Police and firefighters get a lot of praise, and rightfully so. They do the work that most of us don’t want to. They save lives and keep us safe every single day. But there’s someone who often gets forgotten in the rush to show our appreciation to first responders. That person is the 911 dispatcher—the reason your call for help made it to the first responder. Without the dispatcher, you might as well just hope that fire goes out on its own. Spoiler—it won’t. Call takers often have to deal with incredibly stressful and chaotic calls, and they’re required to handle them with grace and fortitude. It’s not an easy job, but sometimes they go above and beyond what’s required. Take a look at these true stories of heroic 911 call takers.

• In the suburbs of Chicago, 23-year-old Nick Risicato received a call from two parents who reported that their infant daughter Amelia had stopped breathing while having her diaper changed. The parents didn’t know how to perform CPR on their child, but Risicato did. While paramedics rushed to the scene, he talked the father through CPR. By the time paramedics arrived, baby Amelia was conscious again. Risicato says he didn’t have time to think about what was happening. “I just acted,” he said.
• In Indiana, dispatcher Dylan Prather helped save a life in quite different circumstances. He heard a faint voice on the line say, “Put the gun away,” and knew he had to act. He sent officers to the location of the call, and also began texting the number using the dispatch center’s Text for 911 system. He received vital information about the assailant and the gun, and police arrived soon after and arrested the man for domestic battery while in the presence of a minor. About the call, Prather said, “It was nice to go home at the end of the night and know you made a difference. Call takers do this every day, they’re just not recognized for what they do.”
• Our last story comes to us from Milwaukee, where dispatcher Keena Woods-Smith was able to talk down a man threatening suicide. The call came from the man’s girlfriend, and she told Woods-Smith that he had a gun pointed at his head. She managed to speak with the man and told him, "No, no, no, no. I don't want you to do that. I don't know you, but you don't sound like a bad person. You sound like a really nice person. If you do that, it's going to affect a lot of people's lives." Thankfully, after hearing this, the man decided to put his gun down, and choose to keep living.

It’s true, call takers do this kind of heroic work every day around the country. It doesn’t always make the news, but we should still let them know we appreciate the work they do. At KOVA, our mission is to provide dispatch centers with the software they need to make these stories possible. So contact us today to find out more about how we can help your 911 contact center.