Submitted by Shjon, Sep 15, 2008 03:13

You know Dustin, you are not the only one to comment on the 'stupidity' of this 911 dispatcher. I've read it in other forums, as well as people ridiculing the 911 dispatcher handling Kevin Cosgrove's call (the AON exec who's call also captures the collapse of 2 Tower). What you people don't seem to realize is 1) the emergency call center was absolutely overloaded that day and for those workers to exhibit the calmness that they did in the face of not only enormous tragedy and personal job stress, but also knowing, probably, that the people they were speaking with were in hopeless situations, is the epitome of professionalism in this field. It was absolutely compassion and pragmatism. And the second point is, and this applies not just to what happened in NYC on Sept. 11, but everywhere, and that is that emergency call workers are trained to ask questions that may seem 'stupid' or redundant to us. But to a person who is panicking, being asked those seemingly inane questions keeps them conscious, thinking, focused, etc. And, like the article states, they glean information that is pertinent to rescue personnel, some of which contains subtleties that the layperson may not understand. And from the insensitivity and ignorance of your comment, it is obvious that you do not work in the emergency response/fire/EMT-EMS field. Melissa Doi was doomed even before she placed that call, but at least she had a caring voice on the other end. That alone is to be commendable.

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