9-1-1
When Seconds Count

BY JIM HUTCHISON

"LOOK OUT!" I yell from the backseat of a Montreal taxi. But it's too late to avoid the five-tonne truck changing lanes ahead. The impact slams the cabdriver, who isn't wearing his seat belt, headfirst into the windshield. Winded and bruised, I unbuckle myself as the trucker appears at the window with a cellular phone in his hand. "Call 9-1-1," I say.

JOHANNE BELISLE answers the call, one of 1.3 million made each year to Montreal 9-1-1. Ironically, I had been with Belisle only 15 minutes earlier, watching as she fielded emergency calls from the 29 municipalities on the island of Montreal, never imagining I would soon need her help. In 30 seconds Belisle relays the information to the nearest available ambulance, then alerts police. Seven minutes later paramedics speed off with the injured cabbie.

       "Saving lives by shortening emergency response times is what 9-1-1 is all about," Belisle had told me. A nine-year veteran, her average handling time for each call is under 45 seconds.

       A service providing the public with an easy-to-remember, three-digit number to dial in an emergency -- 9-9-9 -- was first introduced in Great Britain in 1937. In North America 9-1-1 was selected as the emergency number. Today, Prince Edward Island is the only Canadian province without 9-1-1, but the service will start in July 2000.

       "People think 9-1-1 is available everywhere, but coverage is mostly in urban areas," says Janet Calder, operations manager for Vancouver 9-1-1. "There's no point in having a 9-1-1 service if there is no fast response to emergencies in remote areas."

"WELCOME to phoneland," says Toronto Police Service Staff Sgt. James Sproxton as we walk into the city's 9-1-1 communications centre. The largest in Canada, it handles more than 1.5 million calls a year -- everything from heart attacks to stolen wallets.

       By nine o'clock on this Halloween night, 1998, call volume is building fast; Halloween is the centre's busiest night of the year. But there is little trace of tension in the efficient, even tones of the voices of the 40 call takers and dispatchers of D Platoon as they deal with call after call, funnelling them to 37 different emergency services. In other regions of the country, fire departments or local governments often run 9-1-1, but in Toronto it's operated by the police. Call takers send 80 percent of incoming 9-1-1 calls to police dispatchers across the room. They route the rest to other emergency services, mostly fire and ambulance.

       I plug in my headset at call taker Camille Warner's workstation. "Do you need police, fire or ambulance?" she asks a caller.

       Like most 9-1-1 call centres in Canada, Toronto is equipped with enhanced 9-1-1, a computerized system that scans a database of millions of numbers and displays the caller's name, address and phone number in microseconds. Not having to rely on the caller to provide this crucial information in an emergency -- impossible for a victim unable to talk or a young child -- Warner can still have help on the way in seconds.

       This call shows as a pay phone at a doughnut shop in 52 Division. "There's a man shot," says a male voice. "The shooter's run away."

       "Stay on the line," Warner says, punching a pink button on her console to send the dispatcher a "hotshot" -- a priority-one call detailing a crime in progress or danger to life or property. On a busy night like this, with up to 200 calls an hour, hotshots are coming about every ten minutes.

       Crossing the floor, I watch dispatcher Marian Stephenson-Bell handle Warner's call. "Stand by for a hotshot," she radios all units, broadcasting details as they come through.

       The dispatcher frowns in concentration as she keeps track of 43 shifting icons on a computerized map, representing police units on the streets of 52 Division, the city's busiest. She dispatches the nearest available units.

       Back at Warner's station, the caller is still on the line, and I hear sirens as police and ambulance arrive. Within minutes the victim is whisked off to hospital, where his condition is later listed as stable.

       Warner moves on to the next call, a car leaking gas outside an apartment building. She types details into the computer, connects to the nearest fire department and e-mails the information, which instantly pops up on their dispatcher's screen.

       "When you answer a call, you don't know whether it's going to be a murder in progress or a parking complaint," says Warner. "You have to be ready for anything." Often, 9-1-1 call takers become the victim's lifeline.

ONE MORNING in May 1997, Joss Rowlands at Vancouver 9-1-1 took a call from Olivia Johnstone.* "I'm home alone and there are two intruders downstairs," whispered the terrified, six-months-pregnant 19-year-old, who was hiding behind her bed clutching her cat as the intruders ransacked her home. Rowlands kept Johnstone calm and got a description of the home's interior, which a dispatcher radioed to the police, who by now surrounded the house.

       "The dog team is coming in now," Rowlands warned. "Keep perfectly still." She heard the police rush the front and back doors, then heard one of the intruders holler in pain as the dog took him down. Then there was a knock at Johnstone's bedroom door. "It's the police, you can let them in," Rowlands told the grateful young woman.

       In Vancouver, Rowlands often encounters callers who can't speak English. "That's when we call the AT&T Language Line," she says. Headquartered in Monterey, Calif., the world's largest over-the-phone interpretation service patches 9-1-1 operators and victims into a three-way call with translators in 140 languages. Toronto 9-1-1 logged more than 2,600 such calls last year, requesting the service for 51 languages.

