Some of her ad hoc instructions included telling people to jump in a pool or pond. This saved numerous lives [1].
She is now literally rewriting the script for how dispatchers respond to wildfire emergencies [2]:
"Her boss, Aaron Abbott, said that on several occasions “KT gave life-saving instructions to citizens in situations that were so unique that no emergency fire dispatch protocols existed for them.”
1 - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/specialsections/rebuildnorthba...
2 - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/specialsections/rebuildnorthba...
EDIT for 1:
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/9586767-181/sonoma-storie...
Baffling to me that people who are meant to be dealing with human beings going through stressful moments, perhaps the most stressful of their lives, believe policing civility should be part of the package.
I'd imagine that as much as anything, this is about 911 dispatching being a thoroughly unnatural role. On one end of the phone, it's a life-and-death crisis, but on the other it's the twelfth call of an eight-hour shift. Miscommunication across that kind of gap seems inevitable.
If you're not offended, I have to try harder to convey my indignity, you naughtyhead.
Some people interpret the very act of cursing as incivility, regardless of the purpose, and some people only view it as uncivil if it is meant to be uncivil.
Personally, I don’t agree that the only reason to curse is to offend. In my mind, curse words have a very specific meaning and sometimes they are by far the most appropriate word for a situation.
I would liken it to using words that describe parts of the human anatomy. There are some people who would never say the word penis in polite company, but sometimes it’s just the only word for the job.
Also, I’m not suggesting that my interpretation is the only reasonable one, just that I think there are widely varying positions.
Of course it depends on the social context. I'm not going to be swearing much at all at work and still feel a little startled (not offended, just surprised and maybe vaguely uncomfortable) when my manager drops an F-bomb or two. Yet around friends and family, F-bombs (and C-bombs [1] around close friends!) are almost used like exclamation points, purely to draw emphasis and attention to a statement.
I can only conclude it's one of those cultural things. So while I respect that some people find swearing deeply offensive and particularly only useful to offend, that's a really alien concept to me.
[1] F-bomb and C-bomb are slang terms referring to f..k and c..t respectively.
I recommend nonviolent communication, the book and the practice. Teaches the ability to “translate” highly charged conversations into basic human needs and feelings.
For the dispatcher, the question was sensible because "I don't know" is one fork in triage that helps separate from answers like "she's diabetic so maybe her blood sugar dropped". For the caller, it feels like he's expected to have an answer and isn't getting helped by the dispatcher, particularly if he already knows that he doesn't have any useful information.
From a completely dispassionate view, the dispatcher still got his answer: no known cause, continue to step 2. But as far as training dispatchers, it raises all kinds of questions: Can you reorder the questions to get the caller's observations and then their knowledge? Can you rephrase 'why?' so that "I don't know" feels like part of the process and not a breakdown of it? Can you prepare the dispatcher better to deescalate or ignore the hostility instead of worsening it?
Emergency Medical Dispatch is a fascinating case study of technical communication in general. Lots of jobs train people to communicate urgent information clearly, but EMD has exceptionally specific limitations. Only one side of the call is trained, so you can't rely on rehearsed protocols like EMTs or police officers would. And the priority of information is completely unintuitive to most of us because it's not just importance, but sequencing: info needed to dispatch an ambulance comes first, then info to help the caller do first aid, and only after that the seemingly crucial stuff like "what's actually making them sick".
It depends on the country and culture too. Here in Scotland, swearing is basically part of the vernacular, especially if you're in informal terms with each other. For example, if I help out a friend, he might say "ta, you're a good cunt!", and it's a way of saying "thanks".
Too much familiarity with someone you don't known is a highly aggressive challenge. "What's up motherfucker" to some guy at the bar won't make any friends and might end in a fight.
No it isn't. It's often hilarious, as in the above example. And in that one episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. You wouldn't use it in mixed company, but if you know your audience you can say any number of horribly offensive things.
Another example would be if I told a friend something incredulous, they might respond with "get tae fuck!" (meaning, "fuck off!"), or "awa' an shite!", (meaning "what a load of shit!").
Because there would be violence involved.
Seriously though, the tone, context and body language would be completely different.
I'd rather my friends call me a cunt (as the closest ones do) than mate, because the thin veneer of politeness in mate implies distance if not contempt (from strangers / acquaintances).
It still has negative connotations, but in a much lesser way so it becomes part of friendly banter.
Bad language in my brain wiring triggers fight or flight responses in me because in the wrong context, it sounds f’ing aggressive and violates all kinds of gentlemen’s codes.
It’s not the words themselves though. I can watch standup comedy with lots of bad language for hours. Another example is Jon Favreau’s character in Chef who curses liberally but his personality is so teddy bear like it doesn’t do anything to me. Joe Rogan? No problem.
But if I meet someone in a corporate setting who looks stern (especially a young insecure guy) and starts to let fly with bad language, I’m likely to cut the person down — because my brain interprets it as aggressive posturing and puts me in a mood to attack this person.
I need to work on my responses (I’m not justifying them), but I also want to share so that folks know how bad language can come across in the wrong context.
That's obviously far less about the profanity, and more about the power dynamic and tone. My guess is the same response could be triggered with no actual profanity in that setting.
Correcting my pronunciation of a street name is fine in most contexts, but it seems like an awfully trivial thing to spend time on while my friend is bleeding profusely.
