Portland emergency dispatcher honored as best in North America

The system for dispatching emergency services is itself in need of help. The Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications has been struggling for many years to get its hold times down. It has hired more dispatchers, and is now using a system of automatic call backs to numbers that hang up. It’s also implemented as an automated answering system for non-emergency calls. Given the challenges, it might come as a surprise to learn that the award for best dispatcher in North America is Portland’s own Stephen Zipprich. He joins us to talk about the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch award, his experience over the last decade of this work and what keeps him going.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. If you call 911 in the Portland area, there’s a chance that your call will be answered by someone who was recently named the North American dispatcher of the year. Stephen Zipprich was commended for his compassion and professionalism, keeping callers, patients and responders safe. He was also singled out for his ability to adapt to major changes in the way calls are handled in the last few years as Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Communications has worked to reduce hold times. Stephen Zipprich joins me now. Congratulations and welcome.

Stephen Zipprich:  Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Miller: How did you end up in this profession?

Zipprich: I came into this because I was looking for a way to feel like I had purpose in what I was doing, and something that was more exciting than selling electrical parts.

Miller: Is that what you did before this?

Zipprich: That is what I was doing before,

Miller: Directly before you became a 911 dispatcher, you were selling electrical parts.

Zipprich: Yeah, I worked for a local electrical supply house.

Miller:  And what made you think that this was the way to do work that, in your mind, gave you more meaning?

Zipprich:  Because I feel like I’m actually helping people. I mean, I’m sure that I’ve been helping some people buy their electrical parts. But I have a greater scope to help people in this job, in this career. And it’s meaningful work, not to say that other things aren’t meaningful. But for me, this is meaningful work and it’s something that I enjoy doing and that’s a big deal. I’ve heard it said that if you enjoy what you do, you don’t work a day in your life, and that’s really how I feel. I go to work, but I enjoy doing it and it doesn’t feel like it’s this stressful experience that I have to get up every day and I go do my job, but it’s meaningful work and I’m empowered to do it.

Miller: Is there a buzz or a light that goes off, or a tone? When a call is coming in, how do you know a call is coming in?

Zipprich: Our phone system, our call answering system, just picks up the next available call that’s on there. So we’ll sit in what we call ready mode, where we tell the computer that we’re ready to take the next call. And when I hit that button on my keypad, if there’s a call waiting, it picks it up and it just pops right into my head and answers the phone. So there’s no, there’s no buzz or anything. There are some agencies that do that, that have that kind of thing where a call is coming in and there’s a buzzing sound or a beeping sound. Ours does not, we just answer whatever. If somebody is on hold, we can see that there’s calls holding..

Miller: You push a button and there you are with them..

Zipprich: ..push the button and there I am.

Miller:  How many calls might you handle in one day?

Zipprich: It varies. The average amount of time that we’ve spent on a call would be about three minutes, and if I do six hours of call-taking in a 10-hour day, you know, it’s 180? Is that 180? 120? Math is not my strong suit..

Miller:  Well, lots and lots and lots is the answer and three minutes is the average time for you.

Zipprich: Yeah, most of the calls will last about that long, yeah.

Miller: Can you give us just a sense for the range of calls that come in?

Zipprich: Sure. It ranges from basic medical calls, somebody experiencing vomiting and they need an ambulance for that, to somebody’s car just got stolen or their house just got burglarized, or their house is on fire. I mean, there’s a full range, and we answer non-emergency as well. So people might be calling the non-emergency line to report to the police that their car was stolen yesterday, or they woke up and it was broken into, so we have both of those non- emergency and 911 calls that we take. 911 calls get processed first and then we get through to the non-emergency, but answering the 911 call for the sick person or for the burglary, you never know what it’s gonna be, there’s shootings and stabbings, those are things that happen too. So, yeah, there’s a huge range of what we’re gonna experience in any three minute period of time.

Miller: You don’t win this North American award for one particular call. But when, as part of the nomination process, the people, your managers, they have to put audio from at least one call so the judges can hear you in action. In your case, the call was a woman who had taken a potentially lethal amount of medication attempting to take her own life and then she changed her mind. Can you give us a sense for just what that conversation was like?

Zipprich: Yeah, I can try. The call was transferred to me from, or transferred to 911, from the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline. I spoke with the counselor on that line and then she introduced the caller to me and I got some information from her, and she expressed some remorse about having attempted to harm herself. And she had been armed with a knife at one point in the call as well, and I was able to get her to put the knife away. There was a point at which she had laid down in the roadway, and I spent an abnormal length of time on the phone with her, twenty minutes was about the length of the call. But that was.. being able to talk with her, I mean, it’s a conversation, right? So, I’m having this conversation with her and I’m trying to gather information about what’s going on, what led to this and how can I help?

I got enough information at the start to be able to process the call through, and then after I go through the triage protocol that we use, then it was just a matter of staying on the phone with her while help was driving and getting to her so that she could get the help that she needed. And it was a positive outcome which really, it feels good.

Miller: You mentioned the protocol there. My understanding is now that you have a lot of resources for dozens of different scenarios based on best practices for how to handle all kinds of different situations. How much do you stick with that kind of binary script, asking questions and then depending on what the answer is, moving on to the next node of that decision tree or conversation tree? And how much do you find that you just have to use your own instincts as someone who’s done this for a decade now, to just do it your own way?

