Is there anything important that’s actually easier than it looks? Caroline Burau didn’t think becoming a police dispatcher would be easy, but she was surprised just how difficult it turned out to be. Even after a year on the job, she still considered herself—and was considered by others—someone who knew just enough to be dangerous. At first, Burau, as an ex crack addict, was just surprised to get the job at all. She applied after being disillusioned by journalism and giving up nursing school because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood.
There’s a lot of autobiography in Answering 911: Life in the Hot Seat (HV7911 .B85 A3 2006), but the most riveting anecdotes concern the calls she takes. The percentage that turn out to be really bad seems even higher than on TV: we don’t get that many stories like “my neighbor’s clarinet is too loud.” I wish we did. While there are quiet times, there are also plenty of heart attacks, “domestics,” and suicides. Burau learns more than she wanted to about her neighbors’ secret lives. Worse, she and her colleagues all have stories about the mistakes they have made: a caller Burau assumed was merely drunk turned out later to have bled to death. After awhile, Burau sees a therapist and wonders if she’s cut out for the job. After two years, she quits her job to become a locksmith, but dispatching has gotten in to her blood—and it pays well, too—and she soon goes back to work for a different department.
Burau confronts myths and truisms about police work: for example, do people whose work brings them in constant contact with life-and-death situations eventually become inured? Her response seems to be “Not really,” and that’s something of a comfort.
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