Very sad news today on the Police band

[DHDaniel]

I really enjoy sitting here at my desk piddling whilst the SDS200 is doing its thing, but inevitably bad things happen.
About 3 hours ago my local Fire & Police got a call about a baby in a pool. Many officers and 2 engines and EMS responded. Lifeflight was instantly put on standby. All the while the Female dispatcher, Who is very professional, and tenured, gave feedback from the 911 operator on the phone with the family. They were doing CPR. EMS arrived in about 4 minutes, They then called for Lifeflight. We have a Houston Memorial Herman Lifeflight stationed here. Were about 20 minutes east of Houston. They call it East Base. After just a minute or two they announced they were transporting to East Base to meet the chopper. I think the incident was close to the Heli-port. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes later they announced the Heli was airborne headed to Downtown Houston Med Center.
I never heard any more other than the Police Sergeant calling all hands to come by the station for a debrief, and the Fire Battalion Captain was there too. I'm sure those guys deal with these things all the time. I am just amazed that I was able to sit here with my wife and listen,
all the time thinking of our 4 little grandaughters. I have since went back into Sentinel and added the talk groups for the Med Evac groups.
Hope the little baby survived.

Dave

 

[W9WSS]

When I was a police officer (1971-2006) incidents such as this the CISD (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing) Team was activated. Everyone from the incident, including the 911 operator attended and were counseled by a trained therapist, along with a "team advocate" not part of the incident. I can remember going through intense training for being part of the debriefing team. Nothing that was discussed was documented, or used for any other purposes, evidentiary, court, etc. The debriefing could take an hour or several hours. It did help, especially if young children were involved.

 

[mmckenna]

One reason I could never do that job.

I've heard calls like this, and found out later it was a co-worker.

APCO has a pretty good idea of how to handle this stuff. The debrief teams that Will refers to above are often discussed. It's serious stuff. Responder mental health is something that often gets overlooked, and it leads to bad things. No one is immune from this stuff. Those that act immune need the most help.

 

[trentbob]

Check on the internet with all your local news sources and I'm sure they will have a follow-up but not too much information will be coming of this. I've got a three-year-old grandson, as special and precious as all others.

Sure this is part of life for all Fist Responders and those who dispatch them, happens all too often.

In my area on the weekend, we had a tractor trailer where the driver may have fallen asleep, he happened to be on the PA Turnpike but at 1:30 a.m. and right as he was on a short Bridge across the Neshaminy Creek in Bristol PA he slammed into the right guard rail at high speed, the trailer jumped the rail but the cab disconnected and went off the bridge into the Neshaminy Creek. Quite a steep fall and First Responders and Marine units reported heavy entrapment and probable class 5 (deceased). They carefully extricated the remains from the cab placed him on the side of the road with a sheet over him and surrendered the scene to the Pennsylvania State Police and left. The cleanup took about 12 hours and fire police assisted.

Unfortunately this is part of the job for the responders and the dispatchers but when it involves children, unfortunately way too often there are those who are more impacted by the event including the dispatchers and need that extra help that is actually in place and offered.

It's a job I would never be able to do myself even though I saw it in the emergency room as a longtime registered nurse, I'm probably kidding myself about how I responded to the constant tragedy, we never had any kind of emotional support when those things happened oh, it was just part of the job.

Now that I look back???

 

[Listen365]

I worked EMS from the late 70s through the late 80s. Many calls with children involved, only one time lost two year old, no therapy during those days. But crews were close and supervisors knew how to help us through.

 

[DJ11DLN]

I have been through more of those debriefs than I care to remember. They do help and I agree, it's always worst when the victim is a child.

 

[rk911]

i hope the PD/FD invited that 9-1-1 operator, the dispatcher and any other persons who played a part to the debrief.

 

[trap5858]

We all listen to our scanners for different reasons, some of us are/were first responders, some just want a jump on the news but either way it connects “us” with “their” world. With so much anger toward police these days it is important to see, hear and hopefully understand the very human side of situations like this. Career or volunteer, there is a person in that uniform!

 

[ofd8001]

The way these things go, at least from my perspective, is this: We responders (which includes the dispatch center) get the call, arrive on the scene and make our assessments. We then go to work trying to achieve a good outcome. So much of that is "muscle memory" or training, going to work. We are doing those analytical things, setting aside the "feeling"/emotion things.

Once we have done all that we can and handed off patient care to the next level, then we get to the "feeling" or reaction part. If the outcome is good, we are happy and joking around. If it goes the other way, it is tough and tends to stick with us. So many responders have kids of their own and when children are involved, it hits close to home. The release of "chemicals" by our bodies as part of the process have many different physical affects, which can linger. We often tell folks they are having a normal reaction to an abnormal event.

Fortunately those critical incident stress management things are around, though not used as much as at first. Interesting how responders would say "I hate going to those things because I feel worse after". I liken it to getting a cavity filled at the dentist - you get there and probably are not in pain, but hours later you do hurt. The good thing is that you know if you didn't deal with the problem, it could get worse and eventually you have a whole lot of pain.

 

[Blackink]

I've heard difficult things on my scanners since I've owned them, for not very long, but the one incident that was really troubling to hear was when a female DCF (Department of Children and families) state social worker was gunned down, right in the city nearby me, by a distraught mother who was having some difficult times with her children. The mother's 9 year old daughter had been removed from the house at the time by DCF.
The dispatcher's, the police along with the fire & ambulance people communicating on the radio were pretty shook up. It was quite plain to hear their sorrow and pain over the scanner.
What transpired from this the next morning was hearing the State police talk over the radio about a farmhouse they were at 6 miles away from that murder sight and hearing the sadness in their voices when radioing into the dispatcher that there were 3 more bodies found that were related to the killer.
It seems the mother of the 9 year old had killed these 3 people before gunning down the social worker, all on the same day.

That was tough to listen to and I hope I never hear something like that again over the scanner.

 

[hill]

My personal policy is for things I hear via the scanner is too keep them to myself. No real need to post personal loss on a public website. Also with the amount of visitors to this site someone involved with it may see this on Radio Reference and it could trigger bad memories. Plus Goggle searches many times link back to posts on here. Just one more reason some public safety departments to encrypt their radio traffic.

Been scanning for over 30 years, so you know I have heard some stuff within those times.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

At the end of the day, we're all human. No they didn't have special grief counselors decades ago. Most have and still do go to church and pray and/or talk it over with family, friends or colleagues.
We all enjoy our scanners but we must remember that the people at the other end are not there for our entertainment though it's often a byproduct.

 

[Qwerty7]

Now don't go talking about what you heard on the scanner. It might give it away that people are listening...
Thanks for your input Mr. Wagfinger.