All Clear - A Firefighter Health & Wellness Podcast
All Clear is a podcast that looks at the perils of modern firefighters, especially the physical and mental strains we face. Our goal is to help firefighters ignite The Fire Within and to build the best version of themselves as firefighters. Our conversations are real, sometimes raw but always honest. All Clear is presented by the NC Firefighter Cancer Alliance & First Responders Peer-Support Network.
All Clear - A Firefighter Health & Wellness Podcast
Voices of Vigilance: Unveiling the World of 911 Emergency Communicators with Barry Furey
Have you ever wondered who's on the other end of the line when you dial 911? Meet Barry Furey, a third-generation public safety official and 911 specialist, who brings us into the vital world of emergency communication. He pulls back the curtain on the intense training and evolution of telecommunicator roles, highlighting their critical function as the first point of contact during crises. Barry's personal journey and the transformation from 'plug and pray' to sophisticated emergency responses provide a riveting narrative on the importance of these unsung heroes.
The stakes are high in the realm of emergency services, and this conversation with Barry Furey reveals the adaptability and reassessment required when the unpredictable strikes. From the stress of handling disasters to the impact of workforce shortages, we evaluate the challenges and solutions on the frontline of communication. The dialogue emphasizes the necessity of mental health support for our telecommunicators and offers firefighters practical advice to fortify their connection with dispatchers, culminating in the understanding that resolving post-incident issues can forge a stronger bond between first responders and the voices that guide them through the chaos.
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This is All Clear Firefighter Health and Wellness where we help you light your fire within. I'm Travis. Thank you for joining us today. We've got a special guest with us again. We have Barry Fury. He is a heck of a last name to live up to. Right there, Mr Fury. Right there, mr Fury, but glad to have you with us. We know you're a 911 specialist and you've spent many years in that in the fire service. Why don't you tell us a little?
Speaker 2:bit about yourself. Thank you, sir, the pleasure to be here. I am a third generation public safety official. My grandfather was a decorated New York City police officer. My dad was a fire officer and fire commissioner in the town where I grew up, which was, as I tell people, either 20 minutes or two hours from New York City, depending upon the time of day and the traffic, and I've been involved in public safety since 1970. Joined the fire department in 1970 and have moved around the country a little bit, have been a fire officer in three different states and the director of 911 in four, so I've kept up the Fury family history of public service.
Speaker 1:Nothing wrong with that and it's good to get to talk to you today and the thing that really jumped out when I was getting to know you was your extensive history with the call center, the 911, the communicators. I think that's an often underlooked, underserved population when it comes to mental health, when it comes to just support in general. That's given because you always think about what happens with the police officers when they have a loss or firefighters when they have a loss or when they have to deal with difficult situations. But when we talk about the communicators, we've had a few firefighters that were communicators in between, but for the most part that's a very unique field and I guess what kind of drew you into that communicator role, what pulled you toward that more than, say, riding the truck or being in the fire service directly?
Speaker 2:I actually got involved in the volunteer fire department first when I was still in high school and I turned 18 and I joined the fire department then and, frankly, I had looked to go into a professional career fire department in New York City and at the time that I took the test it was challenged and it was thrown out and New York City didn't hire for a period of about four years or so and during that time I had gotten a job with the local affairs department as a communicator in my home county and by the time the test came around again from New York City, I had three or four years on the job experience. It was pretty settled where I was, so I stayed. So I guess, truth be known, I backed into it and it grew on me. But living in for at least the first half of my career, living in communities that had volunteer fire departments, I got to do both things I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:There's nothing wrong with that and I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about is the majority of firefighters in the US are volunteers on some level, and it's important that, when you go into the role of a communicator, any experience you have in any of the first responder fields goes a long way in helping you understand what you have to work with, because I know that I can speak for the city of Concord our communicators. They go through very intensive training to be able to do what they do, and they do it well. And so what type of training have you been through, or what type of training in the fire, so to speak, when you've been sitting there at the switchboard, what are some of the situations that have tempered you and helped you understand better the job and put you where you are today?
