Faced with a suicidal caller who had already slashed his own throat, 911 operator Jodi Lewis drew on her common sense and cool head to help get him the life-saving assistance he needed.
Lewis, who has been a 911 operator for about eight years, did her best to keep the middle-age man calm and ensure emergency crews would be able to access his home as quickly as possible.
The result: The man was found alive, rushed to hospital and successfully treated.
He had lost a lot of blood and was close to death, but pulled through, said Bowen Osoko, a Victoria Police Department spokesman. He also received psychiatric help, Osoko said.
Lewis was presented Monday with the police department’s Civic Service Award for her pivotal role in averting tragedy in the March incident.
She said she was especially honoured by the award because she was nominated by the police officers on the scene that day.
“It’s lovely to be recognized by the department,” she said. “But this is what my colleagues and I do every day.”
The daily situations faced by the staff of about 40 in the department’s 911 Communications Centre may not always be so dramatic, Lewis said, but everyone there thrives on helping people and responding to a variety of situations.
The incident with the suicidal man came the day Lewis had returned from a period of medical leave. She was working a day shift and was called upon to take part in a “monitored” ambulance call, since the incident had begun with the man calling the ambulance service.
“We listen in on ambulance calls for a period of time to see if we’re needed,” Lewis said. “And he’d indicated he’d done some significant harm to himself.”
One of the first steps Lewis took was to put her occupational first-aid training to use, assessing what was happening.
“I had recognized that he was in some pretty significant shock by the time I was talking to him.”
Lewis had him put a towel around his neck and apply some pressure.
She also got him to unlock the front door, so emergency personnel could get inside without difficulty, and asked him where he had put the knife he had used on his neck and arms.
He said he was in the hallway and the knife was in the kitchen.
“My main concern was just insuring the knife was away from him so it wasn’t going to be an issue for our officers,” Lewis said.
The Civic Service Awards were started last September by the Victoria Police Department to recognize the public, civilian members of the department and police officers who have responded to challenging situations and helped to make Victoria and Esquimalt safer.
