Editor's note: This is the first in a three-part series on the Kosciusko Communications Center and 911 Dispatchers
Before police, fire or EMS arrive at the scene of an emergency, dispatchers have already started assessing the situation. In Kosciusko County, the 911 Communications Center handles all emergency calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year. The dispatchers take calls from 38 agencies, including 15 law enforcement, 17 fire and six EMS. They also answer 20 non-emergency phone lines and 12 911 lines, and monitor 29 radio frequencies. Last year, dispatchers answered about 37,000 calls for service, not including calls to 911 for information despite 911 not being an information-providing service. Besides fire, EMS and police, Central Dispatch is the main point of contact for hospice and often makes contact with American Red Cross, helicopter requests, Emergency Management, Child Protective Services, probation, payroll, judges, prosecutors and utility companies. “If you looked up a phone number for any police, fire or EMS agency in the county of Kosciusko, the first place it’s going to ring in to is us. I like to call us the first first-responders,” Central Dispatch Assistant Director Sarah Lancaster said. “Police, fire and EMS get a lot of praise, and ... rightly so they do. But there’s somebody behind the scenes helping them with all that. I guess that’s always been my biggest thing about dispatch – we are so forgotten. It should be police, fire, EMS and dispatch. We are the first first-responders. We have to be able to paint the best possible picture, with the information we’re given, to our responders.” Kosciusko’s Communication Center is the central answering point for misdirected 911 calls for Indiana. Kosciusko also has a mutual aid agreement with Elkhart County and vice versa, serving as each other’s rollover if they’re flooded with calls. “If you’re traveling across the state of Indiana and you call 911 because you come upon an accident on I-69, what the phone does is the waves travel to the nearest tower, which then switches it to the closest dispatch center,” Lancaster said. “Well, sometimes if there’s a glitch or something, and that gets caught up and it doesn’t know where to go, it comes to us. So we could be taking an accident call for southern Indiana, which now we have to figure out where they’re at and you make contact with that dispatch center to let them know we’ve got this (emergency call).” On Aug. 16, 2000, the Warsaw City and Kosciusko dispatches consolidated into the 911 Central Dispatch. It was moved into the basement of the Justice Building, with Tom Brindle as the director at that time. To do the job, dispatchers will tell you that you have to have a passion for it. “It really is a job you get into it because you love to help people,” Lancaster said. “I have been in some way, shape or form a public servant for at least 18 years, and it is because of my desire to help people.” Lancaster was named to her position five years ago, coming to the county dispatch in 2005 from Syracuse. “My first dispatching job was Syracuse. And at that time we did dispatch for all three. State came down and said that there was only one (Public Safety Answering Point) allowed per county,” Lancaster recalled. “Police came down to county dispatch first, and then a couple of years later, fire and EMS came down.” To become a dispatcher, Lancaster said there’s no specific education required. “We ask that you have a high school diploma. (Be) CPR certified – if not, we can get you the CPR (certification). But then we have a 15-week training program in house,” Lancaster said. Medical dispatchers have to maintain CPR certification, which is a two-year certification. They also have to have 12 hours a year of what is considered continuing dispatch education, which they can get through a variety of ways. “We all come from different walks of life,” dispatcher Rachel Eppenbaugh said. “I have an accounting degree.” After about 6-1/2 years at an accounting job, she took a year of EMT classes but realized that wasn’t her “cup of tea.” Her boyfriend at the time saw an advertisement in the newspaper for dispatchers so she applied. “I took my first call and I knew it was for me,” Eppenbaugh said. “ ... I knew pretty early on it was where I was meant to be.” Eppenbaugh said she is one of the “lowest guys on the totem pole” and January will mark her third year as a dispatcher. Other dispatchers have been with the county anywhere from three or nine years to 18 to 20. “It’s a calling. I believe it whole heartedly,” she said. Heather Zentz currently works third shift in dispatch. She started with the Indiana State Police in 1994, assigned to the toll road post until 1998 when she took a promotion. “I became in charge of all state police dispatchers training. I was the highest-ranking civilian woman in the department at that time in 1997,” Zentz said. In 1999, she returned to the Bremen Post as a dispatcher. “I missed doing the dispatching,” she said. In October 2001, she came to Kosciusko’s Communication Center and has been here since. She is the head trainer behind Lancaster, and still works part time at the Bremen Police Dept. Her dad was on the state police oversight board, originally appointed by Gov. Otis Bowen. “I guess that’s where it started,” Zentz said. “He and my mom taught me about public service. She managed the license branch before she passed away.” During the 15-week training program, one week is devoted to state training on IDACS. All dispatchers have to be National Incident Management System and Emergency Medical Dispatch certified. Other required certifications include public safety, telecommunications and other miscellaneous certifications they can obtain like active shooter. Zentz said the majority of training is on the job, with two weeks of classroom time. A trainee starts with one to two days of observation. “A lot of people after the first two days may decide it’s not for them,” she said. Introducing them to the Computer Aided Dispatch system takes a majority of time, Zentz said. As training progresses, the trainee learns about IDACS, finishing up with 911. “You have to be certified in two different classes in Indiana to take 911 calls,” Zentz said. The first is Public Safety Communications, which teaches them how to be a dispatcher, and the second is Emergency Medical Dispatch, which teaches a dispatcher how to give medical instructions over the phone. Dispatchers put in eight-hour shifts. Currently, there are 16 full-time and one part-time dispatcher plus two administrators. Along with Lancaster, Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Dept. Public Information Officer Sgt. Chad Hill is the Center’s director. Typically, there are three dispatchers during a shift. During inclement weather, all six stations can be filled. “If the county (government) closes down for the day, we still have to be here. Emergencies don’t stop because of holidays, weekends, inclement weather. We’ve been very fortunate this year we haven’t had a lot of bad weather,” Lancaster said. Dispatchers work a 4-and-2 schedule, so they work four days and are off two. They work eight hours, and shifts are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.; 3 to 11 p.m.; and 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. They do work some overtime. Zentz said, “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s what I do. It’s what we do. We get used to it.”
