14 hours Ago By Todd R. Hansen
FAIRFIELD — Joanna Wilson remembers being docked for how she performed during an emergency medical dispatch call. It has only been a few years the Solano County dispatchers have taken on the duties of providing medical advice to callers while they wait for emergency personnel to arrive. Still, a third-party firm grades those calls, and in Wilson's case, noted that she had followed the wrong order of instructions.
"I may have taken the wrong track, and if you don't select the right track, (the instructions) are different," said Wilson, who with 27 years, is the senior Solano County public safety dispatcher. She earned the rank with the retirement of Jessica Abbott this year. She had served 28 years.
Sgt. Rex Hawkins was on the scene of that EMD call and remembers it differently. An elderly man needed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and he and other emergency personnel were still en route to the Elmira location.
While other family members were there, it was the man's adult son who stepped up. "She was able to keep people calm and give sufficient CPR instructions ..
. (The son) didn't know CPR," Hawkins said. "And he survived.
" Wilson had not known the outcome of the call, so the news was very nice to hear – and Hawkins' reassurance of a job well done also was appreciated. There was a time, Wilson said, dispatchers were not viewed as a big part of the public safety team, and often got little or no respect for the work they did. That has changed, Wilson said, with a greater effort by the Sheriff's Office administration to show its appreciation.
One of those acknowledgements comes before the Board of Supervisors when the county recognizes National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. This year it was April 13-19. During the appreciation week, the dispatchers take it upon themselves to have a little fun, creating a theme and dressing up.
Once they dressed up like the characters in the movie "Mean Girls." The themes have included a patriotic tone, but also Hawaiian, the NFL and Major League Baseball. Undersheriff Brad DeWall told a story during the presentation to the Board of Supervisors about how he was out on a domestic violence call, alone with backup on the way, when he was confronted by the husband with an ax.
He wondered if he would have to shoot the man. DeWall said it was the dispatcher's calming voice reminding him that help was on the way that helped him de-escalate the situation without any injuries to anyone. Wilson recalls a call from a man who reported he had been stabbed.
He didn't tell her he "had been beating his wife." That kind of information is critical to get to the responding deputies, and Hawkins said deputies are constantly asking for more and more information. The sergeant said while the dispatchers work in a silo of their own, a darkened, secure center with multiple workstations placed in a circle, without the dispatchers, the deputies on the street would be isolated on their own islands, too.
"I wouldn't want to do this job without the dispatchers," Hawkins said. Wilson said she actually wanted to be a police officer at first. A friend told her a good way to get her foot in the door was to become a dispatcher.
So she applied with Fairfield, Benicia, Napa Sheriff's Office and it was Solano County that called back first. "I did have a small child and I was her only parent, and I really enjoyed dispatching," said Wilson, though she did unsuccessfully try to become a police officer a couple of times. It has proven to be a good choice, a good career, one in which she has worked under three sheriffs.
The department has 16 of the possible 20 dispatcher positions filled. Jennifer Kittyle is the dispatch manager, and there is a dispatcher tech, who has the added duties of keeping all the information and systems updated. They handle police and fire service calls for Solano County, Rio Vista, Dixon, Probation, Animal Control and a few public works calls will come in as well.
Olivia Telling is the newest dispatcher, just finishing her fourth month. Her husband is a UC Berkeley police officer. Still, working as a dispatcher has increase the respect she has for the work they do even more.
And the job has proven to be more than she expected. "I knew it was going to be high stress at times, but I wasn't expecting all the ins and outs of what dispatchers do and all that they do," said Telling, adding it is strange to get a call from someone you know and then to have access to so much information about them. She said she did take a 9-1-1 call like that.
Then there are a lot of times she never learns what the outcome of the call is, whether it is criminal or medical. Sometimes she is able to ask a deputy if she knows they were on that call, but not knowing can be the worst part of the job. The best part of the job is the big picture.
"I would say knowing you know you are making a difference in people's lives," said Telling, whose training goes through November, then she has to pass the post-dispatch academy. "And because my husband is a police officer, knowing you are helping officers get home safely to their families and kids." Wilson said that connection with the deputies is very real, a connection that was lost during Covid-19 when the deputies were no longer allowed to go to the dispatch center.
Personnel change, she said, so it was like starting all over again with some individuals. That includes preaching the lesson of patience to the deputies, and the same goes with the public. "For me, I wish the community understood we are asking questions (of them) .
.. to get information in a timely manner," Wilson said.
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