Speaker 2:Obviously. I think one of the things is knowing what it's supposed to sound like out in the field. I mean, telecommunicators are the gateway for the public to public safety. You cannot get a police officer, you cannot get an EMT, you cannot get a firefighter, you essentially cannot get help until you talk to a telecommunicator. So that's one of the things that I have always looked at from okay in my field experience how can the telecommunicator help me or how can I actually help them? What things do we really need to know out in the field? What questions have to be asked? What is good information? What information is nice but not necessary? So it's good to focus on that, having been on both sides of the microphone.
Speaker 2:The other thing is, as we move forward in 911 nationwide, we see more and more classes, courses, training focused on scripted protocols. There are 911 protocols for fire, ems and police. Some of these are developed in-house inside each center. They can decide which questions they want to ask. Of course, the basic is always hey, where are you? What's the problem, has anybody heard, etc. But there are also scripted protocols now that are put on through different vendors that deal specifically with fire, ems and law enforcement Probably the best. The most widely known one is what's known as EMD or emergency medical dispatch, where telecommunicators either have a computer program that guides them through the questions or flip chart that then becomes like Boolean logic. If then, okay, if the person answers this, then I'm going to ask you that.
Speaker 2:To me, a lot of what we have seen is not only the rise of technology but the rise of scripted protocols and more formalized training and more formalized again script. Okay, what do I do in this situation? Back, I think we've all heard plug and play when it comes to our electronic devices. When I started in this 911 industry back in 1972, it was more what I called plug and pray, because you're given plug this in and you pray, nothing really bad happens. So somebody comes and lets you go. So what I have seen over the years, if nothing else, is just the tremendous increase in training and, for the most part, professionalism of the folks who are answering those 911 calls. And I say for the most part because again, like anything else in public safety or in life, there are some stragglers out there who really are not up to the level of their neighbors.
Speaker 1:It's interesting you mentioned that level of professionalism. My dad he's been on our podcast a couple of times. He was back in the early 60s. He was an ambulance driver here in Camaras County where we are, and guess what else he had to do? He had to answer the phone at two o'clock in the morning when it would ring and he said professionalism sometimes was hard to keep when they wake you up. Things have definitely changed and I know like when I talk with the folks in our 911 center they are awesome folks to talk to and they know their stuff and they're very professional. But whenever you have all the scripts and you have these things that are the flip charts that you were talking about and things like that, does a time ever come where you have to go off the script and kind of have to adapt to unique situations?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I would say, and I'll give you a couple of different examples I would say, and I'll give you a couple of different examples Again one of the centers that I managed was in Knoxville, tennessee, and one night they had a private plane that was attempting a landing at a local small airport and it crashed and got stuck up in a tree and the pilot died. And the person who called was the pilot's wife and she was calling on her cell phone inside an airplane, stuck 100 feet in the air in a tree. Now, I don't care how many procedures you have laid down for your center, you don't have one, for you've got a dead person and his wife is calling and they're stuck 100 feet up in the air in an airplane. That's very unique. You've got to go through that.
Speaker 2:I can speak here to a fatal tornadic outbreak we had several years ago here in Raleigh, where we had very detailed procedures in how you assign different radio channels when you've got nearly all of your mobile resources on the road. The plan we had didn't work and the people in the center recognized it, the people in the field recognized it, and so basically they said, okay, wait a minute, instead of doing this, let's do this and this, let's do this and this, and we got through that day without a problem because people were willing to think on their feet and say OK, here's our resources. How do we blend them to get this to work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's an important skill, I think, even beyond just the call center your battalion chiefs and your police chiefs they have to be able to adapt when unique situations like that pop up. Chiefs, they have to be able to adapt when unique situations like that pop up. I know here where we are. I know there has been a lot of input from our call center to help adapt our response, how we handle certain situations. How valuable, would you say, is the information that a communicator has? Or the communications department? How valuable of information can they bring to the table when it comes to things like incident planning and emergency management and things like that?
