National Public Safety Telecommunications Week – Clayton County’s Lifeline

Clayton County’s Lifeline

This week is National Public Safety Telecommunications Week. Emergency (911) dispatchers are the first people you talk to when you call with a crisis. Even though dispatchers can’t see what’s happening, they are the eyes and ears of emergency responders—our guiding angels who ensure that the right responders get to an emergency as fast as possible, and who keep responders safe as they help people in crisis.

I have found in my law enforcement career that dispatchers are the unsung heroes of public safety. They miss the excitement of riding in a speeding car with lights flashing and sirens wailing. They can only hear of the bright orange flames leaping from a burning building. They do not get to see the joy on the face of worried parents as they see their child begin breathing on its own, after it has been given CPR. They are to calmly provide all that information to the officers, firefighters, or paramedics without error the first time and every time.

They are people who were selected in a difficult hiring process to do an impossible job. They are as different as snowflakes, but they have one thing in common. They care about people, and they enjoy being the lifeline of Clayton County—that steady voice in a storm, the one who knows how to handle every emergency and does it with style and grace, and uncompromised competence.

It is fitting and proper that we take a few minutes or hours this week to honor them for the job that each of them does. That recognition is long overdue!

It takes a special person with unique skills. We respect what you all do.

The Clayton County Board of Commissioners and the citizens THANK YOU for the thankless job you do. You are heroes, and I am proud to say that Clayton County has the best Lifeline in this profession!