Hopefully you will never need to call 911, but if you do, it should be comforting to know that the person you will be talking to is a trained professional who handles many different types of emergencies every day.
The person you will talk to at Lake EMS is a certified Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) who is uniquely trained to provide clinical expertise for pre-hospital emergencies. This person is considered the first “first responder” and will provide specific instructions on how to care for the patient until the ambulance arrives. The EMD will systematically guide you through the process with unique questions and directions based upon the specific illness or injury.
The first few questions the EMD will ask include the address of the emergency, telephone number, and type of emergency. As soon as the EMD receives these three pieces of pertinent information, emergency units will be simultaneously dispatched to the scene of the emergency while the EMD remains on the telephone to obtain further information about the patient’s condition.
The following is an excerpt of a typical 911 call for a choking victim:
“What is the address of the emergency?”
“What is the phone number you are calling from?”
“Okay, tell me exactly what happened.”
“How old is he?”
“Is he awake?”
“Is he completely alert?”
“Is he breathing normally?”
“Is he able to talk?”
“What did he choke on?”
“Stay on the line and I will tell you what to do next…”
Based on the answers received, the EMD will provide specific, step-by-step, potentially life-saving instructions. Remember, the ambulance is not being delayed during these additional questions and instructions.
Understanding the 911 process and being prepared will help Lake EMS provide you with the most effective and timely assistance during an emergency.
As a certified dispatcher for the sheriff’s office, another point that should be mentioned is that the 911 call will originally go to the sheriff’s office, (if the resident resides in the county’s jurisdiction) & then transferred to medical services. We ask for the address where the ambulance is needed as well as the phone number that they are calling from. This is done in case the call is dropped when we transfer them to medical. In essence, the caller will have to give the address a total of three times. There are numerous times we hear the callers gettting upset because they are having to repeat the address so many times. The public needs to be aware that they are actually speaking to two different agencies in two different locations & the verfying of their address and phone number is only to make sure that the ambulance is sent to the correct location just in case we as dispatchers cannot get back on the line with them if needed.