ON SEPTEMBER 9, 1997, two weeks after 9-1-1 was initiated province-wide in Manitoba, Lisa Russell took a call at the Brandon call centre. "My son isn't breathing -- he's choking on a marshmallow!" a woman wailed. Russell dispatched fire and ambulance crews, then flipped open her emergency guide to the card for a choking child.

       "Stand behind him and gently thrust with your fist just above his stomach," she said, instructing the mother in the Heimlich manoeuvre. A tense moment passed, then she heard the three-year-old howl.

       "It's out. He's breathing!" the mother shouted. "Thank you. He was blue," she sobbed.

       "That was our first confirmed save," says rural Manitoba 9-1-1 operations manager Todd Stevens. "Two weeks before, the mother would have had to find the local number for the police, who would have called the fire department, where the rescue team would have tried to get the address and then respond. It all would have taken too long. In the two years we've been operating, we've had 31 lives saved by our 9-1-1 call takers."

       They've also helped deliver three babies, the most recent on Christmas morning, 1998. Lyndon Favell of Selkirk, tending to his wife, Peggy, yelled to his sister from the bathroom: "Guylaine, call 9-1-1! The baby's coming!"

       Lorna Scott at the Brandon call centre dispatched paramedics, but the Favells' second child was not going to wait. "Line the bathtub with towels," Scott told Guylaine, "and lie the mother on top of them." She heard Peggy Favell scream as the baby emerged.

       "The umbilical cord is wound twice around the neck," said the frightened father, who had grabbed the receiver.

9-1-1 Facts You Need 9-1-1 calls from pay and cell phones are free. Use 9-1-1 only when people or property are at risk. Make sure your address can be clearly seen from the street by emergency services. Let 9-1-1 operators control the call. Do not hang up until the operator advises you to do so. Teach your children to use 9-1-1. Make sure your baby-sitter knows your address and phone number. If you call from your vehicle, stop in a safe area and look for street signs, addresses, major buildings or landmarks. On highways, note your direction of travel, and any exit and highway numbers. If you are in an area not served by 9-1-1, call the operator.

       "Calm down and just untangle it," Scott said. There was still no sign of life. "Clear the baby's mouth," Scott ordered. A moment later she heaved a sigh of relief at the sweet sound of a baby's first cry.

       The call centre presented Peggy Favell and Lorna Scott with stork pins and one other memento: the 9-1-1 tape recording of the event.

AT 10:30 p.m., Toronto's D Platoon hands off to the graveyard shift. Among members of A Platoon taking up positions is Katharine Meehan, a ten-year veteran. "Calls from kids are the most disturbing," she says, recalling an incident in July 1997.

       On a busy Friday night, Meehan's last call of the day was from a frightened 11-year-old. "My daddy's beating up my little brother," the boy whispered. When the distraught child told her he was out on the balcony, naked, and could see his father with a big knife and blood on his shirt through the screen door, Meehan's blood ran cold. I've got to keep him out on the balcony until the police arrive, she thought.

       "I want to go help my brother," he said, nearly hysterical.

       "What's your name?" Meehan asked.

       "Danny."

       "You stay out there and talk to me, Danny," she said. "What TV shows do you like?"

       They talked about his school, sports, friends -- anything to keep him occupied. Each time he wanted to go inside, she convinced him to stay on the balcony. "You're safe out there," she told him.

       When police burst through the door, they arrested Danny's father for the murder of his eight-year-old son and bundled Danny away. Meehan received a commendation from the Toronto Police Service for her actions.

       Danny's predicament illustrates why children must know where to turn for help. "That's why we have an education program to teach kids how to use 9-1-1," says Mike Myette, operations manager of Nova Scotia 9-1-1. In that province, kits are distributed to schools, with phones for children to practise making calls.

SHORTLY after midnight, Toronto call taker Lorraine Laforet answers a call from an elderly lady asking the police to come by to pick up leftover Halloween candy. "What if you just bring it in tomorrow," Laforet suggests.

       Thirty minutes later a woman calls to report her cable television is not working.

       "9-1-1 is only for emergencies," Laforet tells her.

       "This is an emergency," the woman retorts. "I don't have any TV!"

       "You can't believe how people abuse 9-1-1," says Johanne Belisle at Montreal 9-1-1. "Every Christmas, at least one person calls for instructions on how to cook a turkey. Calls like that tie up lines needed for real emergencies."

       In addition, says Toronto's Judy Broomfield, "we get hundreds of calls a day from people who program 9-1-1 into their speed dial and set it off by accident."

       Because such calls tie up so many resources, Nova Scotia has made it illegal to program 9-1-1 into speed dial.

BY 4 A.M., calls are petering off at the Toronto centre, and at 7:30, A Platoon members pack up to go home. In the last 24 hours, team members have fielded more than 4,000 calls.

       "It's a stressful job and you go home exhausted after a busy night like this," says Katharine Meehan, "but knowing you're helping others in trouble makes it all worthwhile.

*Name changed to protect privacy.