PULSE Magazine | April 2019 Issue

UNDERSTANDING and HONORING

Nikki Alston, Captain, 06/19 will mark 11 years with ATCEMS and 16 years in public safety communications. 1. What drove you to purse a Communications Career? I don’t think anyone spends their time as a child dreaming of working in communications. There are much more…glamorous ways to serve the public and let’s face it…dispatch, 911, call taking, whatever title you want to give it- isn’t the position that gets on the news unless something VERY BAD happens. So, my career beginnings aren’t glamorous either. I was a single parent, 1 year post divorce, making 14K a year raising 3 kids in 1990-something. A friend; who was a firefighter with one of the districts mentioned that South Carolina Highway Patrol Telecommunications was waiving their employment pre-requisites because of a short- age and he thought I might be good at it. As it turned out…I was pretty good at it and it was addictive. The adrenalin rush of law enforcement radio traffic on a busy shift it better than coffee!! In 2008 another change in my life brought me back home to Texas. I applied for several positions with surrounding law enforcement agencies in their telecommunications departments. I also applied with ATCEMS for a “communications medic” position even though I didn’t have any real idea of what it was or ANY of the medical pre-qualifications they were looking for. As luck…or fate would have it, EMS had suspended their employment pre- requisites due to a staffing crisis in communications. Over the next 11 weeks I learned what lividity meant, what supine looked like, how to get 13 people through a hole in a wall 10 feet off the ground (COPE), and what a communications medic was. 11 years later…the choice to come to ATCEMS is still one of the best choices I have made professionally. 2. A day in the life of a Communication Medic in Austin. Hmm….I would assume it is the same as a day in the life of a field medic for Austin except for the weather. J Come to work early to allow for a (hopefully) on time shift change. Pass on the appropriate information for the oncoming shift. Which of the regulars are active, what hospitals are under special restrictions, what units have or have not had crew change, what housekeeping stuff needs to be completed and where the paperwork is located followed by coffee…hopefully. The calls, depending on shift, either start coming immediately or you have a few hours before the rush hits. Over the next 12ish hours you go from talking about what the kids did last weekend with co-workers to giving a husband CPR instructions within literally seconds…there is no drive to the scene…no time to prepare. Thankfully our field counterparts are quick to respond and takeover to let us off the line for the next call who…as luck would have it wants to express their frustration that we haven’t gotten to them already because their …well, you get the picture. Of course, there are those shifts where everything just kinda falls into place and you hear the baby cry, or the AED scream “shock advised” and the caller is laughing as they tell you the patient opened their eyes. Or maybe even better still, those shifts where , while walking to your car you realize that absolutely NOTHING memorable occurred…it was just…generic…which leaves you driving home with a smile on your face. 3. What would you like the public to know about the work you do? The role of the Emergency Communications Department has changed drastically over the years; both in law enforcement and EMS. Our predecessor’s primary function was to get trained personnel to the scene. Their secondary function was paperwork. Now, our primary function remains the same however, our secondary function is patient care. We are trained to provide potentially lifesaving instructions to the public prior to the medics arrival. For us to do that effectively we have to ask question. The information we request is important. This month’s Call of the Quarter is a perfect example of this. 4. How do you decompress after a difficult call? Recovery after a call really depends on the call. I guess my first thought is to confirm that I did everything I could have for my patient. Try to get perspective on the situation. Some- times that is all it takes. But, to be honest, the “decompress” after a call generally doesn’t happen on shift. I compartmentalize to get the job done and then “deal” with the baggage later. I learned a long time ago not to take the calls home…hence the reason I opt for a significant commute time. Loud music, windows down, (in the past a pack of smokes), find my happy place just in time to kiss the husband, greet the dogs, check in with the kids, and if

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