On the Phone with 911

Deciding to call is the easy half. The hard half starts when someone picks up and asks you a question you were not ready for. People freeze, or they lead with the panic instead of the address, and the call takes twice as long as it needed to.

This simulator puts you on the phone. A dispatcher asks one question at a time and you choose what to say. Vague or guessed answers get a reply explaining what that costs.

Open the simulator full screen

The three calls

1. The seizure is still going. A student with epilepsy, four minutes in, rescue medicine already given. The straightforward version, done in order.
2. You do not know this student. You are a substitute on lunch duty. You cannot give an age or a seizure history, and the right answer is to say so and name who is finding out.
3. It stops while you are on the phone. A first seizure after a fall from the bleachers, and the jerking stops mid-call. You have to decide whether to cancel the ambulance.

The order the call goes in

1. Address of the school, street and city, before anything else
2. Where in the building: room, floor, nearest outside door
3. What is happening, described plainly
4. How long it has been going on, as a clock time
5. Whether the person is breathing
6. Age, and whether they have had seizures before
7. What has been given, which medicine and at what time
8. Who is meeting the crew, and at which door
9. Stay on the line until the dispatcher releases you

What it teaches that the first aid simulator does not

• Location comes first because it is the only thing that survives a dropped call.
• A guessed age or a vague maybe on medication gets typed into a record and handed to the hospital as fact. "I do not know, the office is checking" is a complete answer.
• Duration has to be a number. Watching a seizure stretches time, and nobody estimates it well.
• School doors lock. Somebody has to be standing at the right one before the siren arrives.
• The student's seizure action plan and the rescue medicine box should be in someone's hand when the crew walks in.
• A seizure stopping does not cancel the reasons you called. A first seizure or an injury still needs assessment, and standing a crew down is a decision made with the dispatcher.
• One person talks to dispatch and does nothing else. Someone else calls the family.

The simulator ends with a call card you can print and tape inside a cupboard door: the order of information, and the list of times to write down once the ambulance has gone.

For deciding whether a seizure needs 911 at all, use the Seizure First Aid Simulator. The chapter behind both is Seizure First Aid.

Warning

A learning tool, not medical advice or certification. Dispatch protocols vary between counties, so follow what your own dispatcher tells you on the day. For free training in Minnesota, see the Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota.

About this simulator

• One HTML file with inline SVG, so it works offline and at phone width.
• Keyboard usable throughout, with the dispatcher's line announced to screen readers.
• Learning objective: give a 911 dispatcher the right information in the right order during a seizure at school.
• Source chapter: Seizure First Aid