Speaker 2:I may be biased but again, I've served on both sides of the microphone. It's invaluable. One of the things that we have been involved in here and in other centers that I manage were after action incident debriefings, where I was able to bring some of the folks who were on duty at the time during a major emergency a week or two later to the table where all the agencies sat down and did a debriefing and you took a look at what worked and why did it work, and what didn't work and why didn't it work. And the next time we have this, how can we fix that ladder without changing any of the things that work? So it's really invaluable.
Speaker 2:When you are out there as a fire chief and you are trying to do a size up and looking at everything that's going on in that building and what your resources are, you really are not thinking about all right, how can I help the dispatch center through this? It's not part of the process. Like I said, I've been on both sides of it. I understand that, but it's really critical for agencies and I can't stress this. Get your dispatch center involved in your after-action debriefing. They may come up with things that you didn't even think about because you were too busy focusing on the fire that's right in front of you. So I can't stress that enough that the team building that goes on then is just invaluable for future incidents.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've seen myself times when you know you call communications and you ask for a resource and they're like, hey, do you want us to send this as well? And sometimes they're able to remind us of things that we may forget at the moment. Other resources we have available or options Definitely worthy of including them when it comes to that level of planning. But I know something else that you know our podcast. We believe in building the better firefighter, building the better first responder from the inside out, and that involves taking care of yourself. Right now, in the fire service, in any public service, is mental fitness, mental health. The stress levels that go on in call centers and even in the cab of the truck, it doesn't matter are off the charts sometimes. And how important is it that the communicators be included when it comes time for that critical stress debriefing? What types of challenges can they face from the emotional aspect of it?
Speaker 2:Without actually seeing the victims, they experience the same types of challenges that any of the first responders on the scene experience. And I will also say that, as future generations of next generation 911 come about, video calling is a big component. So, other than actually smelling and touching what's going on, telecommunicators are going to be exposed to the same sorts of situations that first responders are. But back to the question there are I know there's at least one person that I was the last person they talked to while they were still alive, and those situations are prevalent.
Speaker 2:If you haven't been there and haven't done it, it's tough to explain. But you catch, as a telecommunicator catch people in their worst moments. I can remember when I was managing the center in Knoxville I stopped in to say hello to the folks on Christmas morning and while I was there they got a call that a dad who was separated from his wife picked up his child and jumped off the bridge into the river on Christmas morning. So those types of situations are folks here and it's really tough to sit there, sometimes a dozen or more, 20 miles away, and not really be able to do anything. You just have to listen and process and unfortunately, a lot of times that turns into thinking, gee, what could I have done differently?
Speaker 2:A lot of times there's nothing, but it's really easy to second guess. I can remember when I actually established the 911 emergency number in a county in Illinois. Less than a month after we got the 911 number up and running, we experienced an ice storm that got us federal disaster declaration. That ice storm that got us federal disaster declaration, and, without a lie, my telecommunicators could not put a phone down without it starting to ring immediately as soon as they put it down. The stress is real. It's actually aggravated now by a pandemic shortage of telecommunicators where people are working crazy hours and they're burning themselves out that way. Actually, the National Emergency Number Association, NINA, recently did a survey and I'm looking down at it right now that says that 82% of 911 centers nationwide are understaffed and that 74% of telecommunicators show signs of stress. I think that, in a nutshell, really points out the current situation.
Speaker 1:And when I get a chance to walk by our communications center here locally I can see sometimes that there's a few empty chairs. I think, and I know they're constantly trying to find good people and I think with any occupation that requires dedication, finding good quality people is a challenge and when you look at trying to staff a call center, I imagine it's hard to find the right people. I don't know where would you even start to find people that can deal with the stresses, the rigors that go with being a communicator.
Speaker 2:I will tell you lately. It's hard to even find the wrong people. It's really a—it's reached a critical mass. Who I would look for? People who come from public safety families are oftentimes interested in becoming a part of the actual public safety service, although some of them might not want to expose themselves to the dangers of law enforcement and firefighters. So there's a good place to start.
