Why Stay on the Line on a 911 Call

Why Stay on the Line on a 911 Call
One of the most important things that you want to remember when you’re online with a 911 operator or dispatcher is to stay on the line with them until they let you its ok to disconnect. We realize in an emergency you could be in an heightened state, you could be anxious or frightened or scared or maybe even in pain, but we really need you to stay on the line; and it's not because we enjoy talking to you although that might be the case, it's actually important for a variety of reasons. First, you're first call might not get you to the center that you need. For example, if you call from a cell phone and you get a police department that is not quite where you need to be, they're going to need to transfer you to the appropriate police department so you want to stay on the line until you get the correct department and then you can tell them about it. Also as an operator speaking to you they are determining the situation and they're putting calls into a computer or some type of system so help can be dispatched. So even though they're talking to you and asking you questions that doesn’t mean help isn’t coming. alot of times help could still be coming but they’re going to ask additional questions to help the people responding. For example in a medical emergency, the operator may have already signaled the dispatcher to start paramedics and they could be rolling to your location but maybe you could be performing CPR on a person until the paramedics arrive. Or say for example you’re reporting a robbery and you happen to see the person who did it leave in a silver car, you want to tell that operator what that car looked and a brief description of the suspect so that as officers are rolling to the scene if they see a vehicle that matches that description they can pull them over. So again it's really important to stay on the line, and remember that we're there to help you. We're going to talk you through everything you need to do so just trust us and do the best you can. We're rooting for you and we want to get you the help you need.