Cooperative Living September 2021 - 16

Forty-Seven Minutes
(continued from page 13)
center. One, inexplicably, was directed
to Colorado. " It was nothing short
of alarming, " of alarming, " explains Roberts.Roberts
explains
" Th
" The system in place was clearly not
work
working. And this isn't just a Lake
Gast
cators, Clary was working the day
of Bo
cator
of Bob's medical emergency. " Once
the ca
the call actually got to us, the
ambu
made i
ambulance was on scene very rapidly
for
for a rural area. However, it was
23 min
23 minutes before the call actually
m
ffor usor us because, in our profession,
wwhat what
rder to send that help. "
ade it to us. It was very frustrating
e want to do is help - but
wwe neee need to know where you are in
oorder to
ASSEMBLING A TASK FORCE
S Someometimes, reform starts in the most
uunlikelynlikely of places. In this case, it kicked
off afterff after a Lake Gaston Ladies Club
meeting,imeet ng, with 31 volunteers. Then, as
wor
word spr
to
to a nearl
spread, it burgeoned
nearly 100-member
volunteerlvo unteer task force, called
LKG 911
orce. The mission: Delve
ddeep into
Force. Th
eep into the daunting
rrabbit hole
LKG 911 Community Task
F
From left, Brunswick County Sheriff Brian K. Roberts, Sherry Herzing and Devon
Clary, director of emergency communications, Brunswick County Sheriff's Office.
welcomed me with open arms. They
told me they were just as frustrated
as I was, but that they could only do
what the technology would allow
them to do. They knew I blamed the
system for my husband's death, and
not them. They wanted change just
as much as I did. "
Clary says, " In my entire career,
and I have been in public safety since
1999, no citizen has ever come to me
and said, 'Tell me what you do, and
tell me what you need.' Sherry gathered
information and made
" It's not just a Lake
Gaston issue; it's a
abbit hole of issues
ssurroundinurrounding the local
eemergencymergency response system.
"" I visiteI visited the Brunswick County
Sherif
Sheriff's offi
office and thanked the
telecommunlte ecommunicators for all that they've
done to help
Sherry, a member of Mecklenburg
E
Electric Coo
lectric Cooperative, says. " They
done to help in emergency situations, "
Sherry me
very real rural issue. "
- Sherry Herzing
goals. She has led the task
force to go out and deliver
the messages that we don't
have time to deliver to
the public. So, she has
truly been our voice. "
With Roberts'
encouragement, Sherry visited all
five call centers for the counties
surrounding Lake Gaston: Warren,
Halifax and Northampton in
North Carolina, and Brunswick
and Mecklenburg in Virginia.
What she discovered was shocking.
Sherry Herzing (r) speaks with Devon Clary,
as well as members of the Brunswick EMS
crew, Bryan Thomas and Bryant Rifkind.
" Each county had different issues in
the call center. Some could transfer
calls to certain counties and others
to other counties, while some couldn't
transfer calls at all. I also discovered
that they did not communicate with
the other call centers in the other
counties, " she says.
Telecommunicators also relied
heavily on knowledge, instead of
updated maps and data. And Sherry
found that some telecommunicators
were not refreshing computer screens
to pinpoint the location of a call.
They sent first responders to the tower
locations, which was sometimes in
the complete opposite direction of
where the call was coming from.
" I was flabbergasted, " she says.
The more people Sherry spoke
with, the more she recognized the
scope of the problem was much larger
than she had originally thought.
Rural communities have fewer
cellphone towers than more populated
areas and broadband continues to be
an issue. Hiring qualified personnel
is also a problem, she notes.
" This is a rural problem. A very
real rural problem, " she says.
What ensued was a flurry of
community awareness efforts. Whether
need
for reflective signs at the end of
it was drawing attention to the need
to the
for
eflective signs at the end of
driveways or educating the public
on how the process works when they
dial 911, Sherry and her volunteer
team poured their hearts into each
project to raise awareness.
ONE PROBLEM AFTER ANOTHER
Soon, the task force had its sights
set on more ambitious goals -in
14 | Cooperative Living | September 2021
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Gaston issue; it's a rural area issue. "
With three other telecommuni
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