The heart of the system

By Erin McGrath

Published: April 16, 2008

At 9:27 p.m. on March 27, the phone rang and sirens sounded off in the Nelson County Dispatch center.

A woman had called 911 because her husband was complaining of pain in his ribs and hand. He’d rolled his four-wheeler over a couple days prior.

Kristen Martin, 25, of Arrington, calmly questions the woman, getting details about the man’s location before reassuring her that help is on the way. Then Martin hangs the phone up.

Spinning in her chair to face the computer that controls the dispatch center’s radio, Martin calls out to the Nelson County Volunteer Rescue Squad, sending them to help the couple.

It takes her less than five minutes to finish giving the information to the squad, but she will monitor the situation through the radio and Computer Aided Dispatching system until they return to the squad house.

“We’re the nucleus and they’re the atoms,” Shelia Wood, 46, who shared Martin’s shift that night said.

The dispatch office is essentially the center of Nelson County’s Emergency Services.

All 911 calls are fielded through the dispatch center, along with any other phone calls that come into the sheriff’s office main line. Dispatchers are also in charge of keeping track of on and off-duty deputies, animal control personnel, forestry personnel, and rescue and fire squads.

Dispatchers also update the Virginia Criminal Information Network and receive and distribute arrest warrants.

“This is the brains or heart of the whole system,” Mary Garwood, 51, of Afton said. “You get the calls, you send people out, you give them the information. If this part shuts down, then you’ve got a broken system.”

Garwood has dispatched with Nelson County for almost a month. Before that, she worked as a dispatcher for the city of Charlottesville for more than 20 years.

The Nelson County Dispatch Center receives anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 911 calls per month, Emergency Services Coordinator Ray Uttaro said.

“It depends on when it is,” Uttaro said. “Some days could have hundreds of calls. Some days could have two calls.”

There are 12 dispatchers who work in the office, which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“There’s nothing typical about this job,” Derek Kidd, 25, of Faber said. “Some days you come in here and you’re slammed from the time you walk in to the time you leave. And sometimes you set here and you don’t get but one, two calls a night.”

Kidd has dispatched in Nelson County for two months.

One of Bobbie Napier’s most memorable calls was also a hectic one.

Napier, 71, has dispatched for almost three years and was working on Feb. 10 when high winds caused multiple fires, downed power lines and trees to block county roadways.

“There was three of us in here and we could not get a chance to log a call. We couldn’t keep up,” Napier said. “I sat right here and answered 911 repeatedly.”

Judy King, of Schuyler, who has been a dispatcher with Nelson County for two years, said her most memorable call was one that ended with the capture of a wanted man.

The man had parked his truck, blocking someone’s driveway, King said. When the homeowner couldn’t get the man to move his vehicle, they called 911. The man left before deputies could arrive, but they later found the man further down the road.

“I paged for the deputies to check it out first and then see if we needed rescue,” King said. “Come to find out he was intoxicated. When he got here he was telling deputies one thing and they was getting ready to release him, then when the Livescan came up with his fingerprints, he wasn’t who he said he was. So he ended up going to jail. We got one of the bad ones taken away.”

Jaime Miller, the Senior Communications Officer and Deputy Emergency Services Coordinator for Nelson County, said all the best calls lump together for her.

“There have been so many calls that I’ve gotten to be a part of where they ended successfully either with the capture of a criminal or a save on the rescue squads part,” Miller said. “Every time I get one of those, it’s been a good day.”

Mary Campbell, of Amherst County, who has been dispatching with Nelson County for nine years, remembers the call she took from her sister about her mother.

“My mother was very ill,” Campbell said. “When I took that call, it was the last time she went to the hospital and she passed away there.”

When not answering phones or doing paperwork in the office, dispatchers find different ways to pass the time on their shifts.

Lucy Hargrove-Hudson, has dispatched with the county since 1998, and said last month she worked on crocheting lap blankets for women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Most of the dispatchers had different reasons on why they took the job.

For John Adkins, 40, of Faber, it was a transition from running with a rescue squad.

“I was starting to get burned out,” Adkins said.

Richard Sperry, 45, took the job dispatching with Nelson County five years ago because it allowed him to work near his father, who he was caring for at the time.
“And it’s an interesting job,” Sperry said.