have that many screens,” Talley says with a laugh. The sheriff ’s office assigns zones to cover the 1,050 square miles of Brunswick County. The EMS units have a home base, but they move around a lot. It is up to the person dispatching for EMS to keep abreast of where those units are at all times.
Every Call is Unique “We have a saying that ‘no call is the same,’” Talley says. He shares that it can be tough to work in the county where you live, because sooner or later you are going to know the person in distress. “Those are the worst, when you know the person,” he says. “Also calls about children or aging adults. … A lot of times after a call like that we’ll say, ‘Okay, I’m going to step out for a break.’ But there are times when we are so busy, you can’t take a break, you hang up on a tough call, and there is another one waiting.” 911 telecommunicators receive calls for a variety of things the public may not be aware of, such as a person needing an escort into their home to gather belongings because their spouse has filed a 50-B protection order or for help with a volatile child custody exchange. “You never know what is going to be next,” Talley says. “The other day, it was kind of a slow day, not bad for a Sunday, then two houses were on fire and a third was catching on fire. There is no way you can plan for that.” Ask when about the busiest time for a 911 operator, and a roomful of staff will laugh and say practically in unison, “When there is a full moon!” “Full moons are when we have the weirdest, craziest calls,” Talley says. “It never fails.” The staff has also learned to be cautious when things get too quiet. “Nine times out of 10 if you say, ‘It is
quiet in here,’ you are going to be so busy it’s hard to keep up,” Talley says. The hardest part of the job is that 911 call takers often do not hear the outcome of the situations in which they have been working. It’s as if someone cut out the last chapter of a book. “That’s the one thing about our job that makes it really hard and is kind of a downside with 911 — a lot of times we don’t get the closure like officers
and medics do,” Talley says. “We don’t ever find out whether that patient made it or not. I think that makes the job stressful in itself, starting something but not having an ending, it keeps you hanging and you kind of hold on to those things.” But the staff of the Communications Center keeps going, one call after another, day in and day out, to save lives in Brunswick County.
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