(snipped by me)
I am a police & fire dispatcher coming up on 17 years of service. I totally understand why you would find it upsetting. It is. It's horrific and awful and none of us want anyone to go through anything like that. But we are trained and paid to be the calm in the storm. I have to get basic information from you as quickly as possible so that help can be started your way. Then I have to continue to be calm to get more information so that officers have a description of the missing child. I cannot let my personal feelings get in the way because if I do, then I can't help you.
This is a horrible call to have to take. It affects us. It affects us more than you will ever know and that's fine because I don't need you to know that. I need you to know that I am focused with everything I am on getting the information I need to get to get you help as soon as possible and in the best way possible. When the call is done, then I can take off my headphones, tell my supervisor that I'm taking a few minutes and go somewhere and fall apart.
I had to take a call nearly 16 years ago from a young woman who was the victim of a nightmarish crime. She was hysterical, her mother was in the background also understandably hysterical. I felt like I wanted to throw up just hearing the basics. I couldn't though. I took a very deep breath, pushed it all down inside me and focused on what questions I had to ask. My being calm helped the girl to calm down and give me the information I needed to give the officers. My being calm helped her to focus on what she could do to fight back (give me an accurate description of the suspect). This call is part of our training library. If you could hear it, you would probably say I was cold. I was completely calm and matter of fact. Inside? I was a mess. I tell trainees about my internal feelings when we listen to this call and all of them are stunned and say "But you sound so calm..." Yes, because my being a mess didn't serve this girl and wouldn't help her at all. After this call, I went outside and lost it for nearly 15 minutes. I couldn't stop thinking about her & what she'd been through and how she would cope. 16 years on, I still think about her.
I understand why you may think we are cold but maybe this has helped you to understand that most of us are not. We care a lot, that's why we do this job - to help people - and to help people, my emotions have to be packed away until a time when I can safely unpack them. (Thank god for my therapist!
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