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Centre honors emergency dispatchers

BREANNA HANLEY/THE EXPRESS Norm Spackman, director of Centre County Department of Public Safety/9-1-1, talks during the Centre County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday. Dispacters with Spackman are, from left, Kyley Burd, Jayton Green-Heverly, Keara Tice, Ross Miller and Rayme Weidel, assistant director of public safety.

BELLEFONTE — National Telecommunicators week has kicked off across the Commonwealth with counties throughout the state recognizing the staff members who help residents in their darkest hour.

The Centre County Commissioners have proclaimed April 9-15 as 9-1-1 Dispatchers Week in the county and invited numerous individuals to come and be recognized for their hard work and dedication.

“There’s no way to predict what dispatchers see on any given day,” said Norm Spackman, director of Centre County Department of Public Safety/9-1-1. “Snow storms, thunderstorms, wind events, vehicle crashes, wildfires, building fires, cardiac arrest, suicides and many other events turn normal day activities into a chaotic busy day in a moment’s notice.”

In attendance were 9-1-1 Dispatchers Ross Miller and Randi Olenick, Training Supervisor Kyley Burd, Trainees Jayton Green-Heverly and Keara Tice and Assistant Director of Public Safety/9-1-1 Rayme Weidel.

“April 1, our staff of 6 processed around 300 phone calls in about two hours. That’s a phone call every two and a half minutes. Along with that, dispatching hundreds of incidents for those calls,” said Spackman.

Dispatchers have to be trained in order to deal with these different emergencies. According to Spackman, initial dispatch training for Centre County takes six weeks of classes, five months’ worth of coaching, daily training, quizzes, four additional national certifications, con-ed classes and learning something new each day that they can apply to the job.

“This is all before they can come to work on their own,” finished Spackman.

Spackman mentioned that as a collective, the 9-1-1 operators had over 7,000 hours of overtime logged in 2022.

“Centre County is very fortunate to have the dedicated 9-1-1 staff we have here. Our dispatchers and supervisors worked over 7,000 hours of overtime in 2022 covering open shifts to make sure county residents were protected and their coworkers were not shorthanded on any shift,” said Spackman.

9-1-1 dispatcher Ross Miller was specifically highlighted for over 937 hours of overtime in 2022.

Though he didn’t have much to say beyond, “It’s the job, it’s what we do,” it was clear Miller is proud of the work he does.

Chairman Mark Higgins brought up a specific event that took place involving a cardiac arrest in which the 9-1-1 dispatcher talked the citizen who called through how to give CPR. A few of the dispatchers pointed at Miller before he humbly said, “That was me.”

Miller was thanked and congratulated for the incredible dedication he showed.

“Others worked, 500, 700, 800 hours. It’s an incredible amount of time to cover shifts that were open,” said Spackman.

Green-Heverly spoke briefly on why he wanted to do this kind of work once prompted by Commissioner Steven Dershem.

“For me it’s more of a feeling of wanting to help people who can’t help themselves,” Green-Heverly said.

Tice said the sentiment was the same for her, “I grew up in a fire hall type of atmosphere my entire life.”

“It’s a natural fit then. We really appreciate it. What you do is so important for the county. I don’t think we can underestimate what the value of your career means to us. Not having someone pick up that phone and say, ‘how can I help you?’ is terrifying. We appreciate the training, the extra time put in and all of the opportunity you provide for safety for our citizens,” said Dershem.

“We have a fabulous 9-1-1 dispatcher group, and we appreciate those of you putting in massive amounts of overtime last year when we were short-handed,” said Higgins.

There are still two positions open for dispatchers that Spackman hopes to fill around summertime.

Commissioner Amber Concepcion said, “Thank you for everything you do. You sometimes talk to people on the worst days of their lives, and sometimes have to sort out what is a real emergency from what might be someone’s perceived emergency. We’re so glad we have some new trainees in the program as well.”

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