My police tip of the day: When you have an emergency be clear and concise with your first sentence, for example I think my home was burglarized, the suspect may still be inside. Or, Ive been robbed and stabbed, I need an ambulance. When you experience a traumatic experience your mind will go into overdrive. The natural tendency is to begin telling the story of what happened...but to get immediate help just tell the person who answers your call the title of the story. Ive been robbed. Then pause and wait for all the questions. The person answering the phone has a computer screen that they type the info into. They can get help to you faster if you tell them everything in the order of the screen. Its really hard to pause and wait. We think telling the whole story as fast as possible will get help faster. It rarely (practically never) does. This applies to us in law enforcement too. Gosh knows Im guilty of trying to say everything as fast as humanly possible. It results in my co-workers going, uh WHAT did she just say. Then I have to repeat myself. Ill work at todays advice - hope you will too.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 10:01:03 +0000