When you think of emergency responders, your mind might go to police officers, firefighters or emergency medical technicians — the people who show up at the scene to render aid. But don’t forget about the people who set them in motion, said Bill Gutschick, the interim executive director of West Central Consolidated Communications.
The North Riverside-based dispatch center, commonly called WC3, serves Riverside, Brookfield, North Riverside and McCook. There, workers known as dispatchers or telecommunicators are the ones who answer emergency calls, responding to people in moments of crisis while ensuring the correct local agency sends someone out as soon as possible.
“They seem to be like the unsung heroes,” Gutschick told the Landmark. “Sometimes, they don’t get the credit they deserve because, basically, they’re it. They’re the ones who start the whole process to get people help.”
He said severe storms that rolled through the area on July 24 proved how important the telecommunicators’ work is. With thunderstorms following a wildly humid day and torrential downpour the next day, according to the National Weather Service, Gutschick said just three dispatchers answered 71 calls within a two-hour span, an average of one phone call each every five minutes.
“That’s a heavy load. I was watching them, and they handled it flawlessly. It was just amazing,” he said. “A lot of [the calls for service] are duplicated, so they might get three, four phone calls for a tree coming down or wires coming down. … The amount of radio traffic and telephone traffic that came in was just tremendous.”
He said three is the minimum number of telecommunicators that can be on the floor at once, but that the number rarely hits five or more. He said WC3 has 18 dispatch staff in total.
Gutschick said being able to multitask and work together are core skills the telecommunicators need to fulfill their duties.
“There’s one position assigned to call-taking. Another position is fire, and the other position is police, but when you get overloaded with calls like this, they all have to start working together as one big team. If the call-taker is overloaded, somebody else has also got to try to pick up the 911 calls,” he said. “It turns into a big team effort when you run across these situations.”
In region-wide situations like the July 24 storms, Gutschick said WC3 workers could also take calls from other municipalities nearby whose dispatch centers cannot keep up with the demand.
Steve Ezpinoza joined WC3 as a telecommunicator about four months ago. While he wasn’t taking calls on July 24, Espinoza said learning how to multitask has been a challenging part of adjusting to the job.
“Somebody may be dispatching the police, and I’m taking the call, and somebody is dispatching the fire department, and they’re asking questions of me while I’m talking to the person on the phone,” he told the Landmark. “It’s a lot of multitasking. That’s probably the most important skill, and it takes a while to learn, to understand, [for example,] what are the noises that are going off? Is that a fire alarm that you hear in the background, or is it a trouble alarm?”
He said showing empathy to callers is an important aspect of his job every day.
“A lot of times, they’re having the worst day of their life, and you want to make sure that you’re the calm, collected voice and not also be panicking when you’re speaking to them. That’s always been my goal, to be able to help people. I really enjoy it,” he said.
While it can be distressing to take a call from someone witnessing a crisis, Espinoza said he focuses on what he can do to help.
“Even though I’m maybe feeling the same feeling that they’re feeling, I know that me being calm will hopefully keep them calm or keep them from escalating their panic to where I can’t elicit anymore information from them,” he said. “Ultimately, I want to be able to get an address from them, so we can get the fire or police department going.”
When he’s off the clock, Espinoza said he focuses on his hobbies like reading and going for walks so difficult work moments don’t bleed over.
His favorite part of the job, though, is the camaraderie he’s found with his coworkers and other first responders.
“We’re located in North Riverside, so some of the police officers will come in, and [I enjoy] hearing the stories about the calls,” he said. “It feels almost like a family vibe. We’re telling stories, [metaphorically] sitting around the dinner table and having a conversation with people. Me, personally, that’s what I enjoy: the friends that you make along the way.”