Speaker 2:Folks who are on the wait staff in restaurants were some of the people that I always tried to recruit, because they are used to dealing with people. They're used to ebb and flow oh my God, the restaurant is really busy right now. I've got to hustle and pick up the faith and they're used to having to try to process and remember a lot of information coming at them at once. This person here wants this kind of salad dressing. This person says I want this. Well done Now. No, none of that is life-threatening. But when you think about it, it's all these little spins on basic pieces of information that change the whole concept of why somebody is calling 911. And it's the ability to remember that stuff and get it right and to get that order in the kitchen, just like it's important to process and remember what somebody has told you on the phone and convert that into some sort of order that can be sent to police, fire or EMS. That gets these people what they've asked for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's not an order you would want to mess up. You want to make sure you don't want to forget the fries with that one, so to speak. But whenever you talk about you find the right person. They go through a ton of training to get them ready to be efficient and to be healthy at doing it, because you have to learn your limits when you do things like that. But when you go through all that process, what's the typical lifespan or career span of a telecommunicator?
Speaker 2:The last I heard and so this may be outdated was probably around four years, give or take one way or another, because the stress and the schedule is just so much. Now I know people who have been doing this for 20 or 30 years and who are still doing just fine. But there is terrific turnover and I will also say that we experience many times and a lot of folks experience it significant washout rates during training that folks just decide wait a minute. I can't remember all this stuff. I don't like the pressure.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I have always done is to have prospective employees, before we give them an offering, listen to some real emergency calls so they know it's just not like sitting down at a retail store taking somebody's order over the phone. No, these people aren't saying I need such fair fans and I need this, and that they're saying hey, I just found my baby in the pool and my baby's not breathing. What do I do? That's the reality and, given that we talk about the turnover, most telecommunicators, quite frankly, are not on their A game until they're there for about two years. They're a game until they're there for about two years. There are so many varieties of emergency calls that they get. You can be there for a couple of years and never have had a call. Wait a minute. I've never handled this before, so it really does take some time to process the whole range of situations that you're going to be faced with.
Speaker 1:Process the whole range of situations that you're going to be faced with. If you've not done it, you don't fully understand the impact it can have and how complex it can be. And when you start talking about that much training for a career that may last four or five, six years, that's a lot going in for a shorter period of time. But when we talk about the communicators finding quality people, when you find them, you no doubt want to hang on to them and we can learn a lot from those people, such as yourself, that have had a lot of experience behind the microphone. If you were talking to in our principal audience as firefighters, obviously, what are the top? Let's say five things that we, as firefighters, could do to make your job as a communicator easier, more effective, more how shall we say fluid in helping us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Number one, strangely enough, is to teach your family what to do in case of an emergency. Oftentimes we, as firefighters or public servants, focus so much on saving the world outside our doors we don't spend as much time as we should making sure that our family knows what they're doing. So, number one teach your family extra drills in the home. Make sure they know if the house is on fire and they can get out. Get out and call 911. Don't stand in the kitchen with the flames dancing around you. It's just a number one. It is that. Number two for the folks who are in the first responder services and some of this is real basic. But talk to any telecommunicator and ask them how much they love the mic click If you are sent somewhere and given pieces of information. We really like to make sure that the information got to the right person, and so many times there will be multiple units on the air and dispatchers will be trying to give out information to make sure a particular unit got it, and that means I got it, not to us, it doesn't. Number one drop the mic clip. Number two, obviously organize your thoughts before you get on the radio. Organize your thoughts before you get on the radio. You've been around long enough to hear people who will pick up the microphone and when we should be getting some cliff notes about what they need or what the problem is, we're getting a novel. Keep it simple, get to the point ask for what it is you need.
Speaker 2:The other thing I would say and some people are embarrassed about this if you don't know what you need, don't be afraid to try to ask and explain it. So many people are saying, geez, I really didn't know what I was supposed to do then, so I didn't do anything. Typically, that makes the process worse. It can compound the problem. So if you don't know what you want, go ahead and ask. And I guess maybe the fifth thing on the list is going to be bring donuts. That's always appreciated. I don't want to say bring some food in, but yeah Again, just stay calm, trust the process.
