ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Staying calm is crucial for emergency dispatchers to effectively communicate and assess situations during crises.
At Rochester’s Emergency Communications Department, people in the academy class for dispatchers train and learn to maintain composure even when callers are panicked.
“We always say that people don’t call 911 on their best day,” Training Manager Chris Buss said. “They are calling 9-1-1 with an emergency because something very bad has happened to them. So it’s understandable that people are going to be, erratic, irrational, yelling at us. That’s all normal.”
This skill is vital when dispatchers communicate with first responders during events requiring significant responses.
“If there’s an officer who’s involved in a very big situation, we also have to remain calm over the radio because the louder we get, either on the radio or on the phone is going to make them get more amped, and it’s going to make the situation worse,” Buss said.
In the past two years, Monroe County deputies and Rochester police officers responded to several major incidents.
In November 2024, a tour bus crash resulted in one death and more than 20 injuries. On New Year’s Day 2024, an intentional crash into a crowd outside the Kodak Center killed four people. Additionally, a mass shooting in Maplewood Park in July 2024 claimed two lives.
“It’s kind of weird because when you work those situations out on the floor, it’s almost like everything gets quiet where you think it would get louder and more excited,” Buss said. “There’s like an eerie calmness that comes over everybody. And even though it’s a big situation, everybody kind of just relaxes because that’s what they have to do and they get the job done.”
Buss said dispatchers in Rochester handled more than 1 million calls in 2024.
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