By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Police officers capture the bad guys; firefighters put out the fires. But before all that, someone has to take the phone call and gather the information. That's where Barton County Communications dispatchers come in. Barton County 9-1-1's administrative staff attended Wednesday's county commission meeting to promote National Public Safety Communications Officer Week from April 9-15. Supervisor Tim McQuade spoke first.
"If you have an emergency, whether it's medical, fire, accident, or crime, who do call for help?" he asked. "Ghostbusters isn't there. When you think of who responds in an emergency, who do you think of? Most people will say the police, sheriff, fire, and EMS. But the first entity you speak to when you call for help is 9-1-1 Dispatch."
Supervisor Melissia Herren provided some statistics about the department's workload last year. Dispatchers handled 297,641 radio transmissions from police, fire, and EMS. They took 58,715 administrative calls, and 12,208 9-1-1 calls. Nearly 99.7 percent of those calls were answered within 15 seconds or fewer. McQuade said most of those actions are occurring simultaneously.
"Most of the time, dispatchers are rarely thought of or recognized as the first line of help," he said. "We are the face that is never seen. We're never recognized as part of a team that saves lives."
Barton County Communications has seen an influx of high-priority calls lately, including several serious car accidents, suicides, deaths, the March 22 explosion in Great Bend, and the recent police pursuit from Hoisington where shots were fired at an officer.