What is Your Emergency?: The History of Public Safety Dispatching in America

by Diana Sprain

The story of 911 is complicated. Over 240 million calls are made to the 911 system every year. The Romans organized fire watches and had published laws. The famous Magna Carta was the foundation of our modern democratic freedom. Folks who were used to being self-sufficient learned to take advantage to developing technology to call for assistance when they saw a fire, needed law enforcement or required emergency medical help. Phone calls are received by local police departments and handled by Public Safety Telecommunicators, or Dispatchers. How did the 911 system begin? How are the 911 Dispatchers selected and trained? How do they handle everyday calls verses disasters or major incidents? This is the first book to address the story of our Nation's Public Safety Dispatchers.

204 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2015

Reviews

[Wesley Bivens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful review of the history of the 9-1-1 profession. I felt like the book was poorly edited, the same information was provided in the same form in different sections multiple times, many “autocorrect” word errors, and several instances of poor sentence structure.

Again, the content was great, but needs editing.