WOOD COUNTY, Ohio — Monday marked the first day of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, an event dedicated to thanking the personnel behind the scenes who make sure the public and first responders are safe.
The holiday, held every year during the second week of April, was initially set up in 1981 by Patricia Anderson of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office in California.
Cpl. Beth Amos of Wayne, Ohio is a dispatcher at the Wood County Sheriff's Office in Bowling Green. She and three other dispatchers at the dispatch center work as a team, answering 911 calls, dispatching fire and EMS and giving emergency medical over the phone such as walking a person through CPR.
The 911 dispatch center answers around 40,000 calls a year - that's about 110 911 calls a day.
Amos said the more they handle different emergency situations, the better dispatchers they become.
"You're always going to be business when you're on the phone, because you're that person's lifeline and you have to have the level head to make sure you're getting the right resources to them and make sure they're not going to do anything that's going to further harm them," Amos said.
Helping the community she's a part of is what Amos said keeps her going.