JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Being a 911 dispatcher is an important but stressful job.
“Nobody calls 911 for anything good," said Brianna Goethe, communications manager with The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office. "The calls are emergencies, often it's someone's worst day. People are stressed. They might be home with their families, and then they have to deal with everybody else."
Goethe says their 911 call center is down two dispatchers and one call-taker.
Currently they're running with a minimum of three employees per shift but their goal is to have seven employees, including the shift sergeant.
“It's not just taking calls. In our center we dispatch and take calls, and send people out, so it's hard. There's a lot of multitasking," Goethe said.
He said the staff shortage hasn’t impacted their call center’s response times.
“If we get multiple calls, they just keep ringing until somebody answers them. It's not like they get dropped or anything. We have multiple 911 trunks with an average time with calls we try to answer after 2 rings," Geothe said.
The Putnam County Sheriffs office says their response times are also normal but employees have been running a lot of mandatory overtime.
With Nassau County’s population growing, Sheriff Bill Leeper said this issue puts more pressure on public safety.
“We’re trying to increase our personnel in dispatch. We’re going to a central zone. We have an east and west now. Adding the central zone will cut down the area our 911 operators are responsible for, and maybe cut down on stress issues and response times," said Goethe.
Leeper said they are looking to hire qualified people for the 911 call center who want to make a difference in the community and help people.
You can apply here.