MADISON, Wis. — Kevin Fisher has been a communicator with Dane County dispatch for 34 years.
“42,32,23, copy,” said Fisher while running a tactical channel between many different law enforcement officers responding to a suicide attempt.
Fisher said every single call is different.
Throughout the time Spectrum News spent with him, he answered a call where a man told him his political views and hung up, walked a woman through a medical crisis and, most notably, organized a response unit to an attempted suicide.
“There is a woman on top of the bridge. She is threatening to jump off the bridge. They have a negotiator from Maple Bluff on scene and all of these people are representing units that are on scene,” said Fisher.
Calls like the one Fisher was on can have a large impact on the dispatch caller’s mental health.
“If she gets out of there ‘claps’, she has the help she needs,” said Fisher. “There is a hospital right there, if she doesn’t it is going to change my tone, my mood… It is just the nature of the business.”
Johnny Leonard is the outreach manager for Dane County dispatch.
He said that the nature of business Fisher is speaking of makes this a very difficult job for many people to take on.
“Typically, you have a larger group of employees who decide fairly quickly the job is not for them and they are maybe here a year or two, using it as a steppingstone to other positions,” said Leonard.
According to Dane County Public Safety Communications, the average tenure of a dispatch worker in Dane County is seven years.
Leonard said Fisher is a rare breed as he has more than triple the average tenure and is going on 40 years of work for the county.
“You will have those rare folks who do make a full career out of it, Kevin being one of them having been here 34 years and 40 years total with the county,” said Leonard.
Leonard said the job can be difficult to recruit for. He said last year they started the year with 60 filled positions out of 77.
“So, we kind of flipped our recruitment strategy and said we really wanted to educate our candidates before they come in here so they can come in with eyes wide open,” said Leonard.
For Fisher, it was a waiting game to find out if police were going to be able to save the woman threatening to take her own life.
“If she jumps, there is very little chance she will survive,” said Fisher. “Fortunately, there are a lot of people there right now that are going to try and make sure she does not jump.”
Soon after, a call came in from the scene that said “77, 2, 3, we have one in PC, 10, 2 off the bridge.”
”She is not going to jump. She is in custody, and everything is well. She is not fighting. She is not hurt,” said Fisher.
Fisher said he learned early in his career to leave calls like these at work and said that is why he has been able to work in this profession for so long.
“It was not easy, but I was able to adjust and not take everything home with me and not lay awake at night going, is this right for me or not,” said Fisher. “The only situation you will never get out of your mind is if you are involved in a call and a child dies.”
Fisher said he started working with the county on March 5, 1990.
“There were seven of us that were hired on the same day. I am the last one standing,” said Fisher proudly.
Fisher has worked in dispatch for so long people in the office and out in the community started calling him “911 guy”.
He said soon it will be time for him to take off the headset for good and trade the title of “911 guy” for “retirement guy”.
To those looking to fill his shoes, he had some advice.
“Be prepared for anything, if you think it will be a walk in the park it is not going to be a walk in the park,” said Fisher. “Be strong but if you know mentally, you are not going to be able to make it, don’t.”
He said being able to decide when it is time to leave the job is very important because it can have negative effects on you, your family, and the people you are supposed to help.