of thing.

It did make me feel like I was.

I was in a cage because I couldn't do more.

Okay.

Kind of stuff like that.

So you knew, depending on the call, what law enforcement officer would probably be able to handle it better.

You find out people's strengths, their weaknesses.

I mean, you talk to them on a personal level.

So you're like, they don't like these.

Like, they don't like these calls, but they're the only person I have to send to this.

Like, this is not, you know, the best possible answer here.

Yeah, I keep going back to the helicopter crash, but I snowmobile, a backcountry snowmobile.

And I felt hopeless.

I. I could have gone up there.

I could have looked.

I could have found him.

I could have helped find him.

You know, I could have done that.

I had the sled for it.

I had the gear.

I could have done that.

And I, I was stuck sitting behind a desk hoping that somebody else would find him while I sat there and listening to people going, we don't see him.

We don't see him for hours.

And I knew time was ticking.

That was a pretty helpless feeling I could imagine.

And then you're just waiting and waiting and waiting.

What's something about being a 911 dispatch operator that the civilian demographic just has no idea that goes on?

I think a lot of people get.

They, they think that their call is the only call happening right now.

Okay?

So instead of allowing the dispatcher to ask the appropriate questions and giving answers to only those questions, people kind of, you know, they'll go on a tangent or, you know, they'll tell their story how they think it needs to be heard.

Whereas the dispatcher, they've got a series of questions because they need to be efficient, they need to get this done now.

They need to get the right help on the way, and they need to move on to the next one because they probably have somebody on hold or they've got another line ringing and they need to find out how bad that emergency is.

So if I'm going to call 911 no matter what.

I know every circumstance is different, every emergency is different.

But as for people that are about to call 91 1, what should they know?

Give your location first.

First thing out of their mouth.

Anything.

Give your location, if anything.

Because if your, if your cell phone dies, if the line gets disconnected for some reason, if you know, whatever other circumstances, all of a sudden you can't talk.

I don't know a scenario, but they know where you are.

They can send somebody.

Even if you're needing an ambulance, they send you a cop.

The cop's gonna get there and say, we need an ambulance.

Always give you a location first.

They're gonna ask for a callback number.

If you get a call back, answer the phone.

Otherwise, we are thinking worst case scenario.

Oh, my God, they didn't pick up.

They died.

Pick up the phone.

Even if it was an accidental 911 call, just pick up the Phone, tell them you're okay.

So nobody has to worry.

That's all dispatchers do.

They worry.

They worry about boots on the ground.

They worry about what's going on with every citizen that calls.

They're putting these situations above everything else in their life.

Oh, for sure.

Their families, they're in the background.

You know, they're missing.

They're missing their kids.

Recitals and soccer games and practices and parent teacher conferences so that they can sit in that seat and try to make that community better and safer.

Yeah.

There.

Nobody thinks about it, but like, the dispatch is the heart of law enforcement community.

Mm.

All of it.

Fire, ems, search and rescue.

Nobody talks.

Nobody talks about you guys.

Unsung heroes.

Right.

To be honest, most of people don't want the recognition for sure.

That's why they choose that your breed.

Of individuals that are.

That are plucked from the crowd to be able to do that.

I would say they're probably the last person that ever want any recognition.

You're just.

You're just built mentally off just enough to be able to handle what you guys are processing on a day to day.

Yeah.

Have you ever taken a call when you hung up and you're like, there's no way that just happened.

Have you ever had any of those where you sat back and like, what did I just listen to?

You got some of the.

The people are a little bit off their rocker that would call in and they'd go on a tangent.

I really wish that I could remember some of the stuff that we heard because you'd just be like, was that.

Did they mean that?

Was that real?

How they come up with that?

I'm sure it's so hard for you.

And these, some of these questions that I'm asking you, because there's so.

It's not like you're like, oh, we dealt with a couple calls a week.

Like you, you're dealing with call after call after call.

Okay, so since there's been thousands of calls, besides the helicopter, the car crash, is there a call that stands out to you?

There's the call that ultimately ended my career with 9:1 dispatch.

Okay, I'll kind of start a backup a little bit.

I had gotten to a point where I was a trainer in the dispatch center and I was training a new person who I didn't think he was cut to be a dispatcher.

He wasn't ready yet.

He had the heart.

Um, he absolutely.

He just, he needed more training before I felt he could be cut loose.

