Are Dispatchers First Responders? (Part II)

If you search for lists of the most stressful jobs, you’ll see the usual suspects. Air traffic controller. Physician. Firefighter. All hard jobs. No argument there.

Emergency dispatcher rarely shows up. And when it does, it’s usually misunderstood.

Let me be careful here, because this isn’t about minimizing the difficulty of police, fire, or EMS work. Those jobs demand courage, skill, and sacrifice. They take a toll, physically and emotionally. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t done them.

But there’s a reality about emergency response that rarely gets said out loud.

Being physically present carries advantages.

When a police officer arrives at a volatile scene, their presence alone can change the dynamic. A uniform, a badge, a visible authority figure. Tempers cool. Fights pause. People take a breath. Officers can see who’s involved, who’s agitated, who’s hurt, and what’s actually happening.

When paramedics arrive, they can see and touch the patient. They can assess color, breathing, and responsiveness. They get immediate feedback from their actions. They can feel whether a pulse is present. They can hear lung sounds. They can adjust in real time.

Firefighters can see the fire, the structure, the smoke conditions, the hazards, and the exits. They can size up the scene with all their senses.

Dispatchers get none of that.

A dispatcher has no physical authority at the scene. No uniform. No presence. No ability to step between people who are fighting or force someone to comply. They can say “stay on the line,” knowing full well the caller can hang up at any second.

Dispatchers can’t see what’s happening. They hear it through a single phone connection, often broken, muffled, or chaotic. From that, they’re expected to build an accurate mental picture, ask the right questions, and make decisions that set everything else in motion.

Nowhere is that gap more obvious than in medical calls.

When someone calls 911 for an ambulance, the dispatcher sends help immediately. But they don’t stop there. They try to help the patient while responders are still en route.

Dispatchers can’t see the patient. They can’t feel the patient. They rely entirely on a caller who may be panicked, hysterical, grieving, or in shock. Evaluating a patient in that environment is brutally difficult.

And then the dispatcher has to instruct.

Dispatchers teach CPR over the phone, in seconds, to someone who may have zero medical training. On the worst day of their life.

Rolling up on a cardiac arrest and starting CPR is hard. Trying to teach a terrified teenager how to do it to their parent, over a phone line, while simultaneously relaying updates to responding units, is harder.

That’s not a criticism of field responders. It’s an acknowledgment of a different kind of difficulty.

And there’s more.

Field responders usually know what they’re going to. A structure fire. A robbery. A traffic crash. They can form a mental plan while en route.

Dispatchers don’t get that luxury.

When the phone rings, they know nothing. They have to determine the problem, identify the location, assess the risk, and decide on a course of action in seconds, based on whatever information a panicked stranger can provide.

Finding the location alone can be a challenge. Dispatchers translate half-remembered landmarks, vague directions, or “I’m by the big store” into an exact place responders can reach. They figure out where in the building, which entrance, or which side of the campus.

All of this happens before anyone else has even left the station.

Dispatching is hard not just because of the work, but because of the misconceptions.

People still think it’s a simple job. Answer the phone. Send help. Like customer service, but louder. There’s no glamour in being “just a dispatcher.” Kids don’t dream about it the way they dream about being firefighters or police officers. And that lack of visibility seeps into everything.

Dispatchers are often left out of debriefings. They may never hear how a call ended. After a traumatic incident, field responders talk it through, then step away. Dispatchers hang up and answer the next call, sometimes seconds later. The stress compounds.

And when you combine high stress, high stakes, low recognition, and limited support, you get predictable results. Burnout. Turnover. Good dispatchers walking away because the toll on their health, their families, and their lives becomes too heavy.

That’s why the “first responder” conversation matters.

Not just because of a title, but because recognition drives resources. It affects pay, benefits, mental health support, training, and whether leadership truly understands the weight of the job.

Dispatching can be a deeply rewarding career. It’s challenging. It’s meaningful. It makes a real difference in people’s lives.

But it’s only sustainable when the system acknowledges what the job actually demands.

The hardest part of emergency response often happens before anyone arrives.

And it’s handled by someone you’ll probably never see.