BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – When you see people go through trauma, it can affect your mental health. Now imagine what it would be like to have to share such an experience with someone as part of your job. This is what 911 dispatchers do every day, and it can cause harm.
Seventeen years ago, Brandi Darling’s former boss saw her work as a waitress and scouted her to work at the state radio station. She said she was impressed with her ability to memorize her customers’ orders without writing anything down. This is a useful skill for dispatchers. But those skills didn’t necessarily prepare them for the mental strain of being a first responder. She said one particularly stressful day was when she had to help a woman who had stopped her car on the side of the road to give her husband CPR. .
“Her husband was the same age as my husband. In that moment, I helped her and did what I needed to do to get through that situation, and 16 years later, I still go out and help myself. I had to have time,” Darling said.
Darling says people don’t really know what a job is like until they try it. She said it’s not uncommon for people to start working at a temp center only to find out it’s not the right fit for them because it’s so stressful.
Ashley Madrid Ulrich has been working as a dispatcher for about eight years. She said there are topics that deeply impact every dispatcher. Madrid-Ullrich said she thinks people often think that a dispatcher’s job is like what they see on TV.
“I think a lot of people probably look at the craziness and the chaos and all that and think, ‘Oh, I see, that sounds really exciting.’ I don’t think they understand that there are people out there,” Madrid-Ullrich said.
Both women said that temporary workers each have their own ways of dealing with work-related stress. Darling said for some people that means going to the gym, and for others it’s meditation. Some people go to therapy. But she said not knowing what happened to the person on the other end of the call could have serious repercussions for some dispatchers. Darling said she continues to work, even though it’s a stressful job, because she has compassion for the people who call her.
Darling said dispatchers do their best to take all the shouting and insults off their shoulders, but he feels like people sometimes forget they’re human.
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