For Lisa Kennedy, each day at work is unpredictable.
“You don’t know what you’re going to answer every time you pick up the phone,” said Kennedy, supervisor of Medavie Health Services Communications.
As one of Saskatchewan’s emergency dispatchers, she and many others are the first point of contact when there is a crisis.
From providing CPR instructions to helping deliver a baby the challenges vary, but it’s the fulfillment that’s kept Kennedy going for nearly 20 years.
“When you can help a mother bring life into this world there's no greater joy than that. Or if you can help someone who wasn't breathing and they start to breathe again and they have a pulse there's nothing better than that,” she said.
The federal and provincial governments are recognizing April 14-20 as National Public Safety Telecommunicators week.
It’s a week meant to honour 911 call-takers and emergency dispatchers for their professionalism and dedication.
In 2018, Sask911 operators answered 388,456 calls from across the province.
Of those, 57 per cent were from a cell phone and 16 per cent were abandoned, which means a caller hung up after dialing.
Dispatcher Joanne Austin answers roughly 120 calls a day.
Years ago her supervisor told her someone was on the line for her.
“This quiet meek little voice was on the other line, quite emotional, and asked if I remember him,” Austin said.
In 1995, Austin walked a man through chest pain over the phone.
Paramedics were dispatched and the man’s heart ended up completely stopping multiple times.
The man survived and is in his 70s now. Their phone call lasted only minutes but developed into a lifelong friendship.
“I think we just celebrated our 23rd year of speaking to each other multiple times during the year. June 15th we get a phone call, I get a phone call every year. I answer it now: ‘Happy Anniversary,’” she said.
