Maryanne Christensen, Dispatch Supervisor with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, stepped into the SVI Radio studio on Tuesday, November 11 to discuss the functions and responsibilities of dispatch officers in Lincoln County.

(0:00) Let’s head into this hour’s guest interview segment this morning. (0:03) Joining me live in studio is Marianne Christensen. (0:05) Marianne is the supervisor of the Lincoln County Dispatch Center (0:11) in both Afton and Kemmer.

(0:13) So Marianne, good morning. (0:14) How are you today? (0:15) Good morning. (0:15) Thank you for having me.

(0:17) Absolutely. (0:17) Appreciate you coming in studio. (0:19) We like to have the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office in on a monthly basis.

(0:22) And today you’re representing the Sheriff’s Office. (0:24) So thank you for that. (0:25) Thank you.

(0:26) Day in the life of a dispatcher. (0:29) Want to talk just about what you guys do and what the office all kind of entails. (0:36) So let’s start with that.

(0:37) What is it like just in a normal day in dispatch? (0:42) Well, normal days we take calls for service that we deploy resources, ambulance, fire, (0:50) law enforcement. (0:51) We coordinate with other agencies like Highway Patrol, Forest Service, and those type of (0:56) things also. (0:57) And I mean, not every day is a run, run, run.

(1:01) You know, there’s down times, but it seems like, you know, something happens that takes (1:05) our attention and multiple things happen all at once. (1:09) Now walk us through the process of you have two different offices. (1:12) Yes.

(1:13) And either office can take over for the other one, if I’m understanding correctly. (1:17) So walk us through how that works with you guys coordinating with each other between (1:21) Afton and Kemmer. (1:21) So a lot of other agencies have like a backup center.

(1:26) We run both of our centers. (1:28) So they’re not one isn’t backup to the other per se, but we run them both in tandem. (1:34) We work like we’re in the same room.

(1:36) We have a direct link to the other dispatch center. (1:39) Multiple 911s ring in on one incident. (1:42) Both centers can answer and they do.

(1:44) And we build our computer aided dispatch is one call. (1:49) We all add notes into it. (1:50) We all have the access to all the information so that the responders have complete information.

(1:57) Now, of course, you operate under the direction, I guess, of the Sheriff’s office. (2:03) Yes. (2:03) But you handle multiple agencies calls and dispatch outside of that office.

(2:08) Is that correct? (2:09) Yes. (2:10) So we dispatch for fire, EMS, law enforcement. (2:14) Like I said, we coordinate with highway patrol for service, even Bonneville County, (2:18) Caribou County, Rich County in Utah, Sublet, Sweetwater, Teton County.

(2:25) We work in tandem, coordinate with them for response in and outside of our response area. (2:33) Now, how many dispatchers do you currently have right now? (2:37) Believe it or not, we’re rare. (2:39) We are fully staffed.

(2:41) So we have 12 dispatchers. (2:42) Two of them are part time. (2:43) They rotate and fill in PTO of the full time.

(2:47) It’s very rare in the country right now. (2:49) Yeah. (2:49) I was going to say you’ve been looking for dispatch for years.

(2:52) Yes. (2:52) If I remember right. (2:53) So fully staffed right now.

(2:56) And you mentioned you work with Bonneville. (2:58) So how does that work? (2:59) Sometimes we see, in fact, I think we’ve talked about this before. (3:01) There was issues where calls, cell phones work on random towers and different things (3:07) and can sometimes you place a 911 call and it goes to the wrong dispatch center.

(3:11) Yes. (3:11) So how do you make all those connections in the heat of the moment? (3:15) So we actually have a program and it’s pretty much across the nation. (3:20) It’s called Rapid SOS.

(3:21) So when you dial 911, it’ll show up on our screens. (3:24) It’ll ping on our screen basically saying that this person’s dialed 911. (3:28) If it’s in our response area, our dispatch area, even if it goes to Bonneville, it’ll (3:33) still show that it’s an active 911 call.

(3:36) So we’ll know the location before anything and then Bonneville will transfer it to us (3:41) or they’ll take the information and relay to us and vice versa. (3:45) Marianne Christensen, Dispatch Supervisor with us this morning on The Weekday Wakeup. (3:48) Marianne, when a 911 call comes in, what is protocol for you guys and what are the very (3:55) first steps that you take at the very beginning of a call? (3:58) Location, location, location.

(4:01) If we don’t know where to send, we can’t help, right? (4:04) So the first thing we ask is location address. (4:07) If we can get the address, we can get someone headed that way if I lose the caller. (4:11) Now, if it’s on a cell phone, can you sometimes determine location? (4:16) It’s a lot better than it was years ago when we talked because our towers go on a straight (4:23) line, but we don’t do triangulation anymore with the technology.

(4:28) We now get a pretty good ping unless it’s in a spotty service area, say the South End (4:35) in Nugget Canyon down in the camera area, Grays River, some of those things, backcountry, (4:40) we’ll get spotty locations. (4:43) But for the most part, with technology coming off of the phone itself and the GPS off the (4:48) phone itself, we get a lot better location information now. (4:51) I’m sure sometimes, though, if people are calling while connected to Wi-Fi, say they’re (4:55) at home or at work, that gets tricky because then you’re dealing with VPNs and internet.

(5:01) I mean, you could get a local call and it could say it’s from anywhere in the world, (5:04) right? (5:04) Exactly. (5:05) And if it’s a VoIP phone, if you don’t register your VoIP phone, and there’s so many (5:10) aspects to technology now, it’s so deep, it’s really hard to trace it down and understand (5:16) for some. (5:18) Yeah.

(5:18) Marianne, when someone calls in, I don’t know if mistake is the right word, but what (5:25) is the ideal caller, I guess is the question. (5:30) I mean, obviously, it’s in the heat of the moment and typically people that call you (5:33) are not having a very good moment in their lives, right? (5:37) And so what would you like callers to remember as they call in? (5:40) Answer our questions. (5:41) It may seem like we are not sending out, but we have multiple dispatchers on at a time (5:47) now that we’ve got the two centers working in tandem.

(5:50) So one dispatcher is talking to the person on the phone, the other dispatcher is dispatching (5:54) law enforcement, fire, EMS, whatever is needed while that one on the phone is gathering the (6:01) necessary information for the responders. (6:04) Perfect. (6:04) Perfect.

(6:05) On average, what’s a normal call volume per day? (6:10) Um, well, I pulled the yearly, but we, we run about 4,500 911 calls for a year. (6:17) Okay. (6:18) And I mean, some of them, it seems like it’s the 911 day.

(6:21) Some of the 911’s ringing off the hook. (6:23) Some days we get one, you know, it just depends on, you can’t predict emergencies for sure. (6:29) Absolutely.

(6:30) Do you still see a higher volume of the summer over the winter or is that kind of balanced (6:35) out? (6:35) No, absolutely. (6:37) During the summer with all of the tourists coming through main thoroughfare to Yellowstone, (6:43) and we have a lot of fossil things down in the Kemmer area. (6:47) So we get a lot of tourists coming through the area.

(6:49) Yeah. (6:50) Our, our calls are almost double during the summer. (6:53) What do you enjoy most about working in the dispatch? (6:57) And what’s maybe one of the biggest challenges of being a dispatch officer? (7:01) Um, I love helping the people and I love my team.

(7:04) My team is the best. (7:06) They are always there. (7:07) They’re willing to help.

(7:10) And one of the biggest challenge is probably the speed of technology and trying to keep (7:15) up with it right now. (7:17) Yeah. (7:18) Always changing.

(7:19) Yes. (7:19) Absolutely. (7:20) Well, Marianne, we appreciate your time and all the insights.

(7:22) I love just kind of picking people’s brains and what they do. (7:24) And so this has been fascinating. (7:26) Anything else that you feel like is, is worth mentioning today from a dispatch standpoint? (7:30) Um, yeah.

(7:30) In the legislature and right now they’ve just passed, it’s a version of the 9-1-1 (7:37) saves act to reclassify dispatchers as a, um, essential service instead of a clerical. (7:45) We give life-saving, um, instructions over the phone, CPR, childbirth. (7:52) We’re trained in a lot of medical situations, fire situations, even law enforcement situations, (7:59) um, where we instruct callers to do certain things for the safety of our responders and (8:06) for a positive outcome.

(8:12) So what we want to make sure that, well, on the state level, there’s, um, we have representatives (8:22) going to DC to, um, support dispatchers to become an essential professional service and (8:31) not just a clerical service. (8:33) Yeah. (8:33) Seems like a no brainer to me, right? (8:36) Absolutely.

(8:37) So it has to be reclassification. (8:38) Okay. (8:39) And so it sounds like that’s happening at a, at a national level then? (8:42) Yes.

(8:43) Okay. (8:43) Up in DC. (8:44) Okay.

(8:45) Uh, Marianne Christensen, dispatch supervisor for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office. (8:49) Marianne, thank you for what you guys do. (8:50) And, uh, being veterans day also wanted to, to, uh, give you a chance.

(8:54) I know that being in law enforcement emergency services, uh, you guys work with a lot of (8:59) veterans who, who go into that field of work, right? (9:01) Yes. (9:02) And my father was retired army. (9:05) He retired as staff Sergeant way long time ago.

(9:09) He passed away in 2017, but I’ve always had a special place in my heart for veterans. (9:13) And I really respect everything that they’ve done for us in our country. (9:17) Very well said.

(9:18) That is Marianne Christensen this morning, dispatch supervisor for the Lincoln County (9:21) Sheriff’s office. (9:22) It’s the weekday wake up on SVI radio.