Bangor Maine
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www.bangornews.com - July 2000 - has local news articles for a large area of Maine - has a 1 week archive of local news stories - search function covers ?archives + current news
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July 12, 2000
Bangor police, fire a dispatching team
By Doug Kesseli, Of the NEWS Staff
BANGOR � Once connected only by a phone line and radio transmission, Bangor Police and Fire department dispatchers worked side by side Tuesday.
Several ambulance calls, previously dispatched out of the central fire station on Main Street, were sent out from the police station on Court Street that now houses the combined dispatch center. Initially expected to be in place more than a year ago, the dispatching center met with unexpected hurdles and delays, including problems connecting the central fire station and substations on Griffin Road and Hogan Road.
And this week, there were still some kinks to be worked out, including the paging systems to the substations on Griffin and Hogan roads, acknowledged Bangor Police Chief Donald Winslow. But aside from tying up the ''loose ends,'' Winslow said, the project is up and running.
''Now it's a matter of getting used to working together and who does what,'' Winslow said. The city's answer to dispatching through the Penobscot Regional Communications Center, which handles most of the dispatching in the county, the combined fire and police dispatching center has meant some changes in the way Bangor dispatchers operate and some improvements in services.
Police dispatchers have been required to take emergency medical training, so that they will be able to provide emergency medical advice over the phone, such as how to unblock an obstructed airway or how to give CPR, said Bangor Fire Chief Jeffrey Cammack. Fire dispatchers have been trained in getting information from the Penobscot County Law Enforcement System computer database.
For anyone calling the Fire Department through 911, it also will mean reaching a dispatcher faster. Previously anyone calling 911 would get a police dispatcher who would then have to pass the call on to a fire dispatcher, Winslow said. Now it's all done at the Court Street police headquarters, saving five to 10 seconds, Winslow said.
The cost of the project is about $130,000, Winslow said. Of that total, $90,000 was an upgrade to the fire alarms system, which had to be done anyway, he said. And although a vacancy reduced the number of dispatchers down one to a total of nine, Winslow said any savings here likely will be offset by the cost of hiring part-time clerks for the fire station and a temporary dispatcher on Court Street.
from www.bangornews.com
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File created - 20 July 2000