During the Spring of 1979, I was a 19-year-old living at home in Mechanicsburg and finishing up my Associates Degree at Harrisburg Area Community College. I was on campus helping a friend with a project when the announcement of the accident at Three Mile Island was announced. I had been involved in emergency services since the age of 14. I earned my state certification as an emergency medical technician (EMT) in January of 1978 and had been actively volunteering as an ambulance crew member since then.
I spent the next 18 years as a Cumberland County 911 dispatcher
When regional evacuation became a real possibility, the emergency management officials began to make contingency plans for how to provide emergency services in the event of an evacuation. Obviously, normal staffing could not be relied upon as emergency service people would be evacuating. The emergency management officials called meetings to find out who would be committed to staying and staffing scaled-down crews at area fire stations. One such meeting was held in the basement of the then Upper Allen Fire Company in Grantham. I was present at that meeting and at age 19 and without consulting with my parents, committed to staffing ambulance shifts at the Washington Fire Company in Mechanicsburg.
After disaster was averted, what is now known as an after-action report was conducted. One of the great weaknesses exposed by the report was the serious understaffing at area 911 centers. As a result, it is rumored that there was money made available to upstaff the area 911 centers. Cumberland County 911 Center hired ten new part-time dispatchers (at the time, there were about 18 full-time staff and about 12 part-time staff). I applied and was hired as one of the ten new part-time dispatchers. I spent the next 18 years as a Cumberland County 911 dispatcher – hired on TMI money.
Scott