OSHAWA - Bryan Anta, an emergency advisor with OnStar, was named 2014 Dispatcher of the Year by the International Academy of Emergency Dispatch. The prize is awarded annually to a dispatcher who has made the most significant contributions to further the values and mission of the IAED through personal action.
By durhamregion.com - The call was muffled with a baby crying, a woman gsping, and indecipherable background noise.
Oshawa OnStar advisor Bryan Anta, 24, has been named 2014 North American dispatcher of the year after helping to save an asthma-stricken woman's life with one short phrase: "Honk once for 'yes' and twice for 'no'.
As an emergency dispatcher, Mr. Anta and his colleagues must be ready for anything.
"If someone is bleeding we can tell them how to control it. If someone is choking, we have instructions to give the Heimlich. We're even trained in child birth," said Mr. Anta.
OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, hands-free calling and navigation. The OnStar service allows users to contact OnStar call centres during an emergency.
The OnStar subscriber base is upwards of 6.5 million customers. Each month, 50,000 emergency calls are taken from the Oshawa Minacs location and although not all are life-or-death situations, dispatchers must be able to handle it all.
A dispatcher for more than four years, Mr. Anta has been trained on non-emergency and emergency OnStar calls. Although he is confident in his ability to react in difficult situations, the call from the woman having the asthma attack in particular stands out as being especially troublesome. Described by him as "a foggy mess", the first 30 seconds of the call were nothing more than a baby crying and the faint sound of a woman trying to talk. It wasn't until a second voice started talking that things got a littler clearer.
"I could hear a woman saying her daughter was having an asthma attack and was trying to drive herself to the hospital. At that point I realized the woman I was talking to was on a cellphone," said Mr. Anta.
Directing the struggling woman to honk the car horn in response to questions, Mr. Anta was able to gain enough information to assess the situation and keep the woman reassured until an ambulance arrived.
"It gets your heart pumping but I like jobs that help people in a meaningful way," said Mr. Anta.
About two years into his employment, Mr. Anta moved from taking calls from people needing directions to calls from people in medical emergencies. His training consisted of five days of in-class role playing and asking questions, and five days of taking mock calls to walk himself through the process.
"We're definitely given the tools we need to help our customers," said Mr. Anta, whose skills were highlighted in his most recent accomplishment.
The dispatcher-of-the-year award was given to Mr. Anta by the International Academy of Emergency Dispatchers at the 2014 Navigators Conference on April 30. The honor is significant because Mr. Anta is the first OnStar advisor to win the award.
Oshawa OnStar advisor Bryan Anta, 24, has been named 2014 North American dispatcher of the year after helping to save an asthma-stricken woman's life with one short phrase: "Honk once for 'yes' and twice for 'no'.
As an emergency dispatcher, Mr. Anta and his colleagues must be ready for anything.
"If someone is bleeding we can tell them how to control it. If someone is choking, we have instructions to give the Heimlich. We're even trained in child birth," said Mr. Anta.
OnStar Corporation is a subsidiary of General Motors that provides subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security, hands-free calling and navigation. The OnStar service allows users to contact OnStar call centres during an emergency.
The OnStar subscriber base is upwards of 6.5 million customers. Each month, 50,000 emergency calls are taken from the Oshawa Minacs location and although not all are life-or-death situations, dispatchers must be able to handle it all.
A dispatcher for more than four years, Mr. Anta has been trained on non-emergency and emergency OnStar calls. Although he is confident in his ability to react in difficult situations, the call from the woman having the asthma attack in particular stands out as being especially troublesome. Described by him as "a foggy mess", the first 30 seconds of the call were nothing more than a baby crying and the faint sound of a woman trying to talk. It wasn't until a second voice started talking that things got a littler clearer.
"I could hear a woman saying her daughter was having an asthma attack and was trying to drive herself to the hospital. At that point I realized the woman I was talking to was on a cellphone," said Mr. Anta.
Directing the struggling woman to honk the car horn in response to questions, Mr. Anta was able to gain enough information to assess the situation and keep the woman reassured until an ambulance arrived.
"It gets your heart pumping but I like jobs that help people in a meaningful way," said Mr. Anta.
About two years into his employment, Mr. Anta moved from taking calls from people needing directions to calls from people in medical emergencies. His training consisted of five days of in-class role playing and asking questions, and five days of taking mock calls to walk himself through the process.
"We're definitely given the tools we need to help our customers," said Mr. Anta, whose skills were highlighted in his most recent accomplishment.
The dispatcher-of-the-year award was given to Mr. Anta by the International Academy of Emergency Dispatchers at the 2014 Navigators Conference on April 30. The honor is significant because Mr. Anta is the first OnStar advisor to win the award.
No comments:
Post a Comment