'You changed somebody's life:' TV show recognizes work of 911 dispatchers

The Raleigh-Wake Communications Center took nearly 1 million calls for help last year and the people who pick up those calls are often the first to learn what has gone wrong.

In 18 years as a 911 operator, some calls stay with Annie Griffin.

“A male called in and his infant child wasn’t breathing and I talked him through CPR and we got that child breathing again, we got that baby breathing back again,” she said.

On any given day at the Raleigh-Wake Emergency Communications Center, Griffin could take as many as 300 calls from people who are in trouble and need help.

“By then end of that call, you changed somebody’s life,” she said.

The high-stakes aspect of the work is what drew Ashley Warner to a job as a 911 operator.

“It can go from zero to 100 in a split second,” she said. “I delivered a baby boy over the phone. That was interesting.”

The job of a 911 dispatcher is to get police, EMS and firefighters to where they are needed, sometimes sending them into danger. The risk for first responders is not lost on Warner, whose husband is a firefighter.

“I worry about it, but he is doing what he loves just like I am doing what I love,” she said.

Warner has been with the Communications Center for four years, but she has been interested in the job for far longer.

“When I was a little girl, I used to watch the show 911,” she said.

Now, a new Fox show called 911 recognizes the crucial work of operators and first responders and what it takes to work around one emergency after another.

“The training they have to go through is really extraordinary,” said actress Connie Britton.

“We get in there like a team and get the job done,” Griffin said.

It’s a team that is often taken for granted until they are needed most.

“Hearing that you actually made a difference to them when it is just your voice is an awesome feeling,” Warner said.

New episodes of 911 are scheduled to air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on FOX 50.