When Help Is Needed

by Sharon Bass

When a woman called her local emergency number frantically asking for a fire truck and then, panic-stricken, hung up without leaving a name, phone number, or address, it put emergency dispatchers in Waldo County, Maine, in a terrible quandary. Who was she? Where was she? What was the emergency?

They had no way of finding out. The emergency equipment many towns have was lacking in this rural county. In 24 of the 26 towns in Waldo County (pop. 36, 280), there was no 911 emergency system or number to call. The woman had dialed an 800 number, which wasn’t linked to a computer.

“That was one of my most frustrating incidents. I couldn’t do anything about it,” recalls Randy Stevenson, 46, the communications supervisor and an emergency dispatcher for the Waldo County Communications Center, headquartered in the county’s largest town, Belfast (pop. 6,381). “We’d get silent calls and have no idea who it was.”

That was a dozen years ago. Shortly after the woman’s call, Stevenson became determined to bring the county’s emergency system into the 21st century. His goal was finally accomplished in August 2001. Today, Waldo County has a fully operating, enhanced 911 system in a brand new building.

For his pioneering efforts and leadership, Stevenson was named a Silent Hero in 2001 by the state unit of the National Emergency Number Association. Asked why he thinks he was given the award, the self-effacing, soft-spoken man says, “I was surprised. The stuff I do and the way I do it, I didn’t think it would be recognized. I would like to think I’m serving the public, or at least I try to every day.”

His boss, Owen Smith, director of communications, says, “Randy is the kind of guy that does the job right, day in and day out. Of all the people who were planning this (911 system), Randy had the technical expertise. Year after year, he did his job and nobody recognized it.”

Jethro Pease, chairman of the board of the Waldo County Commission, echoes Smith. “A lot of us didn’t know what we were getting into. We looked to Randy for information. He’s been the force that’s kept the process moving.”

Stevenson has been an emergency dispatcher for 20 years. He’s also a volunteer firefighter—“My father did it and so I continue to”—and on his days off, he’s on call to drive a school bus.

He and his wife, Sandra, with their 19-year-old daughter, Brandi, live in Knox (pop. 747), in a white saltbox house, which his grandfather built, 16 miles from his office in Belfast. Their son, Andrew, is a firefighter in southern Maine. Stevenson’s parents live just down the road. It’s a tight-knit family in a tight-knit community.

The new Waldo County Communications Center, a small, nondescript brick building, sits on a rural road. Emergency dispatchers set up shop in their new location July 2001, now fully upgraded with the latest equipment—enhanced 911 computers, a computer-aided dispatch system, and radio. When the phone rings, the caller’s name, address, and phone number are displayed.

The system also shows which emergency services are available in the caller’s town. Until the move, there were only two dispatchers on at a time. Now a third has been added and Stevenson says a fourth is being considered to field roughly 14,000 calls a month.

Calls come in from police and sheriff departments as well as residents. Dispatchers use their radio computer screens to contact police and ambulance services. They also keep abreast of information through a teletype machine that puts out alerts on stolen cars, hit and run accidents, and bulletins for missing people. Dispatchers never know what will happen or when.

Stevenson recalls the time when a man called in saying he’d taken an overdose of drugs and threatened to kill himself with a gun. At the same time, another man called in threatening suicide. Each call must be taken seriously.

While dispatchers talked to the distraught men on the phone, another alerted police. But even when situations get chaotic, Stevenson says he strives to keep cool. “I try to discuss things in a reasonable manner.” Often that’s enough to save a life.

Sharon Bass is a freelance writer working from her home in Portland, Maine.

first appeared: 9/14/2003