Ga. dispatchers hold steady as 911 calls flood in

April 06, 2006 06:19 AM

They heard the screams and the crying. They could hear the gunshots. It was murder in real time.

“It was the toughest night I’ve ever had since I’ve been doing it,” said Renee Whitlock, a seven-year veteran of the Forsyth County 911 Center. “You’re holding your breath. All you can do is listen to the screams.”

Even though they have trained for the most harrowing of calls, 911 dispatchers say the multiple killings March 19 at a small gray farmhouse won’t be easy to forget.

“It was terrible,” said Whitlock, 26, who worked the late shift that night. “It was just such a feeling of helplessness.”

Three people were killed that night after at least two men entered the house on Access Road and began shooting and stabbing everyone in sight. Four others were wounded. One of those injured died a week later. It was one of the worst crimes in county history.

Whitlock said she went home after that shift and lost herself in an Xbox video game called “Made for Speed.” Even so, it took her a full day to calm down.

“You just have to know you did everything you could do,” she said. “You have to find the good in everything you can.”

An hour into the dispatchers’ shift, about 10 p.m., the first cellphone call came in. In moments, all five operators were fielding calls. Some people in the remote farmhouse had been shot or stabbed, and the attackers were still inside.

Some callers said the house was on Access Road; others described it as Ronald Reagan Boulevard. Another guessed it was Marketplace Road. Cellphones don’t always give accurate locations, so the dispatchers had to rely on the panicked people in the house. Finally, they got a good address, 510 Access Road.

‘They kept their cool’

John “J.T.” Hatcher, 19, who was shot three times that night, credited the dispatchers with helping him remain calm amid the chaos.

“They kept their cool,” Hatcher said. “It made my critical thinking kick in. She was asking me important questions. In that situation, your brain is going crazy.”

Soon after the shooting began, he called on his cellphone. The 911 operator methodically, calmly asked him questions, keeping him focused and talking, giving her information. Even after he was shot through the upper jaw and twice in the left shoulder, she tried repeatedly to get him back on the phone.

“If we stay calm, it helps them calm down,” said Susan Conkwright, training coordinator for the Forsyth County 911 Center. Conkwright happened to be in the office that night as she was picking up supplies when the calls started flooding in.

Police count on the dispatchers as well.

“They’re our lifeline,” sheriff’s Maj. Gene Moss says. “We don’t know who’s on whose side, and we’ve got to make a determination immediately. To do that, you count on information given to you by your dispatcher. Six or seven people were calling that night, and to be able to sort it all out, they did an outstanding job.”

One caller was hiding in a closet during the attack. When deputies arrived, they told the dispatcher they were on the scene and she relayed that to the hiding youth. He asked her to let them know he was in a closet so the deputies wouldn’t shoot him as he came out. A potential disaster was averted.

Even as this was going on, dispatchers were having to juggle regular calls and coordinate ambulances for the shooting and stabbing victims, said 911 Center director Pat Giordano. They had to import ambulances from other counties as well as arrange for medical helicopter transportation for the seriously wounded.

Three days after the attacks, Giordano had counselors available to the 911 crew and emergency responders who had worked that night.

‘It’s not for everyone’

Each of the 25 emergency operators have undergone 40 hours of training that includes listening to tapes of previous calls, role playing, learning what to do during crises like a domestic violence call, and how to communicate emergency procedures like CPR and the Heimlich maneuver. They also have to sit with a veteran communications officer on duty. Then they must undergo an additional 20 hours of training annually.

To become a 911 communications officer, they first had to handle administrative calls, then dispatch law enforcement and firefighters in response to automatic alarms. After that, they can try being a 911 operator, working four 10-hour shifts a week.

“It’s not for everyone,” Conkwright said. “We’ve had people quit the first day.”

The 911 center gets about 350 to 450 calls daily, every one an emergency to the person calling.

“It’s very unpredictable,” Conkwright said.