I heard a disturbing editorial on the radio earlier this week. The commentator was discussing whether 911 tapes should be played by the media. The impetus for the discussion was the recent 911 tape of Corey Haim's mother calling because he was not breathing. The commentator felt that publicizing (playing) these tapes was an "invasion of privacy" for the victims or their families. So far, ok, no problems with his opinion. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with his opinion, but I have no problems with it. But then, the commentary turned bad.
The commentator said that he felt that the value of playing 911 tapes in the media was good because it showed the many mistakes that are being made in public safety and how incidents are not handled properly. Stop the bus - I gotta get off at this point here. I'm not on the bandwagon anymore.
I immediately rebelled at this concept. Sure, those of us in the public safety community are not perfect. We make mistakes. We sometimes fail significantly. I have no problem being held accountable for those situations, because the outcome of a failure can be deadly. But we have ways to deal with that. And even though there are occasional mistakes and failures, I can never agree that the purpose of playing 911 tapes in the public is to publicize those failures and not to promote what we do well. And there is so much we do well.
Two great examples come to mind. First, the death of Michael Jackson. I have no doubt that the any future criminal proceedings against the doctor will be founded, in part, by questions asked by the 911 operator, who took the time to not just ask questions, but ask the right questions. Think about it. If there was not a contemporaneous recording at the time of the death in which the caller stated that the doctor was right there when Michael Jackson died, would anyone have ever admitted later in an investigation that the doctor was there? I speculate that given some time to "think" about the repurcussions, suddenly, less and less people would have actually been "at the scene." Instead, the 911 operator contributed great evidentiary value to place the doctor at the scene.
The other example that was widely publicized was the death of Billy Mays. What a great job that 911 operator did to try to keep the caller (Billy's wife) calm and instill some hope into the situation. Even when the wife began to panic with the situation in front of her, the 911 operator calmly reassured her, "that's ok, we are going to help him anyway."
I suspect that in both these examples, the 911 operators did not realize that the callers were calling about someone famous. They probably never sensed that what they said and did would become international news, played over and over again.
I often challenge my employees ... you never know where or when your phone call will be played. We had a great example from the wrong side. Over a decade ago, a less than professional (and I am being nice) call regarding what turned out the be the suicide of a very high profile government employee was played before Congress during a Congressional investigation. How embarrassing that was for us. You just never know.
So, play our 911 calls, if you must, in the media. I don't like it if the call makes us, the public safety communications community look bad, but it does hold us accountable. And it makes us focus on improving. But, please, play them when we get it right, when we do a good job. That should be the focus. Let our public be reassured that when they call 911, they will be treated with dignity and respect by a professional operator who will provide as much hope and reassurance during a moment of panic or terror as possible.