That was a great article, Traci. I am also a dispatcher up in Seaside, Oregon, albeit a MUCH smaller community! My end of the county serves MAYBE 10,000 customers but up to 100,000 for certain events (like the Hood to Coast relay) in August. At our dispatch center (there are 2 in our county), we have 7 dispatchers (if we are fully staffed - we also have a moderate turnover rate). We transfer medical calls to a contracted ambulance service, but still have to be EMD qualified, just in case they are backlogged, etc. We are calltakers and dispatch 3 police agencies and 4 volunteer fire depts, and often do all these tasks solo. Of course, we don't have the same volume of calls, but usually enough to keep us busy! (It's amazing what some people will call the police dept for!) What I wanted to comment about is Next Generation 911 - the probability of getting text-911 and streaming video 911 calls in the very near future. The technology is out there - we already receive TTY/TDD calls, which is similar to Instant or Text Messaging, and we can chat on computers using webcams, etc. It is hard enough to calm a hysterical caller, without being on-scene. However, I look at these calls with a "detached" view - I can only visualize the scene. I think that's what makes it, for lack of a better word, "easier" to calm the callers. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to see in REAL TIME the horrific motor vehicle accidents or shootings or any other type of violence, and be expected to do my job effectively. I think if I could handle being exposed to that, I would be a paramedic or ER nurse or whatever and at least get paid more! How would dispatchers (Traci and the dispatcher in Rhonda Erwin's comment) have handled the calls had they been in real time video? I wonder if there will be additional training or higher pay when this technology comes down?