If you live in Groton, Mystic, or North Stonington and you’ve ever had the
occasion to call 911, chances are you may have spoken to Dorothy
McLaughlin, a dispatcher who retired from the Groton Emergency
Communications Center this past November after 25 years of full-time
service.
According to experts in the field,
after six years on the job most Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
dispatchers are ready to hang up their hats and head off to careers
that are less stressful. Dorothy, a Mystic resident, toughed it out,
however, and after a quarter-century working as both a police/fire and
EMS dispatcher covering a multi-town region in southeastern
Connecticut, she is now prepared to venture into a well-deserved
retirement.
Reflecting on her long career and her love of the job, it sounds as if Dorothy would be willing to do it all over again.
“The
first 17 years there, I was strictly a police dispatcher,” she says.
“There were three of us that were police dispatchers, and the rest of
the dispatchers were fire and EMS downstairs in the basement. When the
town decided to merge the two [eight years ago], I was cross-trained
for fire and EMS.”
While
Dorothy admits the job was routine for the most part, especially when
dispatching calls for police or fire services, it was the emergency
medical services calls that gave her the most stress.
“I
found it very difficult when you have to do CPR over the phone with
somebody, usually a family member who is very distraught, and bring
them down to a level where you can help them to help the person who’s
in distress. That was probably my least favorite part. It’s always
emotional when it’s done, no matter how you try not to react,” Dorothy
says.
While the average
emergency medical call is wrapped up in just a few minutes before EMS
personnel arrive at the scene, some calls can last up to 6 or 7
minutes, especially when call volume is high.
“It’s
very stressful,” Dorothy says of those medical emergencies. “The fire
calls were easier; you just make sure you know the location to get the
fire fighters to the scene and that no one is trapped inside a burning
building. Those calls become routine. Even police calls, like
robberies, became routine. You know what questions to ask to get the
information out of the people you need.”
Dorothy says her most memorable moment came when she helped deliver a baby boy.
“That
was on my first day of training on the medical side, but it went well,
and we safely delivered a little boy before emergency services got
on-scene,” she says. Today that boy would be 8 years old, Dorothy
notes, but she admits “I’ve never had any contact with the family. Once
in a while someone you’ve helped will contact you, but that’s never
happened with me.”
But
that’s okay with Dorothy, since she did not expect accolades for doing
her job. She says she simply enjoyed helping people from behind the
scenes, and now she’s looking forward to a change in her old routine.
“I’ve
worked since I was 16, and this is the first time I’ve had this
freedom. I plan on spending more time with my grandchildren and our
daughter. I love outdoor stuff: kayaking, hiking, and biking, and now I
can go whenever I want.”
When
Dorothy clocked out for the last time on Nov. 7, she had an unexpected
surprise waiting for her. Not a cake or an on-the-spot surprise party,
but a problem with the time clock. “When I went to swipe out for the
last time the system wouldn’t take it,” she says.
Dorothy’s supervisor, Joe Sastre, had the time clock rigged so her card would not register.
Joe notes, “It was our way of saying we hated to see her go.”
By Jason J. Marchi
Times Correspondent