VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — During an emergency, time is of the essence. In Virginia Beach helping citizens to safety is the number one goal.
To understand that goal, a few weeks ago I highlighted how Virginia Beach's Emergency Communications & Citizen Services (ECCS), home of the city’s 911 center, uses technology to find people more easily.
During our conversation, the Deputy Director of Operations told me there's a lot more people that should know about the job, including what can be done to make the call for help more efficient for everyone. Carmen VanVoorhis says education can often be the key to safety and efficiency.
While I was at ECCS, VanVoorhis introduced me to Jesse Burdin, a Master Public Safety Emergency Telecommunicator.
Working 12-hour shifts and never knowing who was on the other end of a call, I asked him how he was able to stay calm in the most tense situations.
Watch previous: Why Virginia Beach responders say "3 words" could save your life
“I’m not exactly sure -- just it's kind of my nature. I'm kind of, like, a calm person. I really like to help people,” he says.
Burdin has been answering the call for help in Virginia Beach for close to a decade.
“I’ve kind of had the motto now of -- if not me, then who,” he says.
He takes emergency and non-emergency calls and says there's more people should know before a crisis; like when people should call for help.
This could include, but is not strictly limited to the following emergency situations:
- Fires
- Medical emergencies
- Reporting accidents
- Reporting crimes in progress
- Reporting suspicious people/event
“The biggest thing is we just need to really know where your location is. So when you call 911 we say, ‘It's Virginia Beach 911. Where's the emergency?’” he says. “It's always, where's the emergency versus what's the emergency? Because if we don't know where you're at, we can't send the units to the correct spot."
He says there's a list of questions they need to ask a caller depending on the situation. So, the call for a police response will look different from a rescue or medical emergency.
Watch more tech keeping you safe: New tech alerts Hampton Roads drivers with Apple Maps, Waze about road hazards
“We have our certain questions that we have to ask for the rescue squad and put it into the case,” he says.
Burdin tells me it's critical for people to stay on the phone because if you hang up, “[dispatchers are] going to answer the next 911 call versus answering the abandoned call because that's the higher priority — type of calls — that we have to take."
Burdin says people don't realize hanging up and calling back only delays response time.
“If you do hang up then we have to call you back each time you hang up and then that's another process of calling back, ringing, then they get on the phone, then they tell us exactly what's going on. And then by that time, another person, maybe a different situation, could actually be calling in about something else,” Burdin recalls.
So, if you're in a situation where seconds matter, he hopes this information will stick with you.
“Just try to be calm with us. We get it [and] we're going to try and be calm with you as well,” Burdin says.
In certain cities like Virginia Beach, texting 911 is also an option.
One example Burdin gave me was when a female texted 911 saying the driver of the vehicle she was in, was intoxicated. Dispatchers were able to answer the message and police located the vehicle traveling from Pungo to General Boothe to see what was going on.
Click here to learn more about texting 911.
