By Carrie Cassidy
Patriot News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2007 The Patriot News Co.
All Rights Reserved
Kelly Koons never met the man who kept her baby alive. She never even knew his name.
But his reassuring voice on the other end of the phone helped save Koons’ “miracle baby” from an almost certain death at her Elizabethville home last May, Koons said.
Emergency dispatcher Marshall Mirarchi talked Koons’ sister-in-law Angela Koons through assisting with the birth of Kylee Ann Koons, and then he talked her through unwrapping the umbilical cord from around the newborn’s neck.
“She was blue. She was not breathing, so she’s my miracle baby,” Kelly Koons said. Mirarchi “helped save her life.”
Mirarchi and four coworkers from the Dauphin County 911 center recently were honored for talking mothers through childbirth. Receiving stork pins during a recent county commissioners meeting were Mirarchi, Mark Mattern, Craig Powers, Brian Wertz and Cindy Williams.
Mirarchi said he doesn’t consider himself a hero. He said he was doing his job, like the nearly 50 other dispatchers who take similar calls every day.
“You kind of try to prepare yourself for something like that, but you never know what you’re going to get when you answer the phone,” said Mirarchi, 21, of Kulpmont, Northumberland County, 60 miles north of Harrisburg. He is also a Colonial Park Fire Company member.
“You think of the worst-case scenario,” he said. “You just go through and read the cards so you know what to do.”
Each dispatcher has a set of flip charts with instructions on just about every emergency that could arise, said Jack Harlacker, 911 coordinator and manager of the communications center.
“There’s a flowchart of questions, which is designed to help the dispatcher handle the call and to ensure the same level of service to all callers, whether it’s police, fire or EMS,” he said.
But the training goes beyond the flip charts.
Harlacker said 911 dispatchers must complete six weeks of classroom work plus 18 months of on-site training before they are weaned off supervision to work on their own.
Although five were recognized for their work, Harlacker said all the 911 dispatchers do similar work day in and day out, despite the stresses of the job.
“They’re definitely unique, and you have to be a dedicated individual to do this job,” he said. “We can have all the protocol and all the equipment, but it’s nothing if not for the people.”
Cindy Williams, 25, of Mechanicsburg, has dedicated at least nine years to emergency services. She is an emergency medical technician with Susquehanna Twp. Emergency Medical Services.
She was on the job a few months when Christina Legg, going into labor, called while alone at her East Hanover Twp. home.
The father of Legg’s baby ran down the street to get help, but Legg said her baby, whom she named Dominik, wouldn’t wait.
Williams guided Legg into the right position and talked her through the birth while trying to keep her calm in perhaps one of the most nerve-wracking times of ìLegg’s life.
“I was yelling and screaming and I was thinking, ‘I hope [Williams] doesn’t think I was screaming at her,’” Legg said. “I just remember telling her, ‘I can’t do this,’ and she kept saying to me, ‘Yes, you can.’ She really did help me because I was scared.”
Williams said she was worried until she heard Dominik cry.
“You always wait to hear the first cry, but this took a long time. But once he took his first breath and I heard him cry, it was an overwhelming feeling,” she said. “I helped bring a life into this world. How many other jobs are like that?”