DESERT SNOW (C) Duane Lawrence and use by permission.
Back in my “radio” days, also known as “when I was a police communications dispatcher” for Arizona Highway Patrol, we faced plenty of widely varied calls. Our training was intense, pretty much boot camp for the mind. It was apparent from the beginning of dispatcher school every attempt was made to wash out the individuals who didn’t have what it took. Some of what it took was knowing geography for each district, every mile post, landmark, official names and local names for roads and highways, locations for every police agency, Fire Company - city, county and Federal, Medical Examiner, rotor- wing and fixed wing law enforcement and rescue and the closest place they can get Jet A fuel if the mission goes long, how to read Lat-Long and maps in general, which wrecker is next on rotation, how to operate the computer system for wants, warrants and how to properly receive “traffic” from officers and properly return the requested information. Breathe a moment... then there is the console itself with all the buttons for all the radio towers, which were line of sight back then, keeping time dated hand log for every word spoken by the officers, being able to work a radio while on the phone with another agency or member of the public during and emergency, knowing what your assets and resources are and their locations, basic understanding of signage and placards. Oh, yes. Knowing your 10-code radio language.
There’s plenty left out of the above description, and what is left out is not any less important, but you get a general understanding of what is required of an Arizona Highway Patrol Police Communications Dispatcher. It’s a lot of work, a lot of knowledge and yes, it can be a lot of stress. There are “those days” when you wonder why you are doing this.
It was one of those weeks, a couple of weeks actually, leading up to Christmas when the traffic got heavy. Not a busy heavy. It was horrible heavy. Bad wrecks daily, it seemed, and everywhere. As though no place in the state was exempt. Nasty crashes, people were dying. Tour bus roll over, multiple deaths. Family car over the edge, only survivor a toddler. I won’t go into explicit detail, suffice it to say that people were dying frequently and badly. It happens, of course. But, usually that bad ones don’t come in giant waves, and that it how it seemed.
It wasn’t just Highway Patrol, this spell of weird crashes and deaths was across all agencies. I remember asking Phoenix, Tempe and other dispatchers if they were feeling it, too. Yes, it was across the board. Like a cloud had settled on us. No matter your experience, days in a row of Bermuda triangle occurrences and deaths begin to take a toll. The phones still rang all the time, ring-down lines (instant connections to local agencies) still lit up, morning and evening rush hours still came as usual and made the room noisy with bustle and movement. We answered the calls just as quickly, we ducked our heads into rush hour wants, warrants, pursuits, patrol and undercover units needing backup, agency assists, call takers rushed into radio distributing hand written incident cards that came through the public lines and 911 to the appropriate district console. It doesn’t matter. The room, the job, goes on the same. You don’t always get “the end of a story,” And it might be days later when you ponder aloud, where did the toddler survivor end up? “I mean, Jimminy Cricket it’s Christmas,” And you get back a chorus of “Yeah, really.”
Then, it’s Christmas Day, and I am happy to be assigned to the public phones. We were regularly rotated through the district consoles and the public phones. It was a usually a nice break. A typical public phone day consisted of helping people locate cars, pets and belongings after crashes or arrests; assisting other agencies with information, and directing calls to the appropriate bureau i.e, Fingerprints, Criminal History, Crime Lab etc. But, it was a given, you were going to get some of these;
“Arizona Department of Public Safety. Do you have an emergency”
“I can’t locate my package. You guys have lost my package again!”
“Sir, you have reached DPS, not UPS. Let me give you their number.”
Or;
“Arizona Department of Public Safety. Do you have an emergency”
A whispered “Yes, I can’t keep them out. I have done everything I know and they keep getting in my house.”
“Okay,” you whisper back. “Which way do you have the tin foil facing? Shiny side in or shiny side out?” What ever they say you tell them to turn it around and things will be just fine, per the Duty Officer.
Or;
“Can you tell me what the weather will be at Disneyland next week?”
“Um, no.” Now you’re pretty sure someone is just messing with you.
Then, I answered a call from Kingman, Arizona. A man wanting to know what our Ranger helicopter was doing up so early in the morning, was he chasing a bad guy?
“Hold please, I will find out you.”
I punched the ring down button for EMSCOMM, the radio console that worked the LE and Rescue aircraft and also connected those units and ground units to each other, hospitals across the state and some distance into the surrounding states.
“Hi Peggy, got a fellow in Kingman wants to know what Ranger is up to so early this morning.”
“Ah, Ranger is on a courtesy transport, going into the canyon to take a Supai patient to the hospital in Bullhead City for the holiday so she can be monitored.”
When I let the caller know he sounded a little disappointed that we weren’t hot on the trail of a bad guy. Soon, I heard the Ranger pilot clear EMSCOMM, telling Peggy they were dropping into the canyon, would lose radio contact, and he would let her know as soon as they cleared the canyon rim.
It was a few minutes, maybe a half hour or so and Peggy on EMSCOMM radio stood up and shouted, “It’s a girl!”
Then she hit playback on the console recorder and we heard the DPS Ranger Flight Medic shout to the world. “Ranger - Phoenix EMSCOMM, it’s a girl! Mother and baby are doing great! Welcome to the world Miss Arielle Noel!”
Pause
“Oh, yes, we are out of the canyon!”
A cheer went up in radio. Every dispatcher in the room relayed the message across their districts. We called the Flagstaff and Tucson radio rooms to let them know. We called Phoenix Fire, Phoenix P.D., Tempe P.D., Mesa P.D., Maricopa County SO, Pinal County SO, saying “Hey, guys! Betcha can’t top this one!” We called everybody across the state, and a week later that Flight Medic showed up in Phoenix OPCOMM, still passing out pink bubble gum cigars.
It was a magnificent gift of life and joy at precisely the right moment.
You know, I still like to think of that Christmas morning. And to imagine that little girl answering the common grade school question, “Where were you born?”
“In a Arizona DPS Ranger helicopter, mid-air over the Grand Canyon.”
May you have the Merriest of Christmases. May you be blessed beyond measure. May you see someone else’s joy and laugh and dance as though it were your own.
Nancy