Um, and I ended up getting strong, armed releasing Him.

There were two other.

So basically when the training program, you've got three different trainers.

All three trainers have to sign off.

The other two trainers had signed off.

And I said, he's not ready.

This is going to hurt him.

This is going to hurt us.

He's not ready.

And the supervisor said, you're the only person holding us back.

I need him because we're short staffed.

Release him.

And we went back and forth for a very long time.

Finally I gave up.

I said, fine.

I ended up releasing him.

His, his first shift was with me, which I was like, well, okay, I guess we've got that.

Because I'm.

I was a very strong dispatcher.

I was like, at least I can handle it if you know, something happens.

And, and it happened.

All hell broke loose.

Every 911 ring, like 911 line cut started ringing.

When the 911 lines get maxed out, the phones roll over to our admin line and there's an unlimited amount of admin lines that can ring.

So the second you're hanging up, phone.

System is just stacked call after call after call after call.

And he's not giving me any information.

In the dispatch center, the rules were split up.

You'd have somebody on phones, somebody on radios, typically that was your priority.

He was on phones that night.

I was on radios and he wasn't giving me any information.

I knew it was big because every, you know, everything was lit up.

Was this all one incident?

Everyone's just calling in for it.

Okay, so I pick up a line and I'm told somebody just ran over a guy like, okay, where are you at?

So I get the location and I end up dispatching an ambulance.

I ended up sending a second ambulance.

The way that I put it out, over.

We needed firefighter, fire response, we needed cops to go.

So we had sheriff's department and route.

We had police department and route.

We had an engine as well as a rescue truck.

The rescue truck carried all the extrication equipment.

And he has not called any of this out.

He wasn't giving me any of this information.

Much time had elapsed before you figure this out.

Oh, I was on it in about 30 seconds.

Okay.

I was saying, he's not giving me anything.

Sweet as.

Froze.

He just froze.

So I got all the information, I dispatched it out.

Ultimately what had happened was a man was walking the street on a very busy five lane highway and ended up getting hit by a car.

He went over the top of that vehicle, he got ran over by a second vehicle and then ran over by a third vehicle.

The vehicle that initially hit him, he hit the windshield.

And they had like a six year old in that car that saw his face hit the windshield.

That mom was the 911 call I picked up.

She was hysterical.

I was able.

I had.

I couldn't let go of the phone call because she was hysterical.

So I had to keep her on the line.

I had to dispatch medics, I had to dispatch fire, I dispatched officers, all while keeping her on the line, switching back and forth, picking up other 911 calls, because you can't assume it's all the same call.

So we had to get through every single phone call, incoming phone call, just to make sure everybody was calling about the same incident.

So what's he doing?

He was frozen.

He didn't do anything.

So now you're running radios and phones.

Correct.

So that kind of.

Everything kind of calms down and law enforcement gives us the id.

They were able to find ID on him.

He was.

He was dead.

And it ended up being somebody I knew.

Damn.

So hear that?

I ended up leaving that shift and I was like, I knew it.

And I got home and I stared at the wall.

I got done at 9pm that night, stared the wall.

The next time I looked at the clock, it was 4am I hadn't blinked, I hadn't moved, I didn't eat.

I. I literally.

I sat on the couch and I stared at the wall.

And that morning I was like, this one did me in.

I was like, I'm not okay.

I am not okay.

So I tried kind of working through it.

I had a couple days off, so I was like, going to go for a hike.

I'm going to go for a run.

You know, I'm going to try to clear my mind.

But I hadn't felt that darkness before.

Okay.

So I ended up.

The next shift that I went on, we got a call for a fire alarm.

And we had protocols for a fire alarm that you sent.

If it was like a commercial fire alarm, you sent a fire engine and a battalion chief, I think was what the protocol was.

And I go to dispatch it out, and I didn't drop the correct tones.

So I had only sent the fire truck.

And I was like, man, I don't make those mistakes.

I was like, I'm not okay.

So I recognized it right then and there.

It ended up not being a big deal in the call.

And I was the one who caught my mistake.

Nobody came to me and said, dude, you up.

Like, I caught my mistake.

I went to my supervisor and I said, I'm not okay.

I need help.

And she was like, okay, we'll get you help.

We'll get this figured out.

And I was like, okay.

So I'm starting to feel good about.

I'm like, I have a support system.

