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Written by Gerald Gauthier LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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Thursday, April 16 2009, 9:21 PM |
A local emergency dispatcher is being honoured for going well beyond the call of duty to help save the life of a Lethbridge man earlier this year.
Joel McDonald received the 2009 Communication Specialist of the Year Award Thursday for his dogged efforts to identify and locate a suicidal man who had posted his intentions on a social networking website.
Starting with only a Nexopia screen name provided by a concerned late-night caller from Edmonton, McDonald managed to track down the man by creating his own Nexopia account, locating the man’s profile and using a little detective work to contact one of the man’s friends.
The friend gave McDonald the man’s cellphone number. McDonald’s first few calls to the number went unanswered, but he kept calling every few minutes.
“Eventually, I was able to get a hold of him, and I tried to stay on the line with him,” he said, adding he was glad he could make a difference by preventing the man from becoming a suicide statistic.
“I didn’t do anything different than anyone else I work with would have done,” McDonald, 27, said during a presentation ceremony at Lethbridge regional police headquarters.
After talking on the phone for about half an hour, the man agreed to provide his address so McDonald could send an officer from Lethbridge regional police to check on him. An officer was dispatched, and the man was taken to hospital unharmed.
McDonald’s boss praised him for his compassion and determination to identify the suicidal man and get help to him before it was too late.
“It certainly was over and above the norm,” said Chris Kearns, manager of the Public Safety Communications Centre. “Joel has a lot of computer savvy.”
McDonald is one of 36 dispatchers employed at the local 911 call centre which is located at police headquarters.
The annual award is a peer-nominated distinction that honours a staff member at the centre for demonstrating leadership, professionalism and exceptional handling of a particular emergency call. It’s handed out each year during National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week.
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