Hawks, Giants All Tied Up PAGE 20
THURSDAY January 22, 2015 • www.langleytimes.com NEWS Township Eyes Tree Cut Penalty
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BUSINESS Changing Retail Landscape
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SPORTS ‘Kitten’ Signs With Stealth
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Making sure
Help is on the way
D A N FE R GUS ON Langley Time s
Langley resident Rae-Lynne Dicks began her career as a 911 operator in 1995. She left the job after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and began studing at University of the Fraser Valley. She has conducted the first research in Canada on the prevalence of PTSD symptoms among Canadian 911 operators as part of her Master of Arts in criminal justice degree.
FORMER 911 OPERATOR STUDYING PTSD AMONG COLLEAGUES IN SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS MO N I Q U E TA M M I N G A Ti m e s Re po r t e r
A former 911 operator who was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is hoping to help prevent other operators in Canada from going through the same experience. Langley resident Rae-Lynne Dicks began
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her career as a 911 operator in 1995 and transitioned to B.C.’s biggest 911 call centre, E-Comm, in 1999. While most of us think of police as first responders, it is actually 911 operators who usually are the first to deal with emergency situations. Dicks experienced hundreds of in-prog-
ress emergencies, including rapes, bridge jumpers, fire deaths, home invasions and domestic assaults. “It is the helplessness of being on the phone, help is on the way, and there is nothing more you can do but listen to a person take their last breath full of smoke, hear them scream as they fall and then
FOR OVER 50 YEARS
hit the water, hear the gunshot from the weapon pointed at their own head, hear the daddy beating mommy as you try to calm the child hiding in the closet and mommy stops screaming because she is unconscious,” writes Dicks in her capstone
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