We're okay.

I did the right thing.

I went to my supervisor.

About a week later, she calls me in the office and she goes, okay, so we have a plan for you.

We're gonna put you on probation for coming forward.

And I said, for what?

And she goes, well, you said you can't do the job.

And I got so mad that I walked out.

I slammed the door behind me and I called my mom and I said, I just quit my job.

And she was like, why?

And I was like.

And I told her, and she goes, you can't do that.

She goes, it's a good job.

You love that job.

Like, don't let your emotions get the best of you.

And I was like this.

I was like, I asked for help.

And she wants to.

The terms were she wanted to segregate me.

She wanted.

I was not allowed to have my cell phone while I was on shift.

I was not allowed to have a book to read while I was on shift.

I was not allowed to search the Internet for anything that was not work related.

You're being punished.

I was not allowed to speak with any of the jailers we.

We worked in the building with, like, as the jail.

So jailers would stop in, say hi.

I wasn't allowed to talk to jailers.

I wasn't allowed to talk to the deputies when they stopped by.

Wasn't allowed to talk to cops if they stopped by.

What was the justification?

I never asked.

I was so mad, I just left and I never looked back.

The next day, I got a phone call from the interim chief.

The.

Or interim sheriff.

The sheriff who was the sheriff at the time actually had pneumonia.

He was in icu.

So as an interim sheriff.

And he called me and he said, I know that things didn't go well, but you're really good at what you do.

We want you to stay here.

Will you please reconsider?

And I said, is she still the supervisor of that dispatch center?

And he said, she is.

And I said, then I will not be coming back.

And that was the end of that chapter.

Damn, that sucks.

It really sucks.

I feel that happened.

This is that you're the prime example of why people don't reach out for help.

Why they don't.

Well, they bottle it all inside and end up killing themselves or not.

Making a horrible mistake at work that costs somebody their life or anything along those lines.

You are the example of that.

And I had all those thoughts, you know, I thought I was going to be the 20, 30 year dispatcher.

I loved that job.

Loved it.

Lived.

I lived that job.

What kept you coming back while I was there?

While you were there?

What, what was it?

I mean, you're, as a dispatch operator, you're literally dealing with everybody's worst day of their life.

What drove you back and what kept you coming back every single day to pick that phone up?

I was very proud that I had the skill set to do what I could do.

Okay.

I was proud of that.

Yeah.

In addition to.

I felt that I had enough strength emotionally to handle the weight, to bear it, to be able to, you know, to just help.

It sounds so cliche, but it was.

It was.

It was so great to help make somebody shitty day a little bit better.

Get them what they needed.

Yeah.

Get them to the hospital.

You know, I know.

I know that I did a lot of good.

I know that I helped a lot of people, and I'm okay with that.

That's got to be really frustrating, especially how deep you were into with your family, growing up your whole entire life.

And then you found a job you love and then you speak up as a family first responder.

Right.

I mean, you guys are.

There's no difference.

You guys have a huge role in the whole entire community.

Then you finally say something and you get canned.

Not canned for it, but ended up leaving.

You got punished.

And I think the most frustrating part was I tried to tell them he wasn't ready.

And I was the one who got stuck on the call that he froze on.

And then ultimately, you know, that snowballed into me being like, we're not doing this anymore.

There were some great people that work there.

You know, I don't want anybody to think that I have any ill. Oh, for sure.

Meaning towards that department or anything like that.

But there are a couple people who at the time were not great and I believe have since moved on as well.

So.

The bad ones always get weeded out.

Oh, they do.

It just kind of sucks that I wasn't strong enough at that time to hold myself through it.

And I wasn't.

I literally chose life over job at that point.

You should.

I needed to go get healthy and obviously that wasn't going to happen if I stayed there because I didn't have the support system I thought I had.

Yeah, that's got to be a.

That's Got to get super frustrating.

Yeah.

If you could change one thing about the dispatch job community, what would it be?

If you had all the power in the world to do so what was something that you would change about it?

I would say better.

Better training.

How so?

I think it's like a two week post academy class that you have to get to to get your dispatcher basic training.

That needs to be longer.

I think it needs to be more focused on what people are doing.

I think it needs to be more involved so that people, people need to be trained to anticipate what is needed in the field and know what's going on out there as opposed to sitting back and waiting for somebody to say where's my backup?

But does that, I mean, how do you teach somebody?

