What is a traumatic event? For telecommunicators, traumatic events can be anything. While not every call we take is traumatic, the cumulative toll of the job itself is. The effects of cumulative acute stress can be detrimental to our mental and physiological health. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on traumatic events — line-of-duty deaths, a serious line of duty injury, death or illness of a co-worker, multi-casualty incident, police-involved shooting, anything involving a child, a prolonged event with a less than happy ending, anything with a large amount of press and any incident associated with profound emotion.
Let me tell you my story. I was third shift commander for my center, which dispatched for 42 municipalities including 105 different police, fire and EMS departments. I was the only supervisor on duty and we were short staffed with a team of 14, myself included. It was a rainy, quiet night in January when approximately 30 minutes into our shift a veteran officer came on the law enforcement radio channel screaming for an ambulance because his partner had been struck. It is important to understand that this wasn’t a rookie who might be easily excitable. This was a seasoned officer and you could hear the stress in his voice. The room was still as we all awaited information regarding the condition of the officer, information that we are not always fortunate enough to get. We did know the name of the officer and he was a former employee of our center, extremely active in the community and everyone knew him. Any line-of-duty death is challenging, traumatic and just plain difficult to navigate, but this officer was a pillar of the community. The fire department battalion chief was extremely supportive to our center and contacted me throughout the shift to update me on our officer’s condition. His condition declined, improved and declined again for days. He eventually lost the battle and passed away. I learned a lot the night of the incident about myself, my team and the meaning of leadership. I want to share what we learned from that incident, so others can be prepared.
Ask any telecommunicator and they will tell you it is our job to answer the call, help those who need it and make sure all our field units get home safely. It is a huge responsibility that no one in this industry takes lightly. No matter your center’s procedures, we all take this seriously and try to prepare for the worst, but sometimes the inevitable happens. When it does, what do you do? You are a supervisor, your telecommunicators need you, calls are still coming in and there are still units on the road. You are the leader of the team and they are looking to you for guidance. Those first few moments during and after the incident are vital to your team. Ask yourself as a leader, what would you do?
What is the first thing that flight attendants say during every in-flight safety briefing? They tell you to put your mask on first. You can’t help anyone else if you aren’t helping yourself. If you are the first to know about the traumatic event, as was the case for me, take a moment to yourself. Use this discretionary time to take a deep breath. Notify your superiors first. Depending on the circumstances you may not be thinking clearly about policy and procedure. Lean on your leaders and brainstorm with them about how to tell your team, how you will help everyone through the rest of the shift and about your next steps. Take those few minutes and think about what you are going to tell your team and how you are going to say it. It does not have to be perfect. Be honest but careful with your words. Your team will remember what you say and that’s why those extra few moments are so important. Once you make the announcement of a traumatic outcome, things will change quickly. Any of the incidents we are talking about will often be thought of as the worst day of their career, so you want to get it right. There is no perfect way to share bad news but take a moment to gather your composure and decide what you
are going to say.
What can you do to prepare yourself? Discuss it with your peers and superiors to collaboratively create a checklist or procedure. It’s not fun, but it has to be done so you don’t have to improvise during a live incident. Hopefully it never happens to you, but prepare for the worst.
Have a social media policy in place and remind your team not to post anything on social media about the incident. You and your center don’t want to be the reason a family finds out about a tragedy on social media.
Plan to help your team process their emotions. If you know your team and have good working relationships, you may be able to predict their reactions and prepare to meet their needs. Some of our people need a few minutes of quiet time to gather composure, some need to cry on someone’s shoulder and some prefer to process things on their own time. Most co-workers aren’t blessed to have the type of work relationships that telecommunicators do. We spend holidays and weekends together and trudge through the most horrific events, all in a day’s work. You genuinely become a dysfunctional family. As a leader you should know enough about them as individuals to guide them through as a team. After a tragic incident, the team will come together in ways you never imagined.
Contact the police, fire and EMS departments involved to ask if they plan to hold a debriefing. If they do, ask to include your team. Debriefings are important and are most effective when conducted 24-72 hours after the incident has occurred. Debriefings usually last two to three hours and everyone who was involved with the incident is invited to attend. Debriefings accelerate the normal recovery of normal people with “normal reactions to abnormal events.” Mental health professionals and peer debriefers (usually field units) trained in crisis intervention and traumatic stress reactions facilitate these meetings. The facilitators provide information about normal human responses to abnormal events, help your team understand what they are experiencing and help them develop strategies to cope with their reactions to the event. If other departments involved do not plan to hold a debriefing, work with your superiors
to organize one of your own and involve the field responders. When everyone is involved in the debriefing it helps with closure and helps everyone understand step by step what happened.
Once the services are over and the local media loses interest, it will get quiet again. But that doesn’t mean the incident is over. Check on your team in the weeks following the incident. We all react to stress differently. Speak with them individually and watch for warning signs such as changes in performance or attitude, and emotional outbursts. If you know that one of your team members needs help, make yourself available. Listen and talk to them but don’t pry. Listen first; suggest second.
Determine what resources you have available to you locally and have a list ready. Look into your departmental employee assistance program (EAP) and critical incident stress management team to have that information available before a traumatic event happens. Follow up regularly. Be transparent and consistent.
