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CWA Lifesavers Take Charge in Capitol Shooting

Dr. Wayne Moore, head of the Washington, D.C. Emergency Medical Service is in a meeting at Fire/EMS headquarters. Almost simultaneously both his and Fire Chief Donald Edwards' beepers go off and the phone rings. The messages are the same: "U.S. Capitol. Shooting incident. Two persons down."

CWA member Mike Preston put out the "Group 1" page to key personnel and made the phone call that got Moore to the Capitol within five minutes. On his way to the scene, Moore hears CWA member Carolyn Hutchison dispatching units. To isolate the Capitol incident from other emergencies, Hutchison splits the chatter off onto radio channel 3. The first units are in place when Moore arrives.

Lights flash from ambulances surrounded by a phalanx of police. Moore renders treatment alongside Capitol physicians and Sen. Bill Frist, a heart surgeon, while EMS Capt. Famanthia Robinson shouts orders above the din of a helicopter, taking charge of transporting the victims.

They quickly surmise little can be done for Jacob Chestnut and send him off in an ambulance. The U.S. Capitol Police officer was shot in the head while on guard at a metal detector. Paramedics stabilize Special Agent John Gibson, who exchanged fire with the shooter when he burst through the door of House Majority Whip Tom Delay's office. They load him aboard the helicopter for transport to Washington Hospital Center. Angela Dickerson, a tourist shot in the shoulder, is treated for that wound and where a bullet fragment entered below her right eye. She is taken by ambulance to George Washington University Hospital.

Frist and Moore, not knowing the injured party is the alleged shooter, concentrate their efforts on a man with severe gun shot wounds to his chest and extremities. Russell Eugene Weston Jr. is transported to D.C. General Hospital. He is charged with murder. The next-day, in a heartfelt, nonpartisan tribute to the fallen police officers, House Speaker Newt Gingrich also pays tribute to other guardians of public safety. Naming the D.C. Emergency Medical Service and Fire Department among those who took control of the situation, he assures the nation, "professional people did a professional job to make sure that your Capitol was safe and that the visitors and workers in it were safe."

'Cream of the Crop'

Hutchison, 32, and Preston, 38, serve on one of the crews that staffs the D.C. Fire/EMS Communications Center 24 hours a day. They dispatch emergency aid throughout a city of 600,000 people. Earlier this year Preston, trained as both a dispatcher and emergency medical technician, was named the department's Telecommunicator of the Year. Last year, the honor fell to Hutchison.

Other CWA Local 2336 members Jeff Hartnett, Bertha Stover, Denise Reid and Russell Hartung worked the Capitol shooting, alongside Mike Bowerman and Sgt. Stephen Fennell, Firefighters detailed to the comm center. "This is the Crew of the Year of 1996-1997," Hutchison adds, "the cream of the crop."

Surrounded by computers, radio equipment, phones and wall maps, Hutchison describes her work as "controlled chaos," but quickly adds, "Whenever we have to do something, we all know the waltz, and we all do the same dance until the job is done. We're dealing with people's lives."

Communications Division Director Andrew L. Jackson Jr. describes their precision as that of a "military operation."

Hutchison is trained as a lead fire communications operator and emergency medical dispatcher as well as emergency medical technician. Eight and a half years with Fire/EMS prepared her to handle her post as ambulance lead dispatcher when the Capitol shooting occurred.

Preston, in training as an assistant supervisor, sits in a big chair in the center of the room, with fire communications on one side, medical on the other, as the dispatchers relive the incident. "I heard Capitol Police yelling on the direct (line)," he says. "They only requested medical units."

He relays the information to Hutchison, who is simultaneously in touch with her radio operator, police and hospitals. She's working three radio channels and keeps track of units and medical facilities available. She makes the decisions on who goes and where.

"I dispatched the first ambulance, Medic 7. We thought at first we were going for just one person," Hutchison says. "Then they call back: two people shot, three people shot." Meanwhile, Fennell, on the fire side of the operation, sends Engine 18, the closest unit, about eight blocks from the Capitol. Fire trucks in D.C. carry EMTs who can render sophisticated first aid until more highly trained help arrives.

Hartnett, a three-year dispatcher, EMT and former Firefighter, was a call-taker that day. He relays to Hutchison, "Let the engine and ambulance know, two confirmed shot." Hutchison sends out a "rapid response team" with paramedics but no transport capabilities, and a "basic unit," an ambulance with EMTs, to evaluate casualties.

Stover, 35, a volunteer EMT in Prince George's County, Md. for nine years, has been a dispatcher in D.C. for two. Working the ambulance 1 post, she stays in touch with the medical units until they arrive on the scene. She also contacts area hospitals to find which can take how many traumas of what magnitude.

Bowerman, at ambulance 2, takes over when they reach the scene and relays information to the hospitals.

All are in touch with Hutchison, who is a blur of motion. "It's like you're moving everything you have."

'Special Kind of Person'

It's high-stress, but rewarding work - 12-hour shifts, four days a week, alternating with nights. People are trained to handle all posts and rotate every four hours. CWA Steward Debbie Trimiar handles critical incident stress management as an informal peer counselor. In addition Fire/EMS provides regular visits from a psychologist and social worker.

A job at the comm center, says Hutchison, "takes a special kind of person. You've got to be sharp but caring, swift but patient, and you've got to love what you do." That description fits not only her crew, but emergency dispatchers, paramedics and EMTs represented by 52 CWA locals across the nation.

"We had about 20 to 25 other calls besides the Capitol during those two hours," says Hutchison. "We had a shooting, we had a couple of heart attacks, we had a baby - the firemen delivered the child at home."

Hutchison, who is married, has a four-year-old son, a brother who is a Firefighter and a sister who is a paramedic. "The calls we make can save you," she stresses. "The help we give can save you."