Ohio Emergency Workers Continue to Prepare for COVID-19
Emergency call takers have seen an influx of calls related to COVID-19. CBS news reported New York City 911 call takers are receiving more calls now than they did for the 9/11 attacks.
Emergency call takers and dispatchers are a vital part of the front line of COVID-19. Without them, first responders would not be able to get to the people in need. However, if those call takers and dispatchers get sick, there are less people working, which means slower response times and longer waits.
“We have 10-12 people who are out right now,” Doug Harrison, a safety communication technician with the city of Akron, said. “Some of them are immunocompromised and some are sick.”
A typical shift at the Akron Safety Communications Center features 12 call takers and dispatchers, not including their supervisors. Due to the number of employees in quarantine, Akron Safety Communications Center employees are mandated to work overtime.
According to Harrison, during an average 10 hour day he could field 150 calls. Now, during the pandemic he gets half of that.
“[The decrease in calls] is absolutely due to people staying home right now,” he said. “Since people are not working right now, there’s less traffic, which means there’s less traffic accidents.”
Harrison said almost half of the medical calls he dispatches are COVID-19 related.
“There is a checklist of questions call takers ask the caller before dispatching emergency services, they give responders a heads up on if it is a possible COVID-19 situation” Ohio Emergency Management Agency Regional Operations Chief Josh Sigmon said.
No one in the Akron Safety Communications Center has tested positive for COVID-19. If enough employees were to test positive, the center has steps in place to protect their employees.
“We wear masks now, there’s six feet between each of us on shift and everyone gets their temperature taken before they are allowed in the building,” Harrison said. “If we were to shut down, remaining employees would be sent to our backup call center, Cuyahoga Falls, Munroe Falls and maybe Stow.”
In October 2019, Summit County upgraded to a new dispatch service called Computer Aided Dispatch, which utilized GPS to locate a caller’s exact location. CAD works in partnership with Westnet, a fire station alerting system, to dispatch certain first responders to the scene of an emergency. Not every safety communication center is equipped with CAD.
“If we shut down and we get sent to Cuyahoga Falls, which is not in the CAD system, we would revert to pen and paper,” Harrison said. “If Westend were to go down, we would have to dispatch through handheld phones and use district books to know which station to call.”
“It would be old, old school dispatching.” he said.
Sigmon has been busy with building alternate care sites. The Columbus Convention Center has been converted into a 1,000 bed alternative care site for patients recovering from COVID-19, so there are more beds available in hospitals.
“We are optimistic that we may never have to use them,” Sigmon said.
Sigmon has been with the Ohio Emergency Management Agency for eight years, and working in the operations department for over six. He has worked through tornadoes, floods, the Republican National Convention and the terrorist attack on The Ohio State University’s campus. He called COVID-19 the most complex and biggest incident he had ever seen.
“Unprecedented is a good word for it,” Sigmon said.
In unprecedented times, first responders are still expected and required to work. There is another battle on the front lines of combating COVID-19: keeping the workers healthy. In a time like this, first responders are hard to replace.
“Our training process takes an entire year, 365 days,” Harrison said. “[New hires] have to get EMT certified, learn how to dispatch fire, medical, police and other steps in the process.”
Harrison, who has been with the Akron Safety Communications Center for 18 years, said the atmosphere was always laid back. Now, there are masks, gloves and purell bottles everywhere. Personal interaction is limited.
“We aren’t worried about the equipment failing, we are worried about our employees staying healthy.”