I've never been a dispatcher, but I have worked in on-site assembly plant tech support, and I've seen the problem with escalating interactions quite a bit. The way I approach it, people who call in are upset and excited about their problems, not mad at me. Other people heard the raised tone of voice and took it personally.
I recommend nonviolent communication, the book and the practice. Teaches the ability to “translate” highly charged conversations into basic human needs and feelings.
The person swearing was a random 911 caller attempting to receive help; we can't expect every caller to know nonviolent communication, or to recall it in life-or-death situations. The person upset by the swearing was a 911 dispatcher; if they have involuntary triggers around language then a job that absolutely requires remaining composed while talking to frightened strangers is dangerously poor fit. And I don't think it would actually be good for the dispatcher to practice NVC - whatever its merits, it's not a process meant for rapidly transferring vital information.
Safety and emergency-response communication is an entire topic of its own, and emergency medical dispatchers already get specific training on how to achieve the goals of that work.
The conversation is fascinating and frustrating to read. The paper breaks down the interactions to try to find out where exactly communication failed.
> Our investigation revealed that the participants had rather different understandings of what was happening and different expectations of what was supposed to happen in this conversation. Over the course of the interaction the talk of both caller and nurse-dispatcher (and her supervisor) operated to extend and deepen this misalignment. This misalignment contributed in a fundamental way to a dispute that contaminated and transformed the participants' activity: the eliciting and giving of information concerning the condition of the caller's stepmother was displaced by the activity of arguing. We were thus able to show when and how words can "fail," not in the sense of failing to be heard or comprehended but in the sense of failing to achieve the "meaning" they might be perceived as semantically conveying.
The paper is paywalled, but can be accessed with Sci-Hub [2].
[1] http://www.jstor.org/stable/800591
[2] https://sci-hub.tw/https%3A//www.jstor.org/stable/800591%3Fs...
Fascinating indeed.
Also, I'm grateful Sci-Hub exists!
That's why it's good for customer service and their management to push back when people are rude and not accept excuses. Besides making life dramatically better for customer service, it helps train people to be courteous as a matter of course. They learn courtesy works and will tend to build an unconcious habit that's more likely to exhibit when they're in an emergency.
One concern I have about it is that it is a useful "letting off steam" step before an increase in physical aggression or temper.
When that step is removed due to it becoming a form of punctuation, the escalation to physical becomes potentially easier or quicker.
My point being. Yes there are limits to what emergency response should put up with.
This is hard to imagine, actually. An incredible dereliction of duty by the hospital.
> Yes there are limits to what emergency response should put up with.
And your conclusion, as applied to the context you provide, is clearly wrong. Of course there are limits to what emergency response should put up with, but that doesn't even come close.
Second, your story does not support your point, it just adds words to it with no apparent relevance.
Was this a delivery facility in the USA?
Because if so, I'm 99.999% sure they broke the law. Just by way of example, recently, in one of the hospitals my S.O. runs, a gentlemen was cursing and racially berating a black nurse for attempting to treat his wife. Extreme vulgarity. (They had come in because the wife was having a baby. So emergency situation.) The hospital simply asked that the husband leave, and made sure that no black, hispanic or asian caregivers treated the wife.
Why?
Because it's unethical not to treat the sick, it's illegal in most states, and it will get you into serious problems with medical review boards everywhere in the US. All that then starts impacting things like Joint Commission, etc etc etc.
Of course, if the facility is already full and operating at legal capacity, that's one thing. But it doesn't sound like that's what happened in your anecdote.
Why should emergency dispatchers not expect a civil working environment?
I do not condone the response of the emergency dispatcher here but I genuinely want to know why an emergency dispatcher must be required to withstand hostile behavior as part of their job?
They're not required to interpret a caller's phone voice as 'hostile' either. Unless the caller actually says something like "I'm going to come find you and kill you or your family" or something along those lines, I don't think there's any reason anything a caller says should be interpreted as 'hostile' to the dispatcher. If they're agitated/upset - well... they're having an emergency.
Should medical staff not expect "sick people" in their office/hospital?
Someone who can't handle someone yelling or swearing on the phone should't be in a dispatcher role, and... yeah, I think it's gotta be stressful for them too, and they probably shouldn't do it a whole lot, as they'll burn out quickly.
* firemen often risking their lives approaching (and sometimes entering) buildings in fire. It's a hostile environment, but it's their duty, whether they are paid or not (volunteer firefighters).
* policemen answering a call in a dangerous/hostile neighbourhoods (or just roaming). It's hostile environment, but it's their duty to be of service there.
Compared to the above, expecting dispatchers to emotionally detach and not take anything said personally is a smaller ask, in my opinion.
Emergencies make people stressed. Stressed people often curse.
It's my understanding that some people are particularly sensitive to cursing and aggressive language, while others don't really care much. When we read something like the above, both our worlds collide. The language sensitive people will relate with the dispatcher, while others will think what the hell, because it seems that she was not listening to what was being said, but rather focusing on how it was said.
In society it's each person's responsibility to be civil and courteous, but emergency dispatchers should not expect this from callers. Not everybody is polite, but everyone deserves to expect help when they call for it, regardless of the way they talk. Emergency response is not customer service, where you can just tell a client that you'll have to drop them because they berated one of the phone clerks and that's against company policy.
I'm not playing devil's advocate for bullies, nor saying that people who hate swearing shouldn't do certain jobs. But I believe that if the work is to be a public respondent to emergency situations, maybe learning to not take things so personally should be part of the training.