CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The City of Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications honored a number of 911 call takers, dispatchers, and first responders for their work during two high profile incidents this year.
Commissioner Rich Guidice said the office usually honors workers during National Telecommunications Week in April; but, he said, that the honors couldn't wait until next year.
The first group of dispatchers to be honored were those that were on the job the night Officers Ella French and Carlos Yanez, Jr. were shot during a traffic stop.
Keith Thornton Jr. was working that night. He said first responders are like family, and his calm voice on the radio won nationwide praise as he said he did what he could to get the officers to the hospital as quickly as possible.
"It's family, and when family needs help you do whatever you have to do to get that help," Thornton Jr. said.
He said that the job of 911 dispatcher is mentally taxing. When a person calls 911 they are in the middle of one of the worst moments of their life, he said, and the pace of the calls is relentless.
"Every single day, every single moment, the line's going on and on. It never stops. We don't just go on busy, it keeps popping up. The moment one call hangs up it's right back in our ear," Thorton Jr. said.
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Officer French died. Officer Yanez Jr. was badly wounded. He was at OEMC Monday to express his gratitude to the dispatchers who were working that night.
"They are the angels on our shoulders, you know. They are there with us during our hardest times," Officer Yanez Jr. said.
His father, Carlos Yanez Sr. is a retired police officer. He said dispatchers provide essential information to officers in the field.
"They are the unsung heroes, because they go through the same trauma and distress that we go through on the street. They have to deal with it after the incident is over. I'm sure they have the same thing officers have. The PTSD, the traumas, and the nightmares of did they do the right job? Did they do the right call?" Yanez Sr. said.
The city also recognized the work of OEMC staff who rushed to the aid of Tim Bingham, who suffered a heart attack at work on June 9.
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