National Telecommunicators Week brings celebration, honor, and focus on an often unintentionally overlooked unsung hero on the other end of the line. It’s a great opportunity to reflect on the important role of the 911 dispatchers have in alerting and coordinating emergency response in our community.
April 10th-16th is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, a week set aside to honor those men and women who answer emergency calls (911) and work so hard to get you the help you need, as quickly as possible.
The Spring Hill Dispatch are an amazing team of dispatchers who work around the clock manning the emergency 911 calls and incidents that occurs in our community 365/24/7! Their professionalism and commitment to providing communications and direction for our first responders on the scene is absolutely invaluable. The job can be very stressful at times and requires exceptional communication skill-sets and patience.
Spring Hill FRESH salutes these fine dispatchers and encourage our community to reach out them especially during National Telecommunicators Week and express your appreciation!
MEET YOUR DISPATCHERS
Brandi Arabie-Smith, 911 Director
Been with Spring Hill since 2006 and Director since 2013.
Dispatching since 1996 for different agencies, dispatched through the April 1998 tornadoes in April 9, 2016.
Dispatched in south Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. Away from work she is an active member of Spring Hill Church of Christ and is has been married for 19 years, 1 daughter 18, 1 son 15.
Kelli Kiser, Supervisor
Been with Spring Hill since 2013 and Supervisor since 2015.
1st dispatching job. Away from work, her niece is her life. She is also engaged, and helps keep up with their mini farm which includes 4-Dogs and 12-Goats.
Jessica Garcia
Been with Spring Hill since 2011. Dispatched for a security company in Utah as a Trainer/Telecommunicator. Keeps track of and updates all the alarm permits in the city. Away from work, she takes care of her mother, and singly raises her teenage son.
Shawna Fields
Trainer /Telecommunicator
Been with Spring Hill since 2012. Dispatched at surrounding agencies since 2007. Away from work she tries to go to Gatlinburg as much as possible. She also loves to take impromptu day trips with her husband, as he gets to drive a truck. Her and her husband have been together for 15 years. And spends as much time as she can with her teenage daughter.
Tonalea Boone
Dispatching since 2014. Transplanted to this great State from Texas- which she will always call home. Tonalea and her husband, have 7 children ranging from 11 months to 19 years old.ξ The 11 month old is the first girl! Luck has changed, as her first grandbaby (6 months) is also a girl. Away from work Tonalea cherishes just being with her family- and looks forward to when her and her husband go out on date nights.
Meagan Stokes
Been dispatching for Spring Hill since 2014. This is her first dispatching job and is a transplant to our beautiful city from Michigan. She assist with training new hires, and trains officers on TBI’s policies and procedures as pertaining to the use of the NCIC material. Away from work- her life is surrounded by the laughter of aξ 2 & 3ξξξ year old. She loves spending time with her family when not at work. She has been married for 6 years. She can make anything! Very creative!
Sara Ginter
Been dispatching for Spring Hill 2015. Previously dispatched at surrounding agencies for a few years. Sara has only 2 weeks left with our agency. She will be leaving us on the 22nd April. Sara is a single mom, and has had a great job offer that will help her with her raising of her pre-teen son.
Emily Seley
Dispatching since 2015. Transplanted from Pennsylvania. She is the Martha Stewart of dispatch always cooking or baking something! She also loves sewing and just being creative. Before she was a dispatcher- she used to nanny. She still enjoys spending her time with the family she worked for.
Sara Jessica Wood (Jess)
Just started dispatching here last month. She is still in the training program. She lives at home, helping take care of her dad when she is not working or studying! She is a local girl, and loves her two dogs and her truck!
10 Things you didn’t Know about Spring Hill Dispatch
- We are separate from all other Spring Hill Departments. We are called the Spring Hill Emergency Communications Department. We do not fall under the Police Department or Fire Department. Our Director answers directly to the City Administrator just like the Police and Fire Chiefs do.
- Our job has one of the highest turnovers in the country. The average years of service for a telecommunicator nationwide is 2 years. Dispatching- nationwide, is a low paying, high stress, thankless job. You have to love what you do- or the burn out will come quickly.
- We answer both 911 and non-emergency lines for the City Limits of Spring Hill. We dispatch Police, Fire, Medical responders- or all three depending on the type of call.
- We also tend to be the first people that are called when someone doesn’t know who to call- We don’t know the hours of the DMV- we don’t know why your electricity is out, we don’t know why the trash didn’t pass, usually- we don’t know why roads are closed outside our city limits, and we are great at giving directions 🙂 _.
- We are on Social Media! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We try to keep the public updated with information on both these sites. We do use Facebook a whole lot more. Spring Hill Dispatch is our FB page. @SpringHillDisp is our Twitter name.
- We send out Nixles. If you do not have a Nixle text your Zip Code to 888777 to be added. Or you can join online at nixle.com and chose what type of alerts you want to receive. Spring Hill Emergency Communications send out alerts based on traffic, road conditions, weather, community updates, missing kids, etc. This is a resource that Dispatch offers that we would love for all Spring Hill residents to use.
- When you call for help, you usually are not the only person calling. We can have several different calls going on at once.We can be working several calls at one time. While we are talking on the phone with you- we are also talking to the police, fire, or EMS units to you. We also may be working several traffic stops, sending out a Nixle, giving directions to responders, calling electric or gas companies, calling a helicopter, or talking to someone who has just walked into the office needing help too, running a tag, finding a phone number, searching files for histories with people or locations, and maybe eating our lunch- if we had time to pack it. All this is done by usually only 2 people in the office. Yelling at us (which believe it or not sometimes does happen) does not help anything- we are just trying to keep everyone safe, and get the help and answers in order to do that.
- Butt- dials are a big problem. Especially with people who work outdoors and keep their phones in their pocket. Only- we don’t know it was an accident- so we have to constantly update your coordinates, and get the police officers to you in case you need help. If we hang up- it may be an emergency, and we may not be able to locate you again- hanging up is a last resort. Please don’t carry your phone in your pocket!
- Most of the time, we don’t know what happens to the caller. You would think, we are all on the same team, so we know- but information does not get passed on to dispatch. If we took the call, started the CPR process, we may never know whether you made it or not. Sometimes we find out weeks later, by a newspaper article congratulating the field units. When we hang up with you, we are usually answering our next call- We have an intense moment with a person, and it could be the most horrible moment of their life and we are the first person there to help them, and then we never find out what happens. It is like reading a book, and then putting it down at the last chapter- and picking up another one.
- It is more traumatizing than you think. Most people call 911- maybe once or twice in their life. It is never just to chat about the weather. It is everyone’s emergency at their time of need, day after day, after day. You hear the voice of friends, or even family. You hear the screams on the other side of the radio. You hear someone’s last breath, a mothers cry, a fight, a suicide, a murder, a child’s voice_ You hear, you handle, you comfort- and then you move on. PTSD- and you never even left your desk_..
