911 dispatchers are classified federally as “office and administrative support.”

“I’m not sure of the last time somebody’s secretary listened to someone burn to death or shoot themselves or discover their kid’s body in their bedroom,” said Kati Fox.

Fox is the operations manager at the Durango/La Plata County Communications Center. In the 14 years that she has worked as a dispatcher, she has heard all three, and much more.

Those in her field are increasingly gaining recognition as not just administrative support staff, but as first responders themselves.

“When we send an officer or paramedic to a call, we tell them what they’re going to. We have no clue,” said Zeta Fail, the 911 director at the Communications Center. “We pick up that phone and we may have a barking dog call or we may have CPR in progress that we need to start or even delivering a child.”

The stress is cumulative, Fox says. Dispatchers are loaded with trauma throughout their 12-hour shifts, taking back-to-back calls with little reprieve. All of a sudden, a dispatcher who has been OK, isn’t.

Between 18% and 24% of 911 dispatchers experience PTSD, a groundbreaking 2012 study found. Based on her 30 years of experience, Fail estimates that number is low.

“When somebody calls 911, that is the moment that the world opens up, or the line is drawn in the sand – there’s a before and there's an after,” Fox said. “We are in that moment with somebody, and that is really heavy emotionally.”

At a national level, professional associations are pushing to reclassify 911 dispatchers in order to unlock better benefits. But the trudging pace of the federal government has been frustrating, and Fail is preparing to take things into her own hands.

“We’ve created a culture where it’s not OK to not be OK,” said Anna Harris, a five-year veteran of the Durango dispatch center, speaking of her profession broadly.

Harris reached her own breaking point in summer 2021, after a series of difficult calls. For her, the conversations with survivors – those who found the body of a family member, or survived a fatal car crash – are the ones that haunt her.

She left dispatch, temporarily, because, as she recognizes in retrospect, she was not dealing with the trauma. Hearing the voice of a deputy over the radio who was present at a particularly difficult call would send her into a panic.

“I need to seem OK for everyone, else because there’s a level of trust with my partners,” Harris said. “If I’m not OK, can they trust me to do my part of the job?”

In Durango, Fail is launching a resiliency program to encourage dispatchers to seek support.

Dispatchers don’t garner the same recognition as their brethren in uniform.

“We don’t have the fancy shiny trucks, the sirens, the uniform – all the trappings,” Fox said.

But just because they don’t have the accoutrements of first responders, doesn’t mean dispatchers are not subject to their own form of trauma.

EMTs, firefighters and law enforcement are physically subject to difficult situations. But, they also tend to see resolution, whatever it may be.

Dispatchers are often left in the dark. One might walk someone through delivering CPR for 30 minutes, but ultimately not know whether the person lived.

“We make up our own stories, it’s probably not anywhere close to the truth,” Harris said. “… I think that’s maybe how we cope with not knowing.”

Harris recalled doing just that with a man who she walked through delivering CPR on his brother. The man was taken by ambulance to the hospital, not by the coroner’s office.

“I told myself CPR guy made it,” she said.

Of course, she doesn’t know for certain.

With major incidents, Fail said on-scene responders often make an effort to include dispatchers in debriefs. But with staffing levels at a critical low, there is not always time in a dispatcher’s day to circle back.

The feeling of helplessness challenges dispatchers too, Fox said.

“While we are highly skilled and very good at what we do, and we have excellent tools to perform the job, we are on the phone,” she said. “We cannot reach through the phone line and stop the bleeding, give the CPR, (or) pull the baby out of the water. We’re hamstrung, our hands are tied just by the nature of our role.”

The barriers to building resiliency are twofold. Stigma works hand-in-hand with a perception that 911 dispatchers are not exposed to the same trauma as in-person first responders to make accessing mental health resources difficult.

Repeated studies have shown elevated rates of stress, depression and PTSD in first responders. And surveyed first responders frequently indicate that stigma can prevent them from seeking help, out of fears that it could negatively impact their careers.

“A lot of times they don’t feel comfortable getting the health care because there’s a stigma attached to it – ‘I don’t want people to think I can’t handle my job’ – so we’re trying to change that and educate them on what the signs are,” Fail said. “Obviously, I’m not a counselor, so I’m not trying to teach them how to swim, but I’m trying to give them a life jacket.”

Fail is on the cusp of launching a resiliency program, which will take effect within the next few weeks.

The program is modeled after a similar concept implemented by the Durango Police Department in 2021.

It will create incentives to dispatchers to see a counselor preemptively, in an effort to stem occupational burnout and reduce the emotional load that can induce PTSD.

In exchange for a visit with a counselor, dispatchers will receive an extra day of paid vacation up to twice per year.

“They don’t have to wait until something triggers them,” Fail said. “They can just make a phone call, talk to a counselor and get an extra vacation day.”

The hope is that dispatchers will use the extra time to do something that helps them self-regulate.

Two years into the program at Durango Police Department, Deputy Chief Brice Current said it is going well, and has expanded to create more mental health resources for officers.

The city of Durango provides up to eight in-person counseling sessions to employees through the employee-assistance program.

In April 2020, the city adopted a resolution recognizing dispatchers as first responders. However, with federal reclassification still mired in bureaucracy, Fail said the local reclassification did not bring about “real change.”

A federal reclassification could change the way wages are calculated, shifts are scheduled and when retirement is available, among other things. Bills to enact that reclassification have repeatedly stalled in Congress.

But despite the building stress, traumatic phone calls and uncertain outcomes, the dispatchers who stick around have done so for a reason.

“I love this job so much,” Harris said. “I feel a level of fulfillment, like this is what I was meant to do. I’m helping people. I’m, an active part of my community that they never see.”

rschafir@durangoherald.com