I think if people could know what's actually going on, I mean, I had a leg up.

I knew, I knew what was happening in the field because I worked closely with the officers.

When I was running on ems, I, you know, was the boots on the ground putting out fires.

So I could, I could almost foresee what they needed.

And I would have it in route or I would, I would get on the radio and say, hey, you want a rescue headed your way?

And they'd be like, yep, they'd confirm it and I'd be like, cool on the way.

I think if people can see the big picture and then also just put that critical thinking into play, I do think that that's a skill that can be taught and I wish that that's something that they could integrate in all training in every 911 dispatch center.

Yeah, that's why I was asking in the beginning because I'm trying to figure out how do you learn to talk somebody off allege.

How do you deal with a child that's watching their dad beat the out of their mom because he's drunk again, like there's, there's so many sin you have.

You have to deal with every scenario, literally.

I mean, so do cops and firefighters back to back.

But you're dealing with it and you have to like process it without seeing and being there and being able to be hands on.

That's.

It's got to be one of the craziest jobs.

I think it is.

And you have to be a little.

I feel a little crazy to do it.

My mind wanted to go to crazy, but it was, I almost want to say like savant level because of being able to process everything.

Like I watch my wife do some of the most incredible when she's building.

She just Being a mom running businesses and answering calls and juggling all my stupid.

Like, there's.

I watch her.

I'm like, I couldn't last a day in a shoe.

How it all stays straight.

But then the fact that like.

Like the ultimate is a dispatch operator where you're just.

I mean, I just.

I can't.

Normally.

I could sit across from somebody and have a conversation and be like, man, this is.

This would be great.

And I could see how it functions.

There's no way.

I cannot process how.

How you guys make that work.

Yeah, it's cool.

I mean, there's a lot of muscle memory with.

Essentially, you'd have.

We had six computers set up.

We had six keyboards or three keyboards, three mouse.

Mouse setups.

So you'd know, okay, this is where my main station's at.

Here's my radio stuff.

This is what I need to do when I need to throw something into a map.

Like, you would know which keyboard and which mouse relates to what, when to click it, where it goes.

Like you get the muscle memory for all of that.

So it all just becomes second nature.

That way you can put other things at the forefront, like being able to talk to whoever's on the phone.

That is incredible.

I'm gonna go through.

I know we have some.

I have some starred questions that I wanted to make sure we get.

Do you think dispatch, mental health, so 911 operators, mental health is taken as serious.

Is that it?

That it is.

Or do you see.

Did you.

When you were working in there, did you see that?

It was a struggle.

It's a struggle.

I think.

I do think that there's that.

That pride in.

I could handle that.

I'm tough.

I rebounded from that.

I'm tough.

I didn't need help.

I'm tough.

Almost everybody who's in dispatch is a type A personality.

They don't want help 100%.

You know they're not going to ask for help.

Makes them look weak.

It's.

It's just not in your nature.

And then they are kind of the forgotten responder.

And I. I don't mean to say that in a bad way.

I know a lot of people know that they're there, but when it comes down to it, you know, they're.

They're going to the.

The cop or the firefighter, the emt, and they're like, are you okay?

After what you just saw, not thinking about the nine.

One dispatcher who's sitting there and their mind's going crazy and going.

Picturing what just happened, which could Be far worse than what actually happened in reality.

And it's almost more traumatic than if you actually get to see it.

You don't get that closure.

You.

You don't have a real picture.

So your mind just makes it up.

And the mind can do funny things.

Damn, I'm so glad you.

You brought that up.

I never would have considered that.

So, like a copy.

He's play by play as it's unfolding.

And then when it's done, they all debrief, they talk you back in the cars, back on the road.

You're.

And I would say the human mind probably wants to go.

The worst case, especially in your line of work, it's not like somebody's calling you be like, hey, thanks for your.

Thanks for what you guys do.

So you're hearing all of this.

And then let's say that, okay, the cops here.

Then the phone cuts out.

Done.

Onto the next call.

Yep.

And you might.

I mean, we were lucky enough that a lot of times we had the opportunity to get the closure.

You know, the officers would come in and brief us or.

I was obviously close with a lot of the people in the fire department.

Me a mess.

So I would be able to get that story if I needed it.

Yeah.

But the.

The hardest calls absolutely, like, mentally to digest were from the seat and 911 dispatch.

