Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- Tuesday afternoon the Palmer Police Department dispatchers, two on duty, had their fill of action.

"The phones exploded," said Jon Owen, the Palmer public safety director. "It was a symphony of phone calls."

During a 16-minute period that afternoon, the dispatchers answered scores of 911 calls related to five emergency incidents that include three traffic accidents, one with serious injuries; one child not breathing; and a domestic disturbance; plus a non-emergency transfer of a patient from the Alaska Heart Institute off Trunk Road.

In all, emergency personnel from Butte to Houston were involved either directly or as on call to respond while other units were tied up.

Owen said that in recent years an amazing transformation has taken place in the way various ambulance, fire, rescue and police departments and Alaska State Troopers all coordinate when the phones hit the fan.

But the heartbeat of all that coordination lies in the belly of the Palmer Police Department building where two to three dispatchers are on duty every hour of every day.

"We have highly trained and professional dispatchers," said Owen on Thursday morning. "They never get flustered or frayed. This is one area that leaves no room for mistakes."

During the furious minutes Tuesday afternoon, the two dispatchers were inundated with calls from the public, particularly about a crash on Bogard Road where drivers could see a woman lying in the road.

"We must have got 10, 12 calls on that one alone," Owen said.

What a lot of people don't know, he said, is that the Palmer dispatchers answer all the calls for the entire borough and send out ambulances, fire trucks, rescue people and some police in a region as big as or bigger than many states.

And the dispatchers answer the business phone when people just want general information.

"They have to answer those calls," Owen said, "because you never know when somebody doesn't think it's an 'emergency,' " his fingers forming quotation marks, "and it is an emergency."

Finding people who can handle the Tuesday emergencies -- and those conditions aren't unusual, Owen said -- is difficult.

Karen Ripley, communications supervisor, said her team is finally stable:

"We've had the same crew since September. It seems too good to be true."

"It takes time to find the right people," said Owen. "Thirty to 40 percent wash out."

They cited a recent job opening in Anchorage for which the applicants numbered in the 90s. Only 17 got background checks. From that number, Owen said, two were interviewed.

"These are people who like to work on the knife's edge," he said. "This job is multitasking squared."

Palmer has 12 dispatchers, plus Ripley, who fills in when needed, as she did when an 8-year-old boy was found not breathing Tuesday.

While help was on the way, she gave the mother directions on how to get his airways open and then guided her through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Not many days before that life-saving experience, a 13-year-old was in seizures; this time it was a Palmer police officer's child.

"It takes an emotional toll," she said.

And it's 30 years to retirement.

"That's a long time to live on the knife's edge," said Owen.

Contact T.C. Mitchell at adn.com/contact/tcmitchell or call 352-6716.

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