Northern Michigan Voices is a series by 9&10 News reporter Olivia Fellows in which she interviews a person in the community about a story or experience from their life. Everyone has an interesting story to tell, and we want to give you a voice, Northern Michigan! To submit your own story pitch, see the bottom of this article for more details.
In this edition, Olivia speaks with retiring Lake County dispatcher Carol Koon, who retired from the department after over two decades picking up 911 calls, training new dispatchers and more.
Carol Koon has heard your worst nightmares, and her steady voice has also been integral in helping save many lives. Being a 911 dispatcher and training officer for the Lake County Dispatch after 25 years, you tend to have a lot of stories of both.
Koon joined the LCCD team in December of 1999 as a dispatch trainee, where she learned to operate telephone, radio, computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, process emergency calls, dispatch emergency responders, enter warrant information and coordinate with the road commission and local utility providers.
She diligently worked her way through the comprehensive training program, which included in-house training as well as national accreditation training, to become a certified dispatcher.
Later, Koon became a Certified Training Officer (CTO), teaching many trainees to become certified dispatchers. Now, Carol is the LCCD Union President and the most tenured emergency dispatcher.
Koon said she was initially considering becoming a 911 operator in a tragic event in which her mother had a brain aneurysm after she handled the situation without panic.
“I handled the situation really, really calmly at the time, Koon said. “I started thinking afterwards that that might be something I would be interested in doing, that I might be able to handle it pretty well. Everyone else around me at the time, they were all panicked, but I was able to hold it together there until everything was all over and done with. I thought that was what you needed in that job.”
Admitting the job was overwhelming at first, Koon settled in quickly and eventually learned the ropes of handling calls.
She recalled being nervous, not knowing what emergencies might come through on her phone in her first few weeks on the job.
“I remember being terrified, everything was new,” Koon said. “Being terrified of what emergencies were going to come in, and any time the emergency line rang it was different than the nonemergency line. When that emergency line would ring, you would just automatically think ‘OK, here we go,’ not knowing what you were going to get.”
As she settled into the position, Koon got used to keeping her cool amidst panicked callers on the other end.
Koon said she had many memorable calls in her career, including successfully helping talk a caller through CPR, which helped in saving the person’s life, talking a woman through delivering a baby and more.
“I was fortunate enough to do CPR instructions for an older gentleman,” Koon said. “He lived with the help of his grandson to help do that, and that was pretty amazing. I helped with delivering a baby. It’s endless. We’ve had shootings and stabbings, officers requesting backup in scary situations, so many times that I’ve been able to keep myself cool and level-headed with everything. The domestic calls, they can be pretty frightening (with calls for) the suicides, there were just so many different calls over all these years.”
Tools of the job
Over the decades working in dispatch, Koon has seen the technological advancements that have helped in the work done and lives saved through the dispatch calls.
When Koon started as a dispatcher, the CAD system had not been implemented yet, which made finding a caller’s location even more challenging.
“We had no actual mapping of or a computer screen of the actual county,” Koon said. “We literally just had maps. We didn’t see where the officers were, none of that. When we went to a CAD system about 15 years ago, that was quite amazing. It was a big adjustment. We could track the officer’s cars. We could zoom in on the location of where the call was coming from — that part was just amazing for us. What now has come out is What3Words and texting, which are two programs where if you’re in a situation and you can’t call 911, you can text us and we can text back with you, which is an amazing feature.”
What3words is a geocoding system that uses three words to identify a location on Earth. It’s used by emergency services, delivery drivers and others to share and find places. You can use the free what3words app or the online map.
Koon said the speed and accuracy with which the system can locate a caller have impressed her.
“When we get snowmobilers that are lost or hunters that get turned around and end up out in the dark a little later than what they planned on being, what3words helps a whole lot with finding them,” she said. “There is a lot of rural space in Lake County. It’s not a very populated area, so there’s a lot of room for someone to go missing from.”
Koon said a big part of the job is sitting, and said advocating for more health supports for employees is something she is passionate about.
“I believe, unfortunately, the sitting that we do at work and the stress is definitely not good for your body,” she said. “he officers and EMS, fire ― when they go down a call, they’re able to physically move and get that adrenaline rush out of their body that you get from those initial calls. Us dispatchers, that isn’t what we’re able to do.
“We’ve got to get us moving and grooving a little more,” she said. “I think there is something very important for all of us dispatchers to be doing to keep us on a healthier way.”
Calls that stayed with Koon
Living in a more rural area like Lake County, Koon encountered several instances in which she took calls for individuals she knew personally.
One memory of a call she took in winter to help get emergency services out to save a life on an icy lake stays with her to this day.
“Several years ago, my colleague had somebody who had fallen through the ice, and we were getting everyone out to him,” Koon said. “His phone was really muffled, and so we couldn’t hear him very well, just that he was hanging on. We were doing the call, we were working, and everything was going great. Then he said his name, and it was one of our coworkers. I remember the adrenaline just rushing through me of thinking ‘Oh, my goodness, this is somebody I know.’ Yes, it changes it. It definitely changes things.”
