LIMA — A veteran first responder with the Lima Police Department paid tribute Monday to the behind-the-scenes, unsung heroes whose roles are crucial in times of emergency — such as the events that gripped the nation 16 years earlier.
Speaking on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, Lt. Andy Green of the Lima Police Department said police and emergency personnel “are always remembered on days like this, and that’s great. But we wouldn’t be there if not for the communications officers who get us there.”
What Green referred to as communications officers are known by most simply as dispatchers. The Lima Police Department employs 12 such officers, who share 911 emergency dispatch duties countywide with the Allen County Sheriff’s Office.
“If you’re calling from a land line, where you call from determines who [which agency] gets the 911 call,” Green told members of the Lima Rotary Club during their noon luncheon Monday. “If you’re inside the city, the call goes to our office; if you’re outside the city, the Sheriff’s Office will get the call. And if you’re calling from a cellphone, all 911 calls are handled by the Sheriff’s Office” and are then rerouted to the proper agency.
The phone number 911 was adopted as the “Universal Emergency Number” for the United States and internationally to request emergency assistance at the recommendation of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, Green said. In 1968, the first 911 network was formed, although nearly 20 years later only about half the country’s residents had access to 911 assistance. The service is available nationwide today, and Green said the “next generation 911” that accepts texts is being developed and implemented.
“I think it’s going to be a good thing,” Green said, “but when it is available locally I would ask people to please call 911 rather than text. It’s just much faster.”
Bath Township Fire Chief Joe Kitchen, who introduced Green to Rotarians on Monday, said the events of Sept. 11, 2001, “changed the world; changed all of us,” and ultimately changed the direction of his own life.
Kitchen was working at the Lima oil refinery when terrorists struck the U.S., and said he felt a call to duty in the days and months following that horrific day.
“Within seven months I took a full-time position as fire chief in Bath Township. I felt compelled to take on a life of service,” Kitchen said.
Similarly, Green’s patriotism rose to a new level after the terrorist attacks. A veteran of the U.S. armed services who had completed his military obligation and had decided to part ways with military life completely, in the months after 9/11 Green sought out a National Guard recruiter and enlisted, in addition to his career as a Lima police officer.
“I had the opportunity to go to Afghanistan in 2001 and fight for freedom” on behalf of the USA, Green said.
Green said the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is a perfect time to remember the dispatchers who were on the receiving end of thousands of emergency calls that fateful day.
“They’re the ones who took the call from a screaming mother when her child stopped breathing; the ones who — as they’re telling the mother how to perform CPR — are also contacting first responders to get them to the scene. Then when we arrive, they hang up … and they’re expected to go on with their day,” Green said.
“Sometimes we as first responders tend to forget that. I wish our communications officers could be here today to get your thanks. But they can’t. They’re working” to make the Lima community a safer place, Green said.
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