Category Archives: 911

04.09.21
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I just Shot my wife

911 Where is your emergency: I just shot my wife

What is the the address of your location: Done

Where is your wife: at the bottom of the steps

Where is the gun: its laying on the table

Hearing other voices in the background, I asked the man to move into another room away from the gun and an officer will be there in a few moments to help him.

This is my memory of a 911 call that occurred in the early 80’s when I was a brand spanking new 911 dispatcher.

I am using this moment to relive the initial part of this story in this blog as a therapeutic tool. My question…because the bones of my day have been tentatively planned out and the last thing I did before stepping into the shower was put eggs on to boil for a tuna salad wrap for lunch…..why now?

As I was shaking the shampoo out of the bottle, my mind took me back to this moment in time which occurred 36 or 37 years ago. It was as vivid in my mind as the day it occurred.

These are the challenges we deal with on a daily basis. My 911 experience of this call and many other calls are events in my life that I attached an emotion to and then filed it away because there was no time to dwell on it. Things needed to be done. After that moment in time, I did not sit with those emotions nor did I acknowledge there was an emotion attached to the event. I just told my story occasionally and lived through it again, again with each telling; cementing the emotional connection in my mind so that one fine spring day in 2021 while washing my hair it comes crashing back.

The lesson I am taking from this right now is that we need to sit with our emotions and not set them aside. Whether it be horror, pain, sorrow, love, laughter…we need to experience the emotion by acknowledging how we feel in the present moment. Not try to push it away. Feel it…and then release.

So that is what I am doing with this event in this blog. For what ever reason, I remembered! The emotions of horror came back while I was taking a shower. I acknowledge the fact that what I experienced was dramatic/traumatic. I acknowledged that I had not actually felt it…felt it within…and now after giving the memory the intention of healing, I’m blessing it and releasing it all the while accepting the parts everyone played as humanity played out it’s best and it’s worst. I release it knowing I AM who I AM and this was a moment in time that needs to be remembered in a new way and then released with grace!

Namaste

02.08.14
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The ugliness…

I’ve known for the last few years that I’m not the person I used to be…I stopped laughing…the healthy laugh, I was still smiling and was still using so-called gallows humor to help relieve stress but really laughing about something that tickles you way deep inside – it had stopped.  Emergency workers – whether they are EMS personnel, cops, nurses, dispatchers can laugh and eat their way thru a conversation about horrible things…the above mentioned HAVE to laugh their way thru their job or they would totally end their life bonkers swinging from the end of a rope from the top of a high ceiling.  I always go back to the story of my shift dispatch partner taking a particularly disgusting call that would make the normal person do a little shiver and shut down.  She took the call, got EMS enroute and went back to eating her hamburger.  I, who often congratulated myself on my ability to cope, turned to her and said OMG stop eating.  It has been a story retold several times in the dispatch center as a stress reliever for someone else taking a particular nasty call that no one should have happen to them, let alone anyone else should have to know about.

It’s the nature of the beast.  But years and years of it changes who you are.  I found myself being more normal after spending the afternoon with my old friend, Gena.  Normal is probably not the appropriate word…but I felt like my old self.  I didn’t feel the negativity and the dread in my soul that I so often feel… Waking up on Valentine’s Day, I will be retired.  I will be a former 911 operator – it was an incredible career.  I will always have my memories.  I’ve delivered babies over the phone, I’ve been the very last person to ever speak to someone taking their last breath.  I always remember the black lung victim who passed as the ambulance was approaching his door, murders, plane crashes, horrific traffic accidents, house fires and all of the people I have referred to as assholes after hitting release on the phone….many will always be remembered.   I’m so glad I’m done…I’m very tired of the ugliness…I hope to put those rose colored glasses back on and laugh until I can’t breath.

Until next time….

07.24.08
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anti depressant and work screw up

I had a fact finding meeting with the boss this morning…it was painful but manageable…he told me that he was shocked when I came to him with my error yesterday morning – he said he didn’t expect it from me …that helped my self esteem a bit.  He will pass the news on to the sheriff and they will let me know what my discipline will be. 

So…I went to the doctor…I sugar coated my problems just a bit to him…but found out that I’m not even on a therapeutic dose of my anti-depressant (which I’ve taken since my dad died) and that might cause – irritability (or total rage at my mother), suicidal thoughts, inability to concentrate (or remember anything?), that brain fog…he upped my medication..said give it 2 or 3 weeks to see if there is a different.  Please God let there be a difference.

And then the knee…He thinks it should be stronger and more healed than it is…said there was fluid on the knee in the xray I had taken at the ER the “night of the falling tree”.  Says he thinks I’ve probably torn something and not just sprained it..so he ordered an MRI.

That is it for my trials and tribulations.

Until next time…..

07.19.08
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Total Work Rant 911

What happened to the kids and human services in Texas that the media choked us with information a few months ago.  These were the kids rescued from the commune due to abuse or what the state of Texas said was abuse but perhaps overstepped their bounds??  Didn’t have real evidence…I’m thinking perhaps had they actually done some investigating, they would have found some probable cause; but no – someone  went off half cocked….probably a pun in there somewhere.

Since we sit here in the heartland, I’m guessing we are just following the lead of the east or the west in newspaper blogs…Calling these things blogs, kind of irritates me – I suppose if I cared enough to look up the definition of blog, they might fit under the heading…but what’s the deal.  Our local newspaper with a daily monday thru Friday distribution is plum full of comments – especially about the police – and especially about the city of 15,000 in general…I’m talking about downright slanderous comments about cops, judges and the county attorney…in the beginning, I was shocked!!!  I don’t read them anymore other than an occasional check when something piques my interest and I want to know what the dirt bag, scum suckers have to say about it.  The one thing I did learn was that our society right now is bogged down with a bunch of punks who have no respect for authority, no humility, have never learned consequences for their actions and have such drug addled minds that they are mental midgets.  It’s scary……these are not normal, middle class, law abiding citizens with an opinion…these are the screaming idiots who call 911 every weekend for some current drama in their lives… these are the citizens that fill the county jail and a check of their booking records shows – unemployed.  These are the women who call the police at night because their kids won’t go to bed, their kids are mouthing off to them, their kids are out of control, their significant other just beat the crap out of them but they don’t want him/her arrested…they can’t understand that if they call the police about a domestic abuse – the officer has no choice to arrest if there are marks or signs of an assault – this is state law.  The domestic abuse laws are important – but the  women/men who really are abused or really need help never call – its the screamers who get tanked up and call every weekend with the same non-grammatical crap – he “done” this to me…or the 14 year old kids that calls at 3:45 in the morning – he just got home and his parents are sleeping – he needs an officer because some 8th graders at the party were threatening to beat him up.  WHY IS HE OUT WITH A BUNCH OF 8TH GRADERS AT 3:45 IN THE MORNING AND WHY IN THE HELL ARE HIS PARENTS SLEEPING.

Uh huh…off to work….

04.16.08
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The newspaper story

Here’s the news story on the 23 year old being held against her will that I told you about earlier:
Authorities arrested a Pella man last week after local dispatchers received a report of a female being held against her will while driving on Highway 163 near Prairie City.

Rigoberto Castro Hurtado appeared in court for a preliminary hearing Monday on charges of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and interference with official acts. The 34-year-old man is accused of fondling a 23-year-old female and threatening to take her to a hotel while forcing her to drive to Des Moines.

A Prairie City officer was notified of the situation by Jasper County Dispatch at 2:42 a.m. April 6 and located the suspect vehicle. After initiating a traffic stop, Hurtado — a passenger in the front seat — exited the vehicle and allegedly refused to obey the officer’s orders. When Hurtado attempted to re-enter the vehicle, the officer activated his taser, effectively stopping him, according to court documents.

Hurtado initially was arrested on a charge of second-degree sexual abuse, a class B felony, but a less serious charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse was filed against him during his preliminary hearing Monday.

The victim told authorities she pushed Hurtado away several times and that he threatened to kill three other male passengers — all in their mid-20s — in the back seat of the vehicle during the incident, but no one was injured.

Hurtado is being held in the Jasper County Jail on a $15,200 bond, and he is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges April 23. Assault with intent to commit sexual abuse is a serious misdemeanor with a penalty of no more than a year in jail and a fine between $250 and $1,500.