While dispatchers like those with the Washington County Communications Center prepare for various 911 calls, one 20-year veteran of the profession says there’s always one situation she finds most challenging despite her training.
This is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, celebrating the men and women who are the “first” first responder on the scene in an emergency. Shelley Reed-Wulf says being a dispatcher is very rewarding knowing she’s helped a person in a life-threatening emergency or put their mind at ease during a difficult situation. Still, she says there are calls that can test her own mindset, “Anything that has to do with kids, that’s always tough, especially when it comes to kids being hurt in any way. That’s tough on any human, I would think, whether you have kids or whether you don’t.”