You guys are the forgotten first responders for sure.

I mean, I've.

I've picked up body parts and brain matter spread across the highway.

And that wasn't nearly as traumatic as some of the stuff that I experienced in dispatch.

Is it hard taking children calls?

Is there.

Is there a demographic that's worse?

Yeah, children are horrible.

Women.

There's a. I think that there's a protectiveness, but children are just.

Everybody should protect children, you know, and you're like, what.

How could this happen to them?

How could somebody do this to them?

Sometimes adult women, you're like, well, you can take care of yourself.

You know, you're a woman.

But kids can't.

They don't have that opportunity.

Kid calls are hard.

And you're dealing with it every day.

That's rough.

For anybody that's interested in becoming a dispatch operator, what would your advice be for them?

Sit in.

Sit in a center, do a little bit of research before.

Figure out what you want to know and ask them that.

I would say, because it's the percentage of people that are probably cut for.

Cut for that position or not very high.

I'm sure the cyclic rate is a lot.

Yeah.

And you gotta.

I mean, I don't know if everybody knows what they're getting into when they go into dispatch.

The more if they, if they allow more than one, like sit alongs, if you will.

I would suggest it, try to be there when hits the fan because that's when you're gonna know like it's the difference between I want to do that, like I'm going to be good at that versus I can't handle that many phone calls, you know, and it'll really tell you which direction you want to go in.

You.

I mean, there's other ways that you can help if you decide, like I don't want that stress because it is stressful.

It's very stressful.

You can't minimize that.

If you could do it all over again, would you have stuck em emt, firefighter, or would you go 911 again?

91 1.

Why didn't you pursue it afterward, after you left there, you didn't take some time off and try to get back in somewhere else?

I learned that sleeping at night was great.

Oh, okay.

It was really nice.

No longer being under the microscope.

I could do whatever I want.

You know, I could work on Monday through Friday and I knew I had Saturday, Sunday off.

I didn't have to have my phone just in case somebody called in sick and I needed to go work a grave shift.

I kind of felt a level of freedom once I stopped.

I've.

I've thought about it.

I mean, even my current job, the skill set that I have transfers into what I do right now perfectly.

I worked for a company that they treat me well.

I can be flexible with my schedule if needed.

If I want to take the day off today to go snowmobiling, all I have to do is tell my boss, Ace knows.

Good, I'm out.

And it's still, nobody's dying.

Yeah, I know that I don't have any other chances of accumulating any more mental trauma that I'll have to carry with me for the rest of my life.

And there is some relief in that.

There's.

I talked to, obviously being a vet, I talked to a lot of vets and some pretty tough dudes that try to like play it off and cops and I don't care who you are eventually works itself in.

And you hide it for so long and you've suppressed it for so long, then you don't realize when it's catching up.

By the time it does, it's usually too late.

And I feel like you got out probably at a perfect time.

It's hard to see it coming for sure.

It really is.

You're so dedicated.

You.

You.

I'm helping.

I'm helping.

I'm helping.

And then it turns.

It almost turns toxic.

It turns sour.

You just.

You know.

But you get.

You get so wrapped up in the title and the position of the job, and you don't want to pride.

The pride.

You don't want to let it go.

I'm a cop.

Oh, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

And then before you know it, I mean, you're not.

People depend on you.

I mean, when I quit, I had so many officers reach out to me, and they're like, go back in there right now, and you get your job back.

They were like, we can't lose you.

You're one of the best.

Damn.

We don't want you to not be there anymore.

Like, it was nice to hear.

I appreciated it for sure, so.

But you should never be punished for standing up.

No.

That's something that has a change in this country.

I agree.

Talk to a lot of cop wives and cops, and they're just like, how do you say something?

Because the second you're like, yo, I'm struggling now.

You're mark.

On you, there's a mark.

Because then if something happens and that gets out, the department knew you were struggling.

At one point, maybe you shot somebody, Tased a kit.

Whatever it may be.

Now you're.

You're labeled.

You got a scarlet letter on your back, and so you can't.

And then they're like, oh, well, you're.

It's the brotherhood.

Stand.

Stand up and talk about your problems.

But the second you do, you're crucified over it.

So you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

And once you're out, it's almost like they all turn their back on you.

You might have a couple loyal few.

But I hear that every single time.

You'Re out of the club.

Yeah.

Can't sit with us anymore.

Yep.

You're not wearing pink, and it's Wednesday.

I hear that a lot, which is really sad.

Like, that's.

I.

The military community got there.

My.

I have buddies.

The wife, she's fast.

Like, I won't see a dude for 10 years.

And we pick right up on that last foot we stepped off on.

And there's that brotherhood that'll never die then.

You would like to think that's the same thing with, like, law enforcement first responders.

But I.

Almost every guy I talk to, when they get out, like, they're Just like, dude, I was abandoned immediately.

Yep, gone.

There's no use for you anymore.

Like, it's kind of what it feels like.

You're just thrown out.

I will tell you, if the fire department was not the same.

I still run into the guys that I was on the fire department with, and it's, it's, you know, picks up right where I left off.

That's a different breed.

Sure is.

It's a different.

It's a different connection.

Yeah.

I feel like there's a lot of.

There's a lot of.

What's the word I'm looking for?

Competitive competition.

I feel like in law enforcement, you know, they're trying to get that next stripe, be.

Be better than the next guy or get recognized or, you know, in dispatch, it was, I want to be the best radio.

I want to be the most liked radio person.

I want to be able to handle this call better.

And it's.

It's all competition, I feel like.

And I think that that's why when you're out, people are like, see ya.

Yeah, we're done here.

This is kind of an off topic question, but you brought it up a little while ago, and I don't know why.

It triggered something in my brain to ask this.

As a dispatch operator, you're dealing with highway patrol and you're dealing with city cops.

Who are the better cops?

Oh, I will say the troopers that were in our territory had better radio etiquette.

Okay.

I will say that as far as better cops, man, I think that there were.

There were like, solid a team across the board.

Okay.

You know, you've got your good ones, you've got your, like, decent ones.

Then you've got your ones that are like, I get to retire in 30 days.

Don't call me like the counters.

Yeah, I'm trying to ride this out.

You come into dispatch and they're like, I'm not available.

Oh, does that happen?

Like, I'm gonna go around traffic, but do not send me on.

Have you ever.

Oh, damn.

That was a question.

Have you ever.

Have you ever sent cops on a call and they were just like, absolutely not.

No.

They always respond.

They have to.

Yep.

Okay.

That was a question that.

Yep.

No, our guys were great.

They were fabulous.

Good.

Sometimes they would get there, you know, we'd have the ones that.

They'd get there and then they wouldn't.

They wouldn't let us know that they were okay.

And that got a little stressful because you can't get complacent either.

You can't Be like, oh, it's okay.

They just never respond on the radio because what if that's the time something bad happened?

Yeah, for sure.

So I would get pissed off at then, and I'd be like, you have got to communicate with me and let me know you're okay.

But no, they always responded.

That's good.

I mean, you want to hear that?

But that was.

That was a.

That was a fan question.

And, like, have you ever responded, dispatch anybody?

They're like, yeah, no, I will say we're lucky.

I mean, we're a small town.

We had the resources for the most part.

You know, it's not like a city where they're spread so thin.

Yeah.

And they literally can't.

And they have to pick and choose.

So it's a little bit different.

That helps.

Yeah.

Let's see.

Okay, here's some ridiculous ones.

How often do people call 911 for things that absolutely should not be a 911 call?

A fair amount.

They'll call because they.

Their car broke down or their keys are locked inside their car and they need a lockout.

You know?

Smoke detector calls, beeping.

Yep, that does happen.

I've heard firefighters say that that's one of the most common calls that they get is.

Absolutely.

Is smoke detector calls.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a fair amount.

I think we covered a lot of these.

I think so.

Yes.

That's.

What a fascinating career that you chose.

I mean, I never.

I'm so glad we had this conversation, because nobody ever thinks about the dispatcher.

You guys are literally the forgotten first responders.

Did that ever weigh on you guys?

Did you guys ever talk about that?

Like, there's no.

I mean, you're getting zero credits.

Always.

Cops Live, pd, Reno.

Everything's built off a couple of firefighters.

But nobody talks about the heart of the law enforcement community, which is dispatch.

Did that ever affect you?

Oh, really?

Absolutely.

There'd be, you know, there'd be things that would happen.

Like.

Like the helicopter crash.

Yeah.

You know, and there's no mention of, like, hey, the dispatcher, like, sent ground units before we even got the mayday call.

You know, not that I was looking for recognition, but, like, now that I'm out, if I were to hear that there was a dispatcher that did that and was proactive because they, you know, they followed their gut or something, I'd be like, gold star.

Like, you know, get that girl a free vacation.

You guys are getting called to city, City hall, getting awards and stuff.

Are you.

I received one.

I did.

I got a medal.

Of merit.

Another co worker, she and I worked a cardiac arrest call and we were able to get help there fast enough that he ended up being saved.

Walked out of the hospital, I think like a week later.

So we received a medal of merit for saving his life from the dispatch seat.

And that was cool.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Because it's just.

And I get what you're saying too, because you're, you're, you're, you have so much on your guys shoulders and so.

And then you.

Then the cops show up and they're the heroes or the firefighter show up, they're the heroes.

And here you are piecing the millions of shattered pieces of glass together to paint this picture that you can't even see.

And you're going off of maybe an address or a drainage that somebody's in.

And then you put all this together, it's a success.

And then it's like, hey guys, it was cool.

Good job guys.

You got to give a high five.

And like everybody turns their back on you and you're like.

Yeah, okay, see you tomorrow.

Well, like I say that and when, you know, when we got that medal, we stood up there and the mayor gave us the medal and we were like, well, this is awkward.

This is why we don't do this shit.

Like stop recognizing us.

We're going back to our dungeon.

Yep, pretty much.

Yeah.

We' shut the door when we get there.

We don't want anybody coming in.

That's awesome though.

I mean, what a hell of a ride.

You've got years of experience in that world.

Trade it for anything good.

What do you do now?

I work in logistics for a company.

I manage our freight transportation.

So from like that's easy transition easy.

Just.

Okay.

So I'm putting all the pieces together now.

Yeah.

So that was a pretty good skill set that you were able to take from dispatch to work for.

I'm still a dispatcher.

It's just not emergency anymore, you know, and like you said, when I'm yet nobody dies.

It's.

It's very easy going mentally, I guess, if you will, compared to 9:1 dispatch definitely on my days.

The other day was it.

Somebody pissed me off because it hung up on me and I threw a little temper tantrum.

And my co workers, I heard like four of them laughing.

They.

Because you know, you just say things in the moment or whatnot and they're all laughing.

And the next call rang and I go to pick it up and I started laughing because all they were laughing and I was like, gotta get Myself together.

Like, I can't laugh right now.

I don't know how times have changed.

Yeah.

Somebody hangs up, buddy, that's what breaks you, the struggles.

Yep.

Well, I appreciate this conversation.

It's been on my list for a while to talk to a 911 operator because it is one of those fields that nobody talks about, nobody respects, everybody forgets about.

But you are the unsung heroes of the heartbeat of the law enforcement community and talked to a lot of cops, a lot of cop wives, a lot of law enforcement, and everybody that's involved in it.

And I've never had a conversation with an operator.

Yep.

I appreciate you coming on.

This is great.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah.

Thanks for reaching out too super quick.

I'm like, when you.

Idaho.

You're like, I'm here now.

So I'm like, perfect, let's do this.

It's total, like, whim.

Like, I was like, you know what I told my boyfriend.

I was like, you know, he's got really cool stories.

He's got cool people on I've got stories.

And he was like, send him a message.

And I was like, you're right.

And I sent it.

Good for you.

There's so many people that I reach out to, like, do.

My story's not cool enough.

And I'm like, every single person that is sat in the chair, like, you sure you guys, you want to have this conversation?

Like, absolutely.

And they're every one of everything.

Yeah, every one of them are like, the greatest conversations.

I just love hearing people's different paths in life and opportunities and the stuff that goes on that nobody knows about or hears about.

Because we.

I feel we live in such.

These little bubbles in our own little.

Worlds these days with social media, I feel like a lot of stuff that goes on there's fake.

It's all fake.

Because I love the stories.

The real.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think that's what draws a lot of people to this, is that it's not celebrities talking.

It's not the.

The hunting influencer has told their same hunting story for the thousandth time.

It's literally just extraordinary people with incredible stories, and it's.

It's pretty rad, and I enjoy it.

And I appreciate you reaching out, because who would I ever have thought?

Yeah, it's cool.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for this.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

This has been great.

Thank you for coming on.

See, that wasn't so bad.

It wasn't so bad.

I know you were super nervous at first, but it's just.