Father's Day tribute for Suffolk police dispatchers, call takers

Inside a pitch-black room on the second floor of the Suffolk County Police headquarters, there were few hints of Father's Day festivities Sunday across Long Island.

The call takers and dispatchers at the 911 Operations Center had their jobs to do.

"Stay on the line. We’re going to send rescue. Don’t hang up," Carley Bell, a 911 call taker, said into her headset.

Bell was one of dozens of 911 call takers and dispatchers working on Father’s Day, squinting into bright monitors in a dark room, sending first responders and assuring Suffolk residents that help was on the way.

A luncheon hosted by Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina and union leaders Sunday at police headquarters, honored the workers standing by to be there for anyone facing an emergency.

"They’re dealing with somebody that’s in a crisis. They might be being chased, they might’ve been in a car accident. They could be dying. They could be in a critical spot where they’re contemplating committing suicide," Terry Maccarrone, president of the Suffolk Association of Municipal Employees, the union representing 911 call operators, told Newsday after the event.

They work 12-hour shifts, often until 4 a.m., sending police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders to everything from car crashes and floods to homicides and other crime scenes. 

"Often referred to as the unseen heroes of public safety," the Suffolk police department said in a news release touting the luncheon, "Suffolk County’s 911 communications staff serve as the first line of defense during emergencies.

It's never easy being away from the ones they love, Bell said.

"All of our kids are around the same age," she said, looking around a pod of desks with only women in sight.

"In middle school and elementary school, it was tough not being around them," Bell added. "You’re working 60 hours a week. Even when you get home, you’re showering and you’re going right to bed."

Call operators like Bell sometimes work mandatory extended shifts, spurring a flurry of last-minute phone calls to coordinate childcare and school pickup.

"He did baseball, so that got me ’till at least 4 o’clock," Bell said of her 15-year-old son. "All of our kids are resilient, because we’re not around all the time ... Our kids are going to prom, doing finals, and we’re getting yelled at [on the phone] ... That’s the reality of it."

In a quiet corner a few desks away sat Ashley Arnold, 32, a therapist who handles mental health emergency calls from people who are homeless or considering suicide. She works as a therapist for most of the week, then as a call taker in Yaphank on Saturdays for 10 hours and Sundays and Mondays from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Being away from her two young children, Carley, 3, and Colt, 6, has given her a deep appreciation of what it means to be together.

"The most important thing," Arnold told Newsday, "is to enjoy every moment that I have with them."

Jen Devine, a duty officer who manages the 911 operation center, has worked there for 35 years.

"A lot of us go to sleep with what happened the night before," she said. " ... My children never understood why I was never at their baseball games, why I was never at their track meets ... They think I missed their entire lives."