THUNDER BAY — Ensuring a healthy workplace where colleagues support each other is essential in a job as fast-paced and, at times, emotionally taxing as a 911 operator say local communicators.
April 13 to 19 was National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. Thunder Bay police said it wants to use that time of recognition to highlight the work of their dispatch operators.
“Our 911 operators play a crucial role in keeping our community safe, working behind the scenes to ensure that police officers and firefighters can respond swiftly and effectively to emergencies,” Thunder Bay police chief Darcy Fleury was quoted as saying in a media release. “Their efforts are invaluable, and they deserve to be recognized for the sacrifices they make every day.”
In the communications centre at Thunder Bay police headquarters, the overhead lights are dimmed and operators are sit at workstations with multiple screens. In total, there are about 40 staff who work different rotational shifts.
“I love the impact that I have and I love the support that we have for each other, when there's some pretty awful things that we deal with day to day,” said Chantel Kainulainen, who has been working as an operator for five years. “Not always, but sometimes other calls are more severe than others, and we just really support each other.”
“This place is so great for taking care of one another, like following up with each other — we're kind of like a work family here, so it's really nice.”
Calls made to 911 for emergency service in and around Thunder Bay go straight to the communications centre. Police and fire calls are handled on-site; calls for ambulances are transferred to Superior North EMS.
Overall, it is demanding work, requiring attention to detail, multitasking and dealing with people who are often in a state of crisis. Megan Petzel, the communication centre manager, said operators need to ask a lot of questions to get the most accurate and detailed information possible.
“What callers should realize is, as I'm talking to you on 911, my partner's dispatching the call,” she said. “Some people don't want to stay on the line with us because they think we're going to get police there faster if they get off the phone.”
“But in actuality, we're updating the officers and getting them there while we're talking to you so that we have all the details we need.”
Petzel added that if you accidentally call 911, don’t hang up, just explain the mistake, because otherwise, the operator will have to call back.
While the work is essential, it’s very much behind the scenes — Kainulainen said she didn’t know about job opportunities in the field until members of her family, who are in law enforcement, told her about them. She said she’s learned a lot in the past half decade.
“I've learned a lot of different skills about trying to be more patient and being quick to respond to things,” she said. “It's important to just be so quick and to multitask and to get things done quickly so that we can send out the response in a reasonable manner — these are emergencies.“
Petzel said it takes a lot to do the job successfully.
“Every single person in this room is hardworking, they're all dedicated, they're all very resilient, they're all empathetic,” she said.
“We don't often get closure to calls, so we answer the call, we take it, we do good and that's what makes us coming back every day, but we do hear a lot of bad things.”
Kainulainen said that’s why having such strong peer support is essential.
“Sometimes you don't realize the impact that a call has had on someone before you've reached out and asked them like, ‘are you OK?’” she said.
“Sometimes people don't realize that they're not OK.”
