Pictured last week during National Public Safety Telecommunications Week are Becky Hogue, dispatcher; Rhonda Wiley, Atchison County Deputy Director of 911/Emergency Management; and Mark Manchester, Atchison County Deputy Director of 911/Emergency Management.
Chris Conn is a dispatcher with the Atchison County Sheriff’s Office.
Atchison County Sheriff’s Office and 911 dispatchers celebrated National Public Safety Tele-communications Week last week. Dispatchers are the unseen heroes and the calming voices heard in emergency situations. Atchison County’s telecommunicators are: 911/Emergency Management – Rhonda Riley, Mark Manchester, Becky Hogue, Candis Stanton, Michele Pfeil, Bambi Simmons, and Taylor Driskell; and Sheriff’s Office – Chris Conn, Amy Thomas, Lavon Paukert, Sam Giddinge, Makayla Martin, and Supervisor Karen Miller.
Dispatching has made big strides in the last several years with technological advancements. People can now send texts to 911. Residents can use texts to notify them of controlled burns that they’re doing rather than calling. If dispatchers are in the middle of an emergency call, they don’t have to interrupt the emergency call, but still get the needed information about the controlled burn. Also, if someone has an emergency and they can’t talk for some reason, this is a great way for them to still get help. Also, people don’t have to wonder if the text was received or not because if they happen to be on a tower in a different county or there is a technical problem of some kind, they will get a bounce back message saying the service is unavailable at this time, and that gets to them usually within 30-60 seconds of them sending the original text.
The office also utilizes Active911 and eDispatches to notify responders of calls. Everyone has their cell phone with them and it’s easier than carrying a pager. Active911 will send an alert directly to their phones with written call info and a location that they can click on to give them directions to a call. The eDispatches program listens for specific radio tones for the different departments through equipment at the office, and automatically records the page and call information and plays the voice recording back through an app on their phones. Everything is automatic and is either triggered by an entry into the CAD system or when the pager tones are set off and doesn’t require any additional work by the dispatcher, so it works really well.
For the dispatchers in Atchison County, it takes an extra kind of person to do what they do, for in many of the situations, the emergencies involve people that they know and love. Yet they always get the job done and go above and beyond the call of duty. We are so lucky to have them waiting just a quick phone call or text away.
