Angela Vorhies remembers being 15 years old on the wrong side of New Orleans. She was terrified, freshly concussed and unsure of what would come next after her intoxicated friend rear-ended a parked car at 55 mph.
Looking back on that night, she appreciates what happened in the hours that followed.
“When the medics arrived on scene … they were so caring,” Vorhies said. “Somebody was looking out for me. I don't know who that was. But somebody said, ‘Here, let me put a pillow by your head.’”
Four years later, Vorhies enrolled in emergency medical technician school. Now, she is in her 32nd year as an emergency medic and she has moved up in ranks to become the communications commander for Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services.
Vorhies regards emergencies as her everyday reality.
“That’s my job. I deal with emergencies,” Vorhies said. “You may call 911 and get me on the phone. And that's the first time you've ever called 911. For you … that's your emergency, and you're scared because you don't know what to do. So that's when I step in.”
Vorhies is one of 51 people who answer 911 calls for Austin-Travis County EMS. Workers like her are responsible for sending public safety departments to the location of an emergency and often give life-saving instructions to the panicked caller. The agency averaged more than 12,800 911 calls in the first six months of 2022, the most recent period for which data is available on its website.
In the early 2000s, Vorhies had the opportunity to help save a 15-year-old girl just like that first responder did for her when she was in need. She received a call for a pediatric cardiac arrest and talked the caller through giving CPR to the young girl.
When the girl was recovering in the hospital, Vorhies got to meet her.
“I had met other CPR saves before, but I had never met a child,” Vorhies said. “I kept it together until I hugged her. I could just feel that life. It was just like, ‘Oh, my God, I did something right.’ That's why I do this job.
“I will never forget that,” she said. “I can even remember her face.”
Taking care of everybody
During her 24-hour shifts, Vorhies is in charge of taking care of the person on the line, her team of 911 medical call-takers and herself.
Though it can be mentally draining, Vorhies said she has to take it all in stride.
When a call comes in, it’s often the caller’s worst day of their life.
“We are getting people not only in their worst times, but at their worst,” Vorhies said. “Think of it kind of this way, it’s like that call from that telemarketer that you don't want to talk to. It's really easy to be mean or snarky to them. Because they're just somebody on the phone bugging you for information that you don't want to give.”
For Vorhies, once the caller hangs up, she takes a few breaths to reset herself, and starts all over as soon as the next call comes in.
While she is responding to calls, she is also keeping an eye on the calls the rest of her staff is taking. If there’s a particularly difficult call, like multiple stabbings, shootings or a pediatric case, Vorhies makes sure the medic knows they aren’t facing the case alone.
“During the call, I'll walk over behind them, and I'll put my hand on their back, so they know they're not there by themself,” Vorhies said.
Capt. Darren Noak, public information officer for Austin-Travis County EMS, said when a particularly hard call comes through, medics have the option of asking the hospital for an update on the case. He said sometimes the medics in the field or those taking the call really just need the closure that knowing the outcome can provide.
“It's that empathy that, hopefully, if you're in this field, you have,” Noak said. “You just want to know, did I make a difference? What was the outcome? Even if it's from a clinical perspective asking, what I did, was that appropriate?”
Picking up your call
When someone in Travis County dials 911, their call is directed to the primary Public Safety Access Point, which then connects calls to the necessary responder.
The Austin-Travis County call center is one of 567 call-taking centers in Texas, as of 2022. Of those, only about 27% have medics in-house who can aid callers in a medical emergency.
Within the city, response time is generally under 10 minutes from the time a call comes in to when a police squad car, fire truck or ambulance gets to the scene. Noak said, though, that response times can be very fluid because call takers adjust response based on the priority of the call.
Vorhies shared a piece of advice for members of the public in case of an emergency: Know your correct location. She said she has spoken to 911 callers who give the wrong address, which can interfere with the emergency response.
To help people have an accurate address at all times, even without a connection, Vorhies said she recommends the free app what3words, which can pinpoint the user’s location down to a 10-by-10-foot square.
Vorhies said she can respond to between 60 to 100 calls in her usual 24-hour shift, but that number expands greatly when there are events such as weather, festivals or notable dates like New Year’s Eve.
In big emergency situations like the Round Rock shooting or large foreseeable events like Austin City Limits, Noak said they can take their “show on the road” and set up a temporary communications center in conjunction with the other public safety departments.
“We basically make it a city within a city,” Noak said. “We take our toys, and we move them over here and we just deal with that event.”
Vorhies said she wants people to know that call takers are doing everything they can to take care of the person on the line.
“We're not trying to annoy you, we're trying to get you the best health and the most appropriate response,” she said. “Does that mean that if you stubbed your toe, I'm going to send an ambulance, lights and sirens screaming across town? No. But we are going to do our best to help.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: EMS commander reflects on 30 years of responding to Austin, Travis County's emergencies
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