Mahaska 911 Center Upgrades Finished
Mahaska County 911 Dispatcher Janel Legvold takes a 911 call on Wednesday morning.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – You’ve just been involved in a major accident. Your loved ones are hurt and you reach for your cellphone to call for help. Emotions and pain fill you as you dial that most recognizable set of numbers, 911.
The person who answers you is a trained professional that helps you to calm down, and in turn provides the most accurate information to help first responders find you and assist you and your family. They have the knowledge to help you apply pressure to an injury, or talk you through CPR until help arrives.
The job for 911 dispatchers is filled with stress, and the amount of knowledge a dispatcher has to have at their fingertips continues to grow, all in an effort to help save lives.
Mahaska County 911 Center just finished its first upgrade of equipment since the Mahaska County Law Center was built in the early 1990’s. When it comes to Emergency Medical Dispatching, the old flip chart has been replaced by a computerized system that helps dispatchers find the information faster than ever before. This system gives them an even greater ability to help those in need, just like the victims in our hypothetical call to 911 at the beginning of this article.
When local cell carriers get the equipment in place, you will soon be able to text 911 your emergency. This could be of vital help to a potential victim who needs to be silent during a crisis. Those capabilities to perform text to 911 are included in the new county system.
The new workstations now integrate most all of the functions 911 dispatchers perform into a seamless console system. Dispatchers now wear cordless headsets that allow them to be flexible within the dispatch center, but also allows them to use the ergonomic capabilities of the sit or stand workstations.
911 dispatcher Janel Legvold said of the new system and workstation, “Love it. We love being able to stand. The affects to your health of sitting non-stop are pretty bad. We also find that we move around a lot more when we’re standing, so we try to do it at least one hour every shift. I’ve been striving for four hours every shift to stand.”
The total cost of the system upgrade was approximately $88,000.00 and was funded by the surcharge tax each phone pays to 911 during their billing cycles. From inception to completion, the project extended over a 6 month period.