A big challenge of the job for Koon was learning how to compartmentalize the things she heard every day and still living a normal life outside of work.
For Koon, the support and company of her husband made a difference any time she had a rough day at work.
“I would say some things to my husband and he would just always be in awe,” Koon said. “He’d say ‘I don’t know how you handle that,’ or ‘Obviously, I’m sure you did a great job,’ and was just always really supportive. He’d keep be blown away over the things that had gone on, and it’s hard to it’s also hard to put into words the experiences that you’ve got going on. It can be very hard to not bring it home with you, especially if something severe happened.
“We’ve had a couple of different drownings over the years, some of them I worked on,” she said. “One was with a small child, and in those instances I would come home and I would say to my husband, ‘Honey, I’ve had a really bad day, and I just need to cry,’ and he would just listen and comfort me. I would say to him, “When I can tell you something about it, I will’ and he was fine with that. He knew that’s how it had to be that I couldn’t say names or who was involved. My kids were always very supportive, and they were kind of clueless. I think when they knew it was a bad day, they knew Mom obviously was coming home pretty sad. I would just say ‘I had a really bad call today,’ and they would give me some space.”
When major storms rolled through, Koon said those calls were extremely difficult as the damage and danger the storms brought made it hard to get help to people who called in.
In 2021, storms that hit Mecosta, Osceola and Lake counties brought on calls that left many dispatchers feeling frustrated and at a loss, according to Koon.
“That storm was absolutely devastating,” Koon said. “I remember being absolutely helpless on those phone calls because we were so inundated by calls that we couldn’t even keep track of all of the damage that was happening. I remember driving home and just seeing all of the damage myself, and it felt like I had been in a war as far as that goes. It just was so intense and that nothing ever prepared me for that. That was an event that I would say was very, very tough to handle because it was just so many calls.”
The seasonal changes have an impact on the number and types of calls the dispatchers receive, according to Koon.
Koon said summer, fall and spring are normally the busiest seasons due to more people being out and about, whereas winter sees less calls as people head indoors, but a rise in suicide or snowsports calls is common due to increased rates of depression/anxiety during the colder months of the year.
Working alongside law enforcement
Koln recalled the importance that working in sync with law enforcement played in aiding callers, calling their service alongside dispatchers “crucial.”
Sharing the challenges of the job was common between officers and dispatchers.
“We’ve had different directors over the years who really did not want us to interact with the officers, and it was not a good thing,” Koon said. “It never went well with that. It is what we needed to be able to connect and talk about our stories together because we had that confidentiality between us.
“They could tell me how bad that story was or a call was,” she said. “I can understand and say, ‘Oh yeah, that was horrible.’ We could always talk through a lot of the bad calls.”
Koon described the job as often breakneck speed intensity to mundane slow moments, flipping between each other. The emotional and mental strain of that kind of work is not for every person, according to Koon.
“We’re thrown into the midst of whatever emergency we have,” she said. “It’s hard going from not doing anything to going 100 miles an hour, it can be kind of stressful. You’ve just got to be able to have the common sense and the kindness to be willing tof listen to the callers and observe what you’re hearing or not hearing in the background, and just be willing to help in any way that you can to get help to that person or to make sure that your officer arrives.”
A cool head, kindness and common sense are some of the best characteristics to have if one wants to succeed as a dispatcher, Koon said.
Over the years, Koon said she has seen a lot of different people with different perspectives bring unique approaches to their work.
“I work with these young people now who are just amazing, and it’s wonderful seeing the new come in and the officers as well,” she said. “We have a lot of new officers now, and they’re all quite young, and I like seeing their different perspectives. It doesn’t have to always be one way. — We can adjust with hours. We can make schedules more flexible. Those are all the things that a lot of these younger people are trying to do now, and I think it’s all great. We all become family, whether we want it or not. It just happens.”
Moving forward
Koon’s advice to those who want to pursue a career in dispatch was to be sure you are ready for the commitment, the hours and the high potential for stress.
She said she doesn’t know what she’ll do in retirement currently, but she’s hopeful that she can still serve her community in some capacity.
After years of working as a dispatcher, one thing Koon will certainly enjoy is some peaceful quiet.
“I have literally talked with 1000s and 1000s of people in their darkest moments, and have been able to be a source of comfort and help for them,” she said. “There’s not a price tag, there’s not there’s nothing more satisfying than to have experienced the act of service. It is the most important thing that we can do here on this earth, is be of service to others.”
Koon said she is grateful for all of the support she has received from friends, family and coworkers over the years.
In leaving, she hopes that her coworkers — and all first responders — continue to care for one another.
“To all of the my co workers and for the department: keep on relying on each other and and having each other’s back,” Koon said, “To the community, there are some these amazing people out here who are there waiting for your best day, your worst day, whatever it is that you’ve got going on they’re there for it. They’re an amazing bunch of people who sacrifice a lot in order to be able to help all of those people in the community.”
Have an interesting story of your own? Email Olivia and provide a brief summary of your story, and we will contact you if we’d like to tell your tale. We’re interested in all sorts of stories, too! Sad, happy, exhilarating, inspiring or educational— we’d like to know about your story and share it with the community!
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