Dispatcher named best 2 years running

ORONO – With little information to go on, an Orono-based Maine State Police dispatcher managed to track down a diabetic woman trapped in a ravine in Southwest Harbor on what was one of the coldest nights of the past winter.

Ninety minutes after the first cell phone call – unintelligible and rife with static – the woman was found, injured, unsure of her location and cold.

The perseverance by Patricia McLaughlin, a dispatcher with the state Department of Public Safety, garnered her honors last week as Telecommunicator of the Year. The award is by the Maine chapter of the National Emergency Number Association.

It was the second time in as many years that McLaughlin has taken top honors as a dispatcher.

“She did an outstanding job,” said Jim Ryan, McLaughlin’s former supervisor and now director of the Penobscot Regional Communications Center in Bangor.

Ryan said the nominations for the award followed stringent requirements and “the bars were set very high.” Ryan was chairman of the awards board, but excluded himself from the voting.

In the span of 93 minutes, beginning shortly before midnight Dec. 22, 2005, McLaughlin narrowed the location of the woman as she continued to field unintelligible cell phone calls.

She at first pinpointed the cell phone tower the call was coming from, but not the location of the woman. McLaughlin called the woman’s home, then where she worked, only to learn that they had last heard from her 11/2 hours earlier.

The employer had alerted Bar Harbor police. Three more cell phone calls came in, still unintelligible.

Finally, on the 11th call, McLaughlin was able to determine that the woman was diabetic, hadn’t taken insulin all day and was off the road, in a ravine, with emergency flashers on. The dispatcher advised Hancock County police agencies, and the woman was eventually found in Southwest Harbor.

McLaughlin was recognized last year after she convinced a motorist, who was distraught at being summoned by authorities, not to commit suicide. The motorist reported having a loaded shotgun in the pickup truck.

McLaughlin was honored last Friday at a NENA ceremony in Lewiston, where other dispatchers were recognized for exemplary service.

Dispatchers from Lincoln and Sagadahoc county centers, the Brunswick Police Department and the Maine Department of Public Safety were recognized for their cooperative effort for an incident on Nov. 15 that began as an armed robbery in Waldoboro and ended in Brunswick with police shooting the suspect.

The awards ceremony also recognized dispatchers for their dedication to their jobs on a daily basis, taking the extra step and for thinking outside the box. Dispatchers play an important role in emergency services, any time an ambulance, fire engine or patrol car is sent out, Ryan said.

“Sometimes they are the silent hero that gets forgotten,” Ryan said.

Among those recognized for the “Silent Hero Award,” were Garrett Buzzell of the Somerset County Communications Center; Jonathan Powers of the Knox Regional Communications Center; Patricia Schade of the Waldo Regional Communications Center; Casey Stevens of the Lincoln County 9-1-1 Center and Peggy Wagner of the Penobscot Regional Communications Center.