The Last Link

A low ceiling and dim fluorescent lights cast the room in a funereal glow. Faint illumination from bluish computer screens contributes to the unsettling effect. Sounds are muted, voices low. Urgency lives here.

We’re four stories below ground in City Hall East behind vault doors and concrete walls a foot thick. There is no sunlight here, no fresh air, no flowers . . . only wall panels with trees painted on them.

But, in an odd way, this a place of life despite its somber milieu and the disquieting proximity of death; it’s one last chance, a final link. It’s where the 911 calls come.

I’m here wondering about the people who handle these calls and what it does to them. How often can you hear screams without screaming? How much pain can you absorb without hurting? How many nightmares can one person ride before the ride goes on forever?

They get about 12,000 calls a day at what is officially known as the Police Department’s Communications Division Center. Capt. Tom Elfmont is its commander.

Not every call is laced with anguish. Lonely people want someone to talk to. Confused people order taxis. Angry people shout obscenities. Kids giggle and hang up.

But most of the voices that come to those who take the calls come with problems too great to handle alone. They hear footsteps in the night, they don’t want to live anymore, their child is missing, they’ve been hurt, they’re running . . . they’re dying.

“There are things you hear,” one of the listeners says, “that you’re just never going to be able to walk off.”

*

Her name is Brenda Hickie. As a police service representative, she’s been working this room for 14 years, both as a dispatcher and as a 911 operator. It’s a long time to absorb so much pain, she says; maybe too long.

Counseling is available for those who can no longer bear the sounds of death in their ears, but sometimes even counseling isn’t enough. The echo lasts a long time.

“They could be talking to an officer and suddenly hear shots,” Elfmont says. “Then they hear, ‘I’m hit, I’m hit’ . . . and it could be the officer’s last words. They’ve got to sit there and listen to a human being die.”

A tall, sturdy woman of 42, Hickie still thinks about an incident early in her career when a mother and daughter were fleeing from the woman’s husband, who was threatening to kill them.

“They were in one car and he was in another, chasing them. She kept calling from different phone booths, but I had no one to send out. That night I heard on the news that both the woman and her daughter had been shot.”

A divorced mother of two, Hickie tries not to think about the situations she handles daily. The baggage, she says, is just too much to carry and can confuse the roles of mom and 911 operator.

“I was finding it hard to take my kids’ troubles seriously after listening to real stuff all day,” she says. “I had to separate the two and realize their problems were important too.”

But still . . . a scraped knee isn’t the last sounds of life: “A suicide asked me once, ‘Give me a reason to live. No one cares.’ I said, ‘I care.’ But he pulled the trigger. I heard gunfire.” She takes a deep breath, remembering. “You have to tap into something deep to stay here.”

*

“911 operator 458.” Her voice is calm but authoritative as she takes calls at her console. Operators must retain their equilibrium, even if the situation involves them personally. Once in awhile it does. A house fire proved to be the home of the operator who took the 911 call. Only after doing her job did she head for home.

I listen in on a dozen or so of Hickie’s calls. A knife fight is in progress on the Westside. Two burglars are being held at gunpoint in South-Central. A woman is being beaten by her boyfriend in the Valley. A child is missing in San Pedro.

For about two hours I’m packaged into this place underground, a non-participating element of the drama that never ends. The voices are garbled with terror, breathless with urgency or torn by pain. Hickie calms them, cuts through the turmoil, identifies the problem and dispatches the units.

She doesn’t always know how the drama ends and rarely asks. “I can’t carry that around,” she says. “It would destroy me.”

Another call from San Pedro. “I still can’t find my boy!” the father shouts, on the verge of tears. “He’s only 2!”

“Help is on the way, sir,” Hickie says evenly. Only when the man hangs up does she betray the intensity of her feeling. She says tightly, and mostly to herself, “Find that baby!”

I leave with the drama still being played out. I hope they found the kid. Brenda Hickie hopes so too.