Zipprich: Sure, we can enhance the protocol. I mean, there is a script that we read for medical and fire calls that we need to make sure that we stick to that script because they’re written in such a way to be able to get objective answers to the questions, and it helps drive the right response to the situation that’s ongoing.

Miller: For example, to know if somebody is having a heart attack, or to give firefighters information about how to approach a potential fire.

Zipprich: Correct. Yeah, totally.

Miller: A case where somebody has the desire to harm themselves, in some way it feels different. It seems so human and tenuous. I guess that’s why I’m wondering how much you just rely on your ability as someone who’s been doing this for a while to make a human connection and to just keep them talking to you.

Zipprich: Yeah, remembering that the person on the other… especially in those types of calls, that the person on the other end of the phone is important and they matter. Trying to maintain a high level of compassion and empathy for their situation, and what they’re going through is a big part of it; and making that connection and letting them know that I’m not there to judge them, and trying to get that information relayed as I’m giving the instructions or I’m asking the questions. And telling them why I’m asking these questions, like what’s the purpose behind this. And that it’s to keep them safe and my responder safe and we have the ability to do that.

I mean, we are human people, we’re not robots and we can make that personal connection with the person that’s calling. They’re crying out for help because they’re in this desperate situation.

Miller: I should just remind folks that if you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline that has help available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Are there times of year or specific holidays that you just know from experience are going to be particularly busy or particularly hard?

Zipprich:  Yeah, the Fourth of July tends to be our busiest day. I was fortunate I wasn’t working this year.

Miller: You look at the calendar and you think, Oh, good. I’m not working July 4th?

Zipprich: Sometimes, yeah.

Miller: What are the various reasons that July 4th is one of the busiest days?

Zipprich: We get a lot of fires. There’s a lot of fires that happen. You know, people want to have their celebrations with fireworks and things, and unfortunately those sometimes get out of control and they can lead to lots of fires. There may be other factors involved. A lot of holidays, well, typically around Christmas or Thanksgiving, those ones tend to up the account for suicidal people because it’s really hard to go through a lot of holidays. Sometimes holidays mean family get-togethers, and if they’ve lost a loved one or that situation has been historically bad in their history, then that tends to lead them down the road of just wanting to end it. And so, yeah, in that regard, those holidays can be difficult as well.

Miller: Your job, and you’re not alone in this, I mean, I think police officers and first responders also have a particular view of humans that maybe leads to the same experience, but it’s sort of a never-ending parade of worst case scenarios. Heart attacks and car crashes and intentional violence against self or others, overdoses, fires...so many things. Has all this affected the way you think about the risks of life?

Zipprich: Hmm.. Well, I’m not sure that it has. I mean, to a degree, sure. I have two kids. I have two daughters and trying to raise them up with an understanding that, like I said, that people matter, so that they treat other people and themselves with respect, and that they have the ability to expect respect from other people, too. But I don’t know the reasons why things happen in all these situations, and there’s a full range of what might cause there to be these people fighting, or the house burning down.

Miller: You don’t feel like doing this job has made you more risk averse or more focused on worst case scenarios?

Zipprich: No, no, I wouldn’t say that it has. No, I don’t feel that way. I went skydiving when I was 21, and it was before I was working here in 911, and I was like, I’m never doing that again. That was an enjoyable experience, but one time was enough.

Miller: But 911 did not change that. You had already decided that was enough.

Zipprich: Yeah, so, things like that, I do try to maintain, look at my world around me and stay as safe as I can. And, I mean, maybe that means that I have become a lot more risk-averse in my adult life, I hadn’t really thought about it that way. So I guess it kind of makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it, when you pose it that way.

Miller: Well, but you’re also older and you’re a parent as well.

Zipprich: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Miller: How do you not take your work home with you? Especially if you’ve had overwhelming calls and maybe, I imagine, things don’t always go well, just by virtue of the numbers, sometimes people call you too late and you might be the one listening to when things go really bad. How do you deal with that?

Zipprich: We have a peer support team that works with us. I mean, there are other dispatchers and supervisors, and when we get those really hard calls we have the ability to just take some time off the floor and talk with them and get those really hard emotions out, and talk about how horrible that was that I just had to do that.

Miller: Is there a culture where you can do that, where it’s accepted that if someone is overwhelmed in that moment, they can step away and you won’t feel guilty about having other people have to take more calls?

Zipprich: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We try to look out for each other. I mean, one of the things that we say is look out for yourself, because that’s a big deal. You know, we wanna make sure that when… because we’re all up on the floor together and we’re sitting at desks very close by, and so when you’re hearing somebody giving CPR instructions, you might hear that call, that they’re doing CPR for a child, and those are really hard. And so, asking a person, hey, are you OK? Do you wanna talk to somebody? There’s lots of people, and the people that are there, just reaching out to somebody when you hear this hard call come in, because it’s all on the computer and we can see it, too. So, when that happens, being able to take care of each other, and we all know that we all get those calls, nobody’s immune from it. I mean, it’s just like you said, it’s a matter of numbers. You’re going to get those difficult calls.

And having the understanding that I have been there, they’re going through that, this is what helped me when I had that situation similar to what you’re experiencing now. And, if you want to talk about it, if you want to hear what I have to say, I’m more than willing to share, but if you just want to talk, yeah, lay it on me. Unload.

Miller:  Stephen Zipprich, congratulations again and thanks for joining us.

Zipprich:  Thank you.

Miller: Stephen Zipprich is award winning now, the 2023 dispatcher of the year, by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, and he is a 911 dispatcher in Portland.

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