Dispatchers deliver help 24/7 – and on Christmas, too

The trauma and tragedy of the community saturate the lives of the Flathead Valley’s 911 dispatchers, but this Christmas, Shannon Hunt and her fellow dispatchers have chosen to give back some comfort and joy.

After seven years at the center, Hunt is no stranger to the stress involved with handling a barrage of bad news, day in and day out.

Despite the constant negativity, however, Hunt said she considers it the ultimate way to help people of all walks of life in their greatest moments of need.

“I think I was born to do this,” she said.

The call to the field of emergency services came early for Hunt, who said she felt a burning desire to become a first responder at the age of 12.

Originally, she said, she wanted to be an EMT, but discovered early on she could not stomach the sight of blood.

The persistent desire to help others turned her gaze toward dispatch work.

She held onto that dream for a decade and a half as she waited for her children to reach an age that would allow her to confidently take on the demanding schedule of a dispatcher.

At 31, she finally set out in pursuit of her dream career and began her training with the Flathead 911 Emergency Communications Center.

There she confronted a much more challenging career than she anticipated.

A dispatcher must become proficient at three different stations: public 911 call taking, law channel monitoring and fire/medical dispatch.

According to Hunt, training for each station can take up to three months, and in her case, it took about a year of training for her to feel fully confident in the job.

“It’s a lot of information and it’s a long process, but it was well worth it,” Hunt said.

Despite her love for the job, she acknowledged it is not for everyone, and the turnover it quite high for dispatchers.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” she said. “In the seven years here, I’ve probably seen 50 dispatchers come and go.”

The reason for the turnover, she believes, has a lot to do with people’s initial perception of the duties involved versus the reality of the stress and demands that come with the job.

Each dispatcher must be able to take a call and ask a number of questions of the caller in order to attain enough information to accurately and safely deploy help and deliver instructions to both first responders and the caller.

Dispatchers need to ascertain the location and nature of the emergency, the people involved and the status of any danger factors such as drugs, alcohol and weapons, all while maintaining calm control of a high-stress situation over the phone.

“What’s hard is no call is ever the same,” Hunt said. “If you leave any of that out, it can change the type of call.”

On busy days, call takers also may have to double as “law monitors,” keeping an ear out for calls and requests from law enforcement while simultaneously paying attention to every detail of the 911 calls coming in.

Then there are the calls themselves.

“Nobody ever calls you with good news. It’s always bad,” Hunt said.

Suicide calls, medical emergencies, fights in progress, missing children and other emergencies flood each dispatcher’s headset all day or night for shifts lasting around 10 hours.

Some calls have stuck with Hunt.

She once answered a call from a frantic mother who had taken her 7-month-old infant to bed with her to feed her and woke up to find the child blue and unresponsive.

After a brief description of the situation, Hunt determined that the child was likely deceased. Still, she gave the mother instructions on how to perform CPR to give her something to do as she awaited an ambulance.

“Those calls are hard,” Hunt said, “the ones where you know there’s nothing that you can do but be that voice, that supportive voice for a person who’s struggling.”

She took another call from a man who had just watched his wife shoot herself in the chest and, still in shock, had stuck his finger in the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

“You’re there, you’re living their nightmare,” Hunt said. “You literally have to jump into their scene and ask the right questions so it gives you a visual picture of what’s going on.”

Much of the time, dispatchers have no idea how a situation played out after hanging up the phone, often denying them closure as they move on to the next call.

On top of everything else, Hunt said many of the callers are less than kind, often battering dispatchers with verbal abuse.

“Then we have to take what’s left when we leave the center…our time, our energy, and give it to our families,” Hunt said.

And at the end of each 10-hour shift, she goes home to her husband and two teenage boys and does her best to make every sporting event and special occasion, though she often misses family dinners.

Yes, Hunt said, it does wear on her, as it does all dispatchers.

Still, she said, her career is a life calling to her, and she has no intention of giving it up.

She manages the stress by journaling in between calls and by doing her best to put good back into the community.

Each year, Hunt takes on the organization of the center’s involvement in different outreach programs, including the Penguin Plunge for Special Olympics and other fundraisers.

Part of the purpose of her push for outreach, she said, is also to help boost morale for her fellow dispatchers.

“It’s very tough to ask dispatchers to step outside of [their jobs] and give more,” Hunt said. “And not only that, but give back to a community that beats you up on the phone so much.”

This Christmas, however, the dispatchers of the Flathead 911 Emergency Communications Center pulled together for their most successful project yet, according to Hunt. The center decided to adopt a family for Christmas and reached out to local school resource officers to find the perfect family.

They found the Lamantias, a family of seven living in a hotel in Kalispell.

A string of hardship left the family homeless and jobless, leading them to move to Kalispell about six months ago in hopes of a fresh start.

Over the eight months it took them to move, the mother, April Lamantia, said they never lost hope and often helped others in their same situation find help and homes while they went without.

Upon moving to Kalispell, April said she finally began to see her family’s good deeds come back to them in surprising ways.

Over the last six months, both April and her husband have found stable jobs and sufficient, though crowded, housing at a local hotel.

All of the Lamantia children, ranging in age from 7 to 13, have enrolled in school and are now doing well.

Upon hearing the family’s story, the 911 center’s staff mounted a full-on takeover of the family’s Christmas, shopping and purchasing mountains of gifts for each of the family’s five children as well as the parents.

During this transitional period, April expressed her gratitude to Hunt and the other dispatchers who have helped make this Christmas one of their best.

“The generosity, the caring that she had just made me remember that not everybody is awful,” April said. “There are people that have just beautiful hearts.”

Christmas morning, Sebastian, Zachery, Mia, Lukkah and Izzy will awake to discover the generosity of some of the community’s silent heroes.

Reporter Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.