11:00 pm.

“Ma’am you need you calm down, you need to follow what I’m telling you”

“But it’s not working! It’s not working! I swear! I’m doing the best I can!”

“Mrs. Song, you need to press both wounds. The bullet must have left the body, which means there is another cavity on his back, you need to turn him around and press both wounds”

“I don’t know where the other wound is!”

“It has to be in the same distance from the wound in front”

“He’s losing so much blood! Send help! Quickly please! Oh my God!”

Sometimes panic and desperation took us to not know what to do even though there are people right on the other line helping you to do it. For us is frustrating to deal with people who put their fear first and let the logic hide on their most dark place. At the same time we need to understand, the situation of having a loved one hurt is something nobody can resist, the pain that they feel, you feel it too.

The person is so desperate and refuses to follow my advice that I can’t penetrate on her anymore. She is block. So I need to hurry and press the paramedics to the scene.

“Where are you?”

“Two minutes and we’re there, only two minutes”

“Please hurry, the person with the victim is block out of panic and doesn’t follow my commands”

“Copy that, we are arriving. We can see them”

“Copy that” I press the bottom to deal with the panic in a flesh. “Mrs. Song, ambulance is the–” She didn’t let me finish, she hang up the phone.

I exhaled, at least is over.

I am used to people this way. It’s part of this shift and is very common. I bet I can see myself dying of desperation as well. On the other call, the ambulance confirmed they were in the scene, the victim lost so much blood and he was in an inevitable danger. They also told me the person that called me, blamed me for not explain the things right. Used to that as well, is not the first time either.

I feel good with my work; I do the best I can to provide the best service and the best help. I know I’m doing things right and no stressful victim will say the opposite.

“How is going?” One of my partners, Yoongi got close to me with some chocolate.

Maybe feeling my dizziness he handed me a piece.

Yoongi has been in this job for almost seven years. Full of experience and cold hearted. The most difficult jobs for him? Children. They are like his kryptonite. He can’t endure any situations with them but as he’s personality of being like a stone is over the top, he took it anyway and makes almost perfect.

The majority of times he is so sincere and full of reality than can be take it a bit cruel.

“Well, that last call was a nightmare”

“DNS?”

He usually calls desperate callers “DNS”, for him are acronyms of Desperation Night Syndrome.

“Yeah… can’t blame her though. It was her husband. Someone loved”

“Yeah, yeah, yada yada, I think that was stupid of her part. You need to clean your mind in situations like this”

“You know what she told Luna when she and Amber arrived?” Long pause as he asked me with an expression. “That I didn’t explain her well where the wound was” I said as I take a bite of the chocolate.

“What a . She was the who refused to follow orders. I can’t-” He said, walking back at his desk which is at my left side. I follow him moving my chair. “People like that are so annoying, man”

It has been some minutes without a call. Sometimes is like this as well. I can see Taehyung doing some advising for some kid who cut off his fingers accidentally while cutting fruits, also there was my partner, Jimin who was with a lady who fall from her tub after showering.

Jennie, one of the girls in this shift, go a few smugglers successful calls with police officers on the scene, Jisoo has also got a few successful, even though this last call the stranger did stole a bunch of jewelry because the officers arrived too late.

See? Not so much our responsibility but we still feel a bit useless.

“911 where’s your emergency?”

“Hi”

“Hey, can you tell me your emergency?”

“I don’t have any emergency”

“Ok… Can you please tell me what the reason of your call is?”

“I want to kill myself”

Suicide calls.

In my five years as a dispatcher I have attended only a few, because we have another special line for that in other floor of the building but sometimes this people prefers or are more familiar with the 911.

“Why you want to do that?”

We trained also for these kinds of calls, where we talk the person out of the idea, where we advise them to find a better purpose or find better goals in life, making them realize they do worth for the country and for the people close to them.

Usually they don’t think on how the people that loved them so much are going to suffer for the lost, they feel so not needed and they don’t realize how needed they are.  

“Because my mom abuses me”

“Your mom abuses you?”

“Yes. Where do you go when your house is not your home?”