Responding to “Unknown” Emergencies

BY MARK WATERS

Every day, firefighters across the United States respond to emergency and medical calls dispatched as an "unknown" emergency or medical call. Experience has shown that these incidents are usually routine but that every so often one turns out to be very complex. Every experienced firefighter or fire officer has many examples of "unknown" incidents. This article focuses on actions fire officers and firefighters can take to minimize the potential risks associated with "unknown" emergencies.

我试图确定“未知”这个词tered into dispatchers' vernacular for sending calls out for service. During my research, I evaluated various prearrival dispatch systems and found that they are all very thorough in asking a series of questions to determine specifics as to what type of an emergency the caller is reporting. Why then does the designation "unknown" still exist? My conclusion is that often the information from the dispatcher is only as good as the information received. Dispatchers and call takers have a very difficult job. The ultimate goal of a dispatcher is to get help to an emergency as soon as possible. This is not an easy task for any dispatcher and often requires special skills to extract information and facts to send the proper help to a caller. Many emergency responders are not aware of the challenges dispatchers and call takers face. Some of these challenges include language barriers and callers' unwillingness to give information. In addition, often the caller is a third-party caller, who is not at the scene of the emergency and often provides very little information that is not always accurate. In fact, just getting the correct address of the incident can be challenging.