Speaker 2:Everybody here, no matter what side of the microphone they're on, is on the same team. And what I would say also this will make it number six if you think you have an issue or have an issue with the 911 center or with a particular dispatcher, the time to deal with it is not on the air in the middle of that incident. Gather up your thoughts, calm it down and call in by phone later when everybody's got a little bit of a chance to try to work it out. I've seen people get crosswise with each other over just simple misunderstanding. Oh, you said this. No, I didn't. I thought you asked for that and that was all it was. But yet it kept boiling up and it was nothing. So if you've got a problem, take a deep breath, call on the phone later, hash it out. It helps future.
Speaker 1:No doubt, and those are some good points to remember For me, one of my professional issues that I work with is plan review of new buildings and things like that, and I know that radio communications is the lifeline for the fire service, ems, police, and one of the big things that we're looking at now are these emergency responder radio systems that are going into particularly larger warehouses and buildings, that it's a repeater so that our handhelds will work throughout the building, and this is something that we are going to do an episode in the very near future about is to talk about those emergency responder systems, and I can't say enough how important it is that on the firefighter side we need to make sure our radio is working.
Speaker 1:Buildings Pre-planning is huge in that and it's like today I was doing some fire alarm testing and I know they probably get irritated hey, fire alarm testing at. But you know what, at the end of the day, if you're not getting the right address, if you're not getting the right you know pull station information, that can really hamper y'all. And we really try, you know, on our side to make sure things work and we appreciate the fact that you guys are working so hard to keep us safe and be the voice in our heads when we need it to figure out where we're at. So I thought it was important that we would have a conversation with the 911 side of things and I think a lot of our guys understand how it works. But, as you've proven, it's definitely a little more complicated than we might expect. But what's your number one wildest story that you can share with us from your time behind the mic?
Speaker 2:There are any, I'll give you this one. This comes from tennessee. We got a call from one of our frequent flyers which is the term we lovingly apply to people who can't go through a day without calling 9-1-1 for some reason or another. Old Old lady out in the country and she called in saying that there was a Martian on her front porch Nice. Our procedure was no matter how crazy something sounds, send a deputy, at least somebody out there, check out and see what it is. The deputy got out there and called back in that there was a teenager staggering around her front porch who had been huffing fluorescent green paint and putting it in a bag, breathing it in, and so he had gotten himself a fluorescent green ring around his face. And all this lady saw when she looked out her window was this little green-faced man staring around on her porch. So I think I'll leave that as maybe one of the wildest 911 calls my folks have had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny she's passed away now, but one of my dear friends her name was Brenda Drake. She worked in our call center for a long time here in Concord. She always used to tell the story about she had that same situation was an older person that called and she was always worried that somebody was catching up with her looking for and she was talking about there was a squirrel that was dead in an unnatural position in the front yard and what does that mean? And Brenda could not figure out what a squirrel in an unnatural position meant. She dispatched out I think it was a police officer and when he went out a squirrel had gotten in a transformer on the pole in her front yard and had basically electrocuted himself.
Speaker 1:Having a sense of humor is important, but also knowing when it's time to be serious is obviously something you got to do, and you know I really appreciate you sharing some of your experiences with us, barry. There's so much that we can learn from all these different, I guess, facets of emergency service. And thank you again. But you know, speaking of that, I do have a question. Did you hear about that circus fire that happened over at the coast this past week?
Speaker 2:No, I did not.
Speaker 1:They said the fire was pretty intense. Thank you, you don't even have to laugh. Yep, you get a bad dad joke. I promise every time. That's okay, all right. So, barry, if folks want to get a hold of you, how can they find you? Where's the best way to get a hold of you at?
Speaker 2:Easiest way to find me is Barry Fury B-A-R-Y-F-U-R-E-Y BarryFurycom.
Speaker 1:Excellent and we'll have all of that listed in the show notes and your bio and all that good stuff. And, as we always say here on All Clear, thank you for being with us and we encourage you to light your fire within. You have been listening to All Clear. All Clear is presented by the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance and the First Responders Peer Support Network. You can find out more about us at allclearpodcastcom. Leave us a message. We'd appreciate hearing from you. If you like what you hear, tell someone. Opinions expressed by guests do not always reflect the opinions of the podcast. Intro and outro music provided by Wayne John Bradley. And, as always, light your fire within. See you soon.
