A little story from my 911 side of life--sort of sad

When Sarah was just turning 2, I was still a dispatcher, and we were working in our other dispatch center in the city of Orange. It was a Saturday as I recall, and I was working a position just doing my normal deal. So this had to be back in 2003. I actually think it was in April if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, I got a 911 call from a hysterical mother of a 2 year old girl who she had just pulled from the bottom of their pool. In 911 school, you learn about the term "refreaking", which is where the caller is freaking out, you calm them down (sometimes very forcibly) and get them to do something, and they calm down and do whatever you need them to do, but then they realize "OH MY GOD!!!" and get hysterical again. Unfortunately, while I was attempting CPR on this girl with the mom over the phone, she kept refreaking. A LOT! It was very frustrating. But then it got sad.

Outside of the fact that the despair in the voice of the mom was eating away at my gruff exterior, the response time of units was exceptionally long. This call was taking place in Villa Park, and our Villa Park medic engine was already on a call. We had to mutual aid a paramedic unit from Orange City Fire, but he was responding from out of his roll area. And we had an extended ETA on the ambulance, even though it was rolling Code 3. There was nothing I could do about that other than keep working with the mom. I believe the call lasted about 7 minutes, which for 911 calls, is VERY VERY long, but for me, was forever. And as I was working with the mom, trying to keep her AND MYSELF cool, the fact that the little girl wasn't responding in anyway was a bad sign. She needed ALS, not just CPR. She needed to be shocked, she needed oxygen, she needed someone better at 911 calls than me--well, at least that's what I thought after the call.

Because it was once everyone pulled on scene, seemingly all at once fire engines, medic vans, ambulances and cop cars screeching to a halt in front of the house (I heard it in the background) that I had to go step outside. It was the first time in my 911 career that a call literally got to me in such a profound manner that made me have to take a minute for myself. I went outside to take a walk, and all I could do was think about Sarah. And all I could do, as any public safety employee with a conscience could do, was wonder how I could have done my job better because obviously HAD I done it better, the little girl would have responded and would be awake and talking. It didn't matter that statistics are horrific for situations like this, indicating that a positive outcome was near to impossible. It didn't matter that all the dispatchers in the room clapped for me and said "good job dude" or "Ryan, that was freakin' awesome...you did great." No, it only mattered that I had to beat myself up because I sucked at that 911 call and I just didn't do whatever needed to be done. Though I was shedding some tears of frustration out in the parking lot that afternoon, I really missed Sarah a bunch at that moment. So, Nyleen ended up coming down a half hour later with Sarah and I was able to hang outside with them and just chill. Good medicine to hold your 2 year old princess after a horrific call like that.

Turns out the medics that got on scene did what they call a "scoop and run". No time for ALS treatment on scene--get the kid in the ambulance and get her down to the hospital. But it didn't matter. I found out 2 hours later the little girl didn't make it. This call made a mark on me because I choked up AGAIN just typing that sentence. I guess in public safety, we all have these stories--the near death experiences for a cop, the rescue that wasn't in time for a firefighter, the life of a child that slips away for the paramedic. There's also the calls for the 911 dispatcher that hit home and get remembered and create in oneself a sort of sore, something that gets a scab over it but it doesn't take a lot sometimes to knock off the scab. Anyway, it's a fact of life in 911, or in public safety in general, that you can't save everyone. It doesn't matter how much you want to save someone. It doesn't matter if that person deserves to be saved. It doesn't matter the age. It doesn't matter your will, your training, or your ability. Sometimes, people die.

And yeah, sometimes, they're 2 year old girls.

I guess what makes this story worse is that it didn't have to happen. I found later that the family of 4 had come home after shopping. They had bags of groceries to bring in. They pulled into their drive way and unloaded the kids. One went one way. The other went another. Parents were busy loading groceries and as I've been in this situation a hundred times if not a thousand in my own life, they paid "no never mind" to kids running around. You become immune to that "noise" after awhile. Apparently, there was no more noise after awhile that sounded the alarms got the red flags waving, and the mom went to look for the girl. Asking the husband where the little girl was, she realized something was horribly wrong when the husband said "I thought she was with you." The little girl had gone through the house, out the back door, and straight to the pool, through the unlocked gate. Sad...so sad. It didn't have to happen like that, this senseless death, but it did.

You can't save everybody. You can only do your best.

So there you go--I love swimming, I love going to the pool with my kids at my park--heck, I thought I was part fish when I was kid as I grew up swimming at pools. But to HAVE a pool...I don't know. If I ever buy a house, I probably won't get one with a pool because